Britain is hugely divided across cultural, age and education lines, a major study of national attitudes has concluded, warning of a potential rise in far-right and anti-Islam sentiments unless politicians tackle long-standing disaffections behind the Brexit vote.
There is a particular chasm between people living in affluent, multicultural cities and those from struggling post-industrial towns, according to the report from Hope Not Hate, based on six years of polling and focus groups.
The study by the anti-fascism advocacy group, “sets out to understand the drivers of fear and hate” in England, and where data is available, in Wales and Scotland. It uncovers the often glaring extent of geographic splits between people of varying attitudes, with opposition to immigration and multiculturalism correlating closely with socio-economic deprivation.
It found that of the 100 areas where people were most likely to oppose immigration, all were in towns or on the outskirts of cities, with 93 of them in the Midlands or north of England.
In contrast, the 100 areas most linked with what the report calls the “confident multicultural” population were all in major cities or close to universities, with 90% of them within a few hundred metres of a university.
Another key finding of the 60-page report, which links Hope Not Hate’s years of polling 43,000 people with data from other organisations, is that while overall attitudes to multiculturalism are softening, the opposite is happening with Islam.
It found that between 2011 and 2018, the proportion of people who believed immigration as a whole had been good for Britain rose from 40% to 60%. [...]
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