(Picture: Getty Images)

Nearly one in three British non-Muslims sympathise with people who people who travel to fight in Syria.

The figures emerged in a poll conducted by Survation for Sky News, which revealed that 30.1 per cent of young British non-Muslims, aged 18 to 34, either have ‘some’ or ‘a lot’ of sympathy with people leaving Britain for the war zone.

A poll conducted by Survation for the Sun posed exactly the same question to British Muslims.

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This found that fewer British Muslims than non-Muslims between the ages of 18 and 34 sympathise with people going to Syria – just under one in four (24.5 per cent).



(Both charts use figures from both genders aged 18 to 34)

Do British non-Muslims have sympathy for those joining fighters in Syria? 'A lot of sympathy' 11% 'Some sympathy' 19% 'No sympathy' 52% Don't know 18% Share

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Do British Muslims have sympathy for those joining fighters in Syria? 'A lot of sympathy' 7% 'Some sympathy' 18% No sympathy 66% Don't know 9% Share

In both surveys, people were asked whether they had ‘a lot’, ‘some’ or ‘no’ sympathy with young Muslims who leave the UK to join fighters in Syria’.

Neither poll specified which group the ‘fighters’ were affiliated with.

More widely, older people – both Muslim and non-Muslim – were less sympathetic to those going over to Syria to fight.

It all depends on how you interpret the statistics. Data may never lie but it can be interpreted and reported in a thousand different ways.

Overall, the picture is relatively balanced using the whole data set:

Do you have sympathy for people who leave UK to fight in Syria? Muslims: 5.3% a lot of sympathy, 14.5 some sympathy, 71.4% no sympathy, 8.8% don’t know (source: The Sun) Non-Muslims: 4.3% a lot of sympathy, 9.4% some sympathy, 76.8% no sympathy, 9.8% don’t know (source: Sky)