The scale of hostility in Britain towards Islam and Arabs is revealed in a YouGov survey showing most UK voters believe Arabs have failed to integrate themselves into British society, and their presence has not been beneficial.



The survey also shows that most voters back security policing based on assumptions about the likelihood of races to commit crimes – so-called racial profiling.

Only 28% believe migration from the Arab world has been beneficial to the UK, and 64% believe Arabs have failed to integrate.

The survey also shows most voters believe the number of refugees entering the UK from war-torn Syria and Iraq has been too high.

The three characteristics most closely associated with the Arab world by British people are gender segregation, wealth and Islam, with extremism and a rich history the next two identified characteristics. The degree of association with innovation or forward thinking is miniscule.

The poll, commissioned by the Council for Arab-British Understanding and the Arab News newspaper, also reveals scepticism about UK foreign policy in the region with only 15% of those surveyed saying they agreed that the UK’s foreign policy in the Arab world had helped human rights and global security. Only 13% believe UK foreign policy has been a stabilising force in the Arab world.

An astonishing 85% say they regard the invasion of Iraq in 2003 by the UK and the US as a mistake, but there is still majority support for the current UK involvement in the air campaign against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

The weighted survey, due to be formally unveiled at a conference on Monday, was conducted among 1,200 people from a YouGov panel in August. The published results exclude “don’t knows”.

The emerging picture – fear, ignorance and hostility – underlines the tensions in UK society about attitudes to Islam and the Arab world in the UK, with the strong backing for racial profiling likely to disturb those worried by the civil liberties implications. A total of 55% of voters regard it as right for the police to use racial profiling against Arabs or Muslims for security reasons. Only 24% disagree. Racial profiling allows the security services to police on the basis of working assumptions about the likelihood of ethnic, religious or national groups to commit offences in the UK. Support for racial profiling among Conservative voters reaches 72%.

In a survey that also reveals widespread self-confessed ignorance about the Arab world, a total of 63% say they believe Arabs have failed to integrate themselves into western society and live in isolated communities. That belief is held by 78% of leave voters in the 2016 referendum, but also by 47% of Labour voters in the 2017 election.

Asked if migration from the Arab world has been beneficial to the UK, only 23% agree, 41% say it has not been beneficial and 32% say it has been neutral. Asked if Islamophopia is a growing issue in the UK, 72% agree.

The findings suggest UK voters’ concern about migration is hardly likely to disappear after Brexit since much of it is directed at migration from outside the European Union.

For instance, 90% of Brexit supporters in 2016 believe the UK has taken too many refugees from Syria and Iraq. In total across all voting patterns 69% believe too many refugees have been taken in by the UK.

Faisal J Abbas, editor in chief of Arab News, said the poll showed on the one hand a shocking lack of knowledge of the Arab world, with 81% of Brits saying they “know little or nothing” about it.

“On the other, it showed that Brits have some very strong opinions about key regional issues. Eight in 10 say Britain was wrong to go to war with Iraq; more than half believe the UK should recognise Palestine as a state, and the majority point to the rising problem of Islamophobia in the UK.

“What is concerning is that these opinions are based on very limited knowledge about the region. The Arab world is home to some of the poorest countries in the world, yet nearly a third of Brits associate it with being wealthy, far more than those who associate it with poverty. One may ask what impact such perceptions might have on aid decisions made by western governments.”