Matthew Goodwin: If the Conservatives want to win younger voters, they should ease up on immigration control

Matthew Goodwin is Associate Professor at the University of Nottingham, and an Associate Fellow at Chatham House

The recent history of the Conservative party has been dominated by its inability to secure a parliamentary majority. By the next election, it will be almost a quarter of a century since a Conservative leader walked into Downing Street as a Prime Minister secure in his or her Parliamentary foundation. Indeed, it is even a stretch to describe the 92-97 Major Government in these terms.

Over the past thirty years modern one-nation Conservatism, Euro-sceptic British nationalism, neo-Thatcherism and progressive Conservatism have each been tried. Electorally, they have all fallen short. This could be misfortune or circumstantial, but the deeper evidence suggests something structural. How can the Conservatives become a majority party once more?
Clearly, no one dataset provides all the answers. But a new survey commissioned by the Extremis Project highlights both the challenge and the dilemma facing the centre-right. Working with the polling agency YouGov, we surveyed 1,725 adults online, and shortly after the close of the Olympics. The figures we report are weighted, and representative of British adults, aged 18 and above.

Matthew Goodwin: Muslims and their attitudes in Modern Britain

Dr Matthew Goodwin is a lecturer at the University of Nottingham, whose forthcoming book The New British Fascism: Rise of the BNP , will be published by Routledge on May 4th.  Follow him on Twitter  here.

Last week, I wrote an article outlining why Sayeeda Warsi was right to highlight the growing problem of anti-Muslim sentiment in modern Britain. I pointed to evidence of significant public hostility toward Muslims, anxiety over the role of Islam in society, and the absence of a rigorous debate over what is driving these trends, and what they mean for policy and practice. In response, Paul Goodman raised valuable points. He has previously urged Parliament to confront anti-Muslim hatred and violence, highlighted the lack of data on this issue and made the case for why something needs to be done. Our points of disagreement, therefore, are slight. But there is one point that warrants further attention.

If these trends are to be tackled, then the first thing we need is reliable data, both on public attitudes toward Muslims and the attitudes of Muslims themselves. It is partly for this reason Goodman urges us to look beyond the evidence cited in my piece: the British Social Attitudes and (recently cancelled) Citizenship surveys.

Instead, he draws on several polls when taking issue with my assertion that Muslims are not markedly different from the general population in terms of their feelings of belongingness to Britain. One is an ICM poll which suggests two fifths of Muslims want Sharia Law introduced. Then, polls by NOP and Populus indicate three out of every ten Muslims want to live under strict forms of Sharia law, as practiced in Saudi Arabia. These findings, it is argued, should give us pause for thought when making assertions about the attitudes of British Muslims.

And here enters my point: Goodman is right when arguing we need to consult all of the available evidence, but there are also good reasons why any future enquiry into this issue would be mistaken to rely heavily on this type of evidence. Polls provide incredibly useful snapshots of public opinion, and their architects perform an important role. Sometimes, however, they rely on small samples and introduce the risk of over-representing specific types of people, for example Muslims who hold particularly strident views and are keen to air those views to pollsters.

On sensitive issues like religious identity, polls sometimes ask misleading questions and fail to compare groups facing similar situations and grievances. In the aftermath of the Danish cartoons, for instance, Muslims were asked lots of questions about their attitudes toward freedom of speech. Their responses, however, were then often compared with members of the general population who were not experiencing similar insults to their religion. Why not compare their responses with those of devout Christians after similar faith-based insults, such as the furore that accompanied Jerry Springer the Opera? Also, it is often unclear in commercial polls how respondents understand questions to which they are responding.

But there is a more fundamental point here. Implicit in arguments that jump on polls like those above is a popular though misleading assertion that – for Muslims – religious identity somehow represents an alternative to (in this case British) citizenship. The assumption is that Muslims who endorse various aspects of their faith are choosing this religious identity as an alternative to their national identity. However, as the academic Maria Sobolewska demonstrates in her chapter in The New Extremism in 21st Century Britain, religious identity actually appears to have little to do with Muslims’ sense of alienation, or their supposed ambivalence toward the British state and society. Religiosity among Muslims neither exacerbates their sense of alienation, nor acts as some kind of "replacement identity".

Analysing the attitudes of over 1,700 Muslim respondents to the Citizenship Survey (which employed more established and consistent measures than the temporal and often vague measures in polls), she paints a different picture. Contrary to the popular view, most Muslims happily agreed Islam is the most important thing in their life, AND that their primary loyalty rests with the British state, and that they belong to Islam AND Britain. For most, belonging to Islam and belonging to Britain was not a mutually exclusive choice.

Nor was there much evidence that more religious Muslims were more excluded or alienated than those who said they were less so. Even polls support this point (although sadly their findings are often ignored in tabloid media). For example, upwards of 90 per cent of Muslims say Islam is very important to them (e.g. NOP/C4 2006, Populus/Policy Exchange 2006), while similar percentages openly declare their loyalty to Britain.
To underline the point, Sobolewska compares the views of Muslims on three widely accepted indicators of political exclusion and support for democracy: (1) their trust in institutions like councils, parliament and police; (2) feelings of belonging to Britain; and (3) whether they feel they can influence decisions affecting the country. Her findings? Muslims were actually more trustful of institutions than other religious groups - including Christians. On belonging to Britain, they showed no great difference to the Christian and mainly white majority. In fact, Muslims were more likely than other minority religious groups and also the non-religious to feel that they belong to Britain. And lastly, Muslims were the least likely group to say they did not have any influence over decisions that affect the country. The overall conclusion was that Muslims appear far more integrated and attached than popular claims would have us believe, and there is little evidence they are turning to religion as an alternative identity.

To return to Goodman, he is absolutely right that any attempt to promote cohesive local communities will struggle to resolve grievances that are fuelled by events in the international arena. But he also sidesteps my latter point that not only were some cohesion-based initiatives moving in the right direction, but they were also backed up by decades of academic research. Unfortunately, many have since been cancelled or starved of funding. We all share a consensus that these trends are too important to be left for extremists to manipulate. But it is also paramount that debate over their causes and consequences remains firmly anchored in the wider evidence base.

Matthew Goodwin: Why Baroness Warsi was right to highlight the growing problem of anti-Muslim sentiment in modern Britain

Dr Matthew Goodwin is a lecturer at the University of Nottingham, whose forthcoming book, The New British Fascism: Rise of the BNP , will be published by Routledge on May 4th. Follow him on Twitter here.

We are only in March and Sayeeda Warsi has already had a tough year. First, in January she attracts criticism after suggesting Islamophobia in Britain has ‘passed the dinner-table test’ (she was promptly branded ‘selfish and wrong’ by Charles Moore). Among a wave of criticism, Moore accused Warsi of using her role to complain about how the public treats her co-religionists, that it ‘is not Tory policy to say these things’, and that ‘she seems to see herself as the trade union leader of British Muslims: she can criticise them but no one else can’. Then, in February, the ConHome survey of party members revealed she has a negative rating, and is on her way to becoming the most unpopular member of the cabinet.

Warsi might be unpopular among the rank and file, but she was both brave and right to highlight the growing problem of anti-Muslim sentiment in modern Britain. I know she cares deeply about this issue, and is serious about tackling its root causes. Some of the most stimulating conversations I have had with politicians have been with Warsi. But first, a brief rejoinder to Moore. Irrespective of religious denomination, we should be thinking carefully about how Britons treat and view Muslims. Anti-Muslim sentiment and its effects pose one of the most complex and stubborn challenges facing European societies, and will only increase in salience over the next decade. It might not be Conservative policy, but highlighting its growing importance was responsible. More importantly, Warsi is backed up by a growing body of academic research.

As in other European democracies, since 2001 there have emerged worrying levels of public hostility toward Muslims, and anxiety over the role of Islam in British society. Not only is the scale of anti-Muslim sentiment significant, it is also proving stubbornly persistent. Yet albeit with some notable exceptions, politicians on all sides have tended to ignore this complex trend, or conflate it with anti-immigrant hostility. The evidence, however, suggests that hostility toward Muslims is not motivated by the exact same drivers as hostility toward immigrants. It appears to be spread more widely across society, including among better-educated and more economically secure citizens who perhaps sit chatting around a dinner table.

Robert Ford and Matthew Goodwin: Might UKIP succeed where the BNP has failed?

By Dr Robert Ford of the University of Manchester and and Dr Matthew Goodwin of the University of Nottingham, co-editor of The New Extremism in 21st Century Britain. The authors would like to thank Joe Twyman at YouGov for assistance with the data.

The BNP’s attempt to become a ‘modernized’ radical right party has failed. The party is in turmoil, and Nick Griffin faces a growing grassroots rebellion. A disappointing general election, empty war chests and costly legal battles have left its foot soldiers demoralized and divided: some demand a re-launched (and Griffin-free) BNP; others have deserted to establish a rival party; and some are even calling for a merger with their arch rival, UKIP. Even Griffin concedes they are ‘sick and tired of losing’ and, in an attempt to quell the rebels, has announced he will step down by 2015.

To add to his problems, at the recent by-election in Oldham the party saw its support slump to 4.5% (down from 11% in 2001), even losing its deposit in an area it once described as “our territory”. The party was also pushed into fifth place by UKIP, a particularly hard pill for BNP activists to swallow. Despite a decade-long effort by Griffin to rehabilitate his party, upwards of 80% of Britons continue to express negative feelings toward the BNP. Put simply, the BNP will never be seen as an acceptable option by most voters. As one BNP blogger urged his fellow members, ‘it’s time to wake up’.

But if the BNP declines, the causes which propelled its rise – public anxiety about Islam and immigration and hostility to the political mainstream – remain in place. Since 2001, they have also been joined by a financial crisis, parliamentary expenses scandal and, more recently, seemingly ‘new’ issues such as ‘Muslim sex gangs’. These issues look set to remain salient. Will public concern over them find a new outlet if the BNP falls apart?