The fifth anniversary of the London bombings has been marked by a YouGov poll for The Sun newspaper. It was conducted among an online sample of 1,424 adult Britons aged 18 and over on 4-5 July. Headline findings were published in The Sun on 7 July, but the full data can be downloaded from:
http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/YG-Archives-Pol-Sun-77-050710.pdf
In the five years since 7/7 25% feel that the threat of terrorism in Britain has increased, 53% that it has stayed the same and 17% that it has decreased. 76% rate further terrorist attacks on British soil as very or fairly likely.
Asked to think back to 7/7, and the reaction of British Muslims to the bombings, 33% recalled that it had made them feel more negative toward British Muslims, while for 60% it had made no difference. Conservative voters were twice as likely as Liberal Democrats (42% versus 20%) to have held adverse views, and the over-40s were seven points more negative than the under-40s (36% against 29%).
When questioned about the progress made by British Muslims to integrate into mainstream British society since 2005, four times as many feel that they have become less integrated than more integrated (43% compared with 10%). For 36% there has been no difference, and 12% are ‘don’t knows’. The expression of concern about less integration is most voiced by Conservatives (49%), residents of the Midlands and Wales (48%) and those aged 60 and over (47%).
This complaint about the lack of Muslim integration into British society finds echoes in other recent polls. In another YouGov survey in November 2009 21% considered that most Muslims in Britain led completely separately lives, with three-fifths saying many did so and just 13% believing most Muslims were integrated.
Similarly, interviewed by ICM in January 2008 about whether the Muslim community in Britain needed to do more to integrate, 56% agreed, with 24% deeming there had been sufficient integration and 9% too much.
