New poll shows 13% of Britons believe Jews have unhealthy control of banking system, and 38% “couldn’t say” for sure

A new survey has shown that 13 percent of Britons believe that Jews have “undue control of banks”, with a remarkable 38% who said in response to the same statement that they “couldn’t say” for sure or “don’t know”.

The anti-racism charity, Hope Not Hate, published its Trust No One report following three surveys conducted between February and April 2020 designed to “assess the British population’s relationship with conspiracy theories, their trust in the media and public institutions and their attitudes to political participation.”

With regard to antisemitism, the report noted that “while conspiracy theories do not inherently have to be antisemitic, it is remarkable how often Jewish people are explicitly or implicitly identified as the conspirators” and that “it is antisemitic ideas, more so than any other form of racism, that form the basis of modern conspiracy theories.”

The report said that respondents were asked whether the ‘official’ narrative of the Holocaust was exagerrated and whether Jews have an “unhealthy control of the banking system”, but noted that other statements tested can also be have antisemitic connotations, for example, the statement “Even though we live in what’s called a democracy, a few people will always run things in this country anyway”, which can be related to the claims surrounding the Protocols of the Elders of Zion or the ‘Zionist Occupation Government’ conspiracy, both of which claim that Jews strive for world domination and control most governments.

In 2019, our Antisemitism Barometer also found that 20% of British people believed that “British Jewish people chase money more than other British people.”