New polling shows Britain’s failure to protect its Jews

New polling of British Jews by Campaign Against Antisemitism has revealed a number of alarming insights.

The study covers how secure British Jews feel, their views on the criminal justice system and Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, where they believe threats are, their assessment of political parties and the Mayors of London and Manchester on antisemitism, their views on the BBC and universities, and more.

Being Jewish in Britain

• Only one-third (34%) of British Jews believe that Jews have a long-term future in the UK.
• Half of the Jewish community has considered leaving Britain in the past two years due to antisemitism. Among 18-24-year-olds, it is two-thirds (67%). The main reason is the surge in antisemitism since 7th October 2023, cited by 76% of respondents.
• Less than half of British Jews (43%) feel welcome in the UK. Almost half of 18-24-year-old Jews (47%), conversely, do not feel welcome.
• A majority of British Jews (58%) hide their Judaism due to antisemitism.

Extremism

• British Jews consider Islamists to be the most serious threat (95%) compared to the far-right (67%) and the far-left (91%).
• More than nine in ten British Jews do not believe that the authorities do enough to protect the Jewish community from Islamists.

Policing and prosecutions

• Less than one-tenth of British Jews believe that the authorities are doing enough to address and punish antisemitism; 84% believe that they are not.
• In Scotland, nearly one-fifth of Jews would not bother reporting an antisemitic hate crime to the police, with almost two-thirds not confident that it would be prosecuted.
• Only 16% of British Jews are confident that if they reported an antisemitic crime, it would be prosecuted if there was strong enough evidence. Conversely, 62% are not confident, rising to 64% in London – the highest level geographically.
• An alarming eight in ten British Jews think that the police do not do enough to protect them.
• A minuscule ten percent of British Jews think that the CPS does enough to protect them, and only 13% think that of the courts.
• Three-quarters of British Jews are dissatisfied with how their local police force has been policing anti-Israel marches in their local cities. Only one-tenth are satisfied. 
• Just 5% of British Jews have confidence in Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, and six in ten believe that he should not be in post.

Politics

• The vast majority – 85% – of British Jews are dissatisfied with London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s performance in relation to the Jewish community since 7th October 2023. Fewer than one in ten (9%) are satisfied.
• Regarding Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, one-third of British Jews are dissatisfied with his performance in relation to the Jewish community, while only 12% are satisfied. In Northern England the satisfaction is higher at 30%, but still less than one-third; dissatisfaction is also higher, at almost half (49%).
• Nearly three-quarters – 72% – of British Jews think that the Green Party is too tolerant of antisemitism among their MPs, MEPs, councillors, members and supporters. This is closely followed by the Labour Party with 71%. This is the highest figure ever recorded for the Greens, and it is the first time that another party has overtaken Labour in our polling. For their first time, a third party has also crossed the majority threshold: the SNP, at 52%.
• The figures for the other parties are 42% for Sinn Féin; 40% for the Liberal Democrats; 26% for Plaid Cymru; 22% for the Conservatives; 22% for UKIP; 21% for the Democratic Unionist Party; and 19% for the Reform Party. 
• 72% of Scottish Jews feel that the Scottish National Party is too tolerant of antisemitism.

Arts and Media

• 92% of British Jews think that media bias against Israel fuels persecution of Jews in Britain.
• Among broadcasters, the BBC scored the worst in terms of its coverage of matters of Jewish interest, with 92% of British Jews rating its coverage as unfavourable.
• Among newspapers, The Guardian scored the worst on the same metric, with nearly seven in ten – 69% – of British Jews describing its coverage as unfavourable.
• More than four-fifths (84%) of British Jews agree that boycotts of Israeli artists, academics or businesses selling Israeli products constitute intimidation. This finding is particularly pertinent given the incidence of boycotts over the past year.

Proscriptions

• Nearly all British Jews – a resounding 98% – back our calls to proscribe all groups that were involved in the 7th October 2023 attack in Israel under terrorism legislation.
• 94% of British Jews back our calls to proscribe the Houthis and 93% to proscribe the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The latter was promised by the Government prior to the General Election but has not been delivered.
• More than four-fifths (85%) of British Jews think that the British Government should proscribe the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group. 

Universities and education

• Only 3% of British Jews are confident that if a Jewish student reported an antisemitic incident on campus, the university’s administration would take appropriate action. Among young Jews it is 6%.
• 90% of young British Jews blame students for the increase in reported antisemitic incidents on UK campuses.
• Nine in ten British Jews said that if anybody in their family were choosing a university, antisemitism would be a factor in their choice.
• Nearly nine in ten – 88% – British Jews said that if anybody in their family were choosing a school, antisemitism would be a factor in their choice. 

Rhetoric

• 95% of British Jews consider the chant ‘From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free’ to be an antisemitic call to destroy the Jewish state. Only 2% do not. 
• A minuscule 2% of British Jews consider the fiercely anti-Zionist Neturei Karta sect to be representative of their views on Israel.

Representation

• 86% of British Jews believe that Campaign Against Antisemitism is representative of their views on antisemitism. More than half strongly believe that.

Full results of the survey can be accessed here.

A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “As we reflect today on historic antisemitism, as a society we also have to ask ourselves: why are we doing so little about antisemitism right here, right now? The truth is that Britain and the authorities are failing the Jewish community. These figures paint a sobering picture of the lives of British Jews and their future.

“British Jews have lost trust in the criminal justice system in general, which they do not feel is protecting them, and in the Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley in particular, after he has presided over the worst surge in antisemitism in living memory, opting for excuses over action and gaslighting those who call him out. It is time for arrests and a ban on the anti-Israel marches.

“From politics to the BBC to universities, the Jewish community sees betrayal across our civil and cultural institutions. The cumulative result is that less than half of British Jews feel welcome in the UK. Antisemitism has become our nation’s great shame, and time is running out.”

Fieldwork

Fieldwork was conducted between 3rd and 11th June 2024. In total, 4,078 responses were obtained.

Methodology

Our surveys of British Jews were modelled on the National Jewish Community Survey (NJCS) conducted by the Institute for Jewish Policy research. In common with the NJCS, the samples were self-selecting, and respondents were required to self-identify as Jewish and confirm that they lived in the United Kingdom. Like the NJCS, they were contacted primarily through ‘seed’ organisations, including religious bodies, Jewish online networks (including targeted advertising on social networks), and community welfare organisations, among others. In common with the NJCS, the seed organisations were used to initiate a ‘snowballing’ process which, in effect, created a non-probability convenience sample. It was not possible to use a random probability sampling approach for this study because a suitable sampling frame for the Jewish population is not available in the UK. Fieldwork was conducted between 3rd and 11th June 2024. In total, 4,078 responses were obtained. As is the case with the NJCS, the number of unique respondents contacted cannot be determined due to the likely overlap between different ‘seed’ organisations’ supporter bases, thus we cannot estimate the survey response rate.

A key issue with an online survey is to ensure that respondents are not counted twice. To avoid this and other abuses that might affect the survey’s integrity, several measures were implemented. These included: carefully monitoring responses for unusual trends during the fieldwork phase, and assessing the completed dataset for the presence of extreme or unrealistic values (i.e. outlier diagnostics) and for the presence of unlikely combinations of values across variables (i.e. logical checks).Additionally, cookies were used to avoid respondents completing the survey more than once. Finally, respondents’ IP addresses were logged so that if a respondent deleted their cookies, multiple responses from the same IP address could still be identified. As a result, duplicate responses were kept to a minimum and ultimately, removed from the sample.

Our survey is modelled on best practice established by NJCS. All surveys have their shortcomings, and ours shares the shortcomings of NJCS. Even surveys that are based on probability sampling are typically affected by high levels of non- response. Surveys of populations lacking sampling frames, such as this one, are particularly challenging, as is establishing their representativeness. Nevertheless, because we have extremely high-quality baseline statistics available in the UK, it is possible to both accurately weight the data and make reasonable assumptions about where they may depart from the ‘true’ picture. In general, the survey samples reflect the diverse character of Jewish respondents in the UK across geographical, demographic and religious variables. Where the sample does depart from baseline characteristics, responses were weighted for location, gender, age and religious affiliation. Population estimates were based on responses to the 2021 Census in England and Wales and the 2022 Census in Scotland where that data is available, and otherwise on responses to the 2011 Census, and size estimates with regard to religious denominations were based on the NCJS 2013. The weights were calculated using random iterative method weighting by an external consultant.