Populus on immigration and English national identity

The full tables for the Populus poll for the Searchlight Educational Trust has now been published on their website here

It is a very hefty poll - 5000 online respondents in England (for those intrigued about the questions on whether people saw themselves as English or British - this was a purely English poll) and there are 395 pages of tables. Obviously there is an awful lot of stuff there, and I'm not going to address it all, much better to go and read the full report itself. Amongst other things it includes an analysis that segments the population into clusters based on their attitudes towards immigration - broadly speaking two liberal groups that are to different extents positive about immigration (making up 24% of the population), a more ambiguous group that is concerned about the economic effects of immigration (28% of the population), a traditionally Toryish sort of group concerned about the effect of immigration on national identity (24% of the population) and two groups (10% and 13% respectively) that are firmly opposed to immigration but to differing degrees, with the final group the most hostile, disengaged and open to violence.

Immigration

On immigration itself there were, as usual, broadly negative opinions. 40% thought that on the whole immigration had been good for the country, 60% thought it had been bad. 34% of people would stop all immigration permanently or temporarily. 39% would support only allowed "skilled immigrants who will help the economy", 22% "only skilled and unskilled immigrations who will help the economy", 5% think we should allow all types of immigration.

From an economic point of view, 41% agree that the public sector couldn't cope without immigrants - but this is far outstripped by 73% who agree immigration puts pressure on public services. 34% think they have made it easier to find tradesment. 34% think immigration has made it harder for them personally to get a fair wage for their work. Culturally 49% said having a wide variety of cultures was part of British culture, 51% thought it had undermined British culture. While on balance these figures are negative towards immigration, it's worth pointing out that these findings are not actually as hostile towards immigration as some other polls.

Religion

Moving on, Populus asked about attitudes towards religion - given that the far-right have increasingly tended to put forward an anti-Muslim message, rather than a race-based one.

Firstly on the general subject of religion, 54% of people described themselves as Christian and about 5% other religions. 35% of people said they were not a member of any religious group. However, only 23% said religion was important to them, with only 11% agreeing strongly. Amongst those who described themselves as Christians, only 33% said religion was important to them, 36% said it was not. As we've seen before, people describing themselves as Christian does not necessarily imply they are particularly religious (indeed, other polls have shown many don't believe in a god!). 68% agreed with the statement that religion should not influence laws and policies in this country. Overall 23% said they thought religion was a force for good in the UK, 42% disagreed.

Muslims

Comparing attitudes to different religious groups, Muslims were seen as both the most different to respondents in terms of customs and habits, and as causing the most problems for the country. 69% of people see Muslims as different, 44% "completely different" - in comparison 28% see Hindus as completely different, 29% Sikhs and 19% Jews. Asking whether different groups create problems in the UK, Hindus, Sikhs, Christians all produced very similar results with about 15% saying they caused problems. Asked the same about Muslims, 52% of people said they caused problems in the UK.

Interestingly, Muslims are also the religious minority people are most aware of coming into contact with - 45% say they come into contact with Muslim people at least weekly, compared to 31% for Hundus, 24% for Sikhs and 24% for Jews.

Populus then asked people to imagine a mosque being built in their local area - 43% said they would support a campaign to block it, 19% would oppose a campaign to block it.

Nationality

50% of English people define themselves primarily as British, compared to 39% who define themselves as primarily English. There is an correlation here between whether people see themselves as British or English, and how they fall into Populus's segments - the two most liberal segments are most likely to view themselves as British (by 60% to about 25%), the two groups most hostile towards immigration are more likely to view themselves as English (by about 60% to 40%)

Asked what it was that most defined someone as British, the most popular option was essentially self-definition - people who "put bring British/English ahead of belonging to a particular ethnic or religious group". This was picked first by 34% of respondents, compared to 24% who defined it first as being born here, 18% in terms of citizenship, 7% in paying taxes, 7% by descent and 6% by speaking English. Again, there were interesting patterns looking at Populus's segmentation - the two most liberal groups tended to take a legalistic view - and were most likely to define Britishness primarily in terms of citizenship, and the least likely to view it in terms of birth or descent. Those most hostile to immigration tended to view where you were born as more important than citizenship, and were most likely to consider where someone's parents were born in defining Britishness.

Given the length of the survey there were questions on other subjects to - most notably community involvement - but I'll leave you to explore it yourself.