Almost all British Jews want the BBC investigated over bias, poll finds

Most British Jews surveyed by CAA (91 per cent) said they do not think that the authorities are doing enough to tackle religious extremism, and only 14 per cent believe that the police do enough to protect them.

When asked if, overall, they think the current government has been good for the Jewish community, bad for the Jewish community, or somewhere in between, 80 per cent of respondents said the current government has been bad for the Jewish community, while only 4 per cent believe the opposite.

Participants took particular issue with British authorities’ responses to antisemitism and extremism; 81 per cent of those surveyed said the Labour Party was too tolerant of antisemitism among their officeholders, and just 7 per cent of British Jews think that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) does enough to protect them.

Ninety-two per cent of British Jews consider the far-left to be a serious threat – compared to 65 per cent who think that of the far-right – close to the 96 per cent who see Islamists in the same way.

The same percentage feel that Jewish people in Britain are less safe compared to before October 2023, and a distinct majority of British Jews (61 per cent) said they have considered leaving the UK over the past two years due to antisemitism.

Fifty-one per cent of British Jews feel that they do not have a long-term future in the UK, according to the poll, and almost half (45 per cent) do not feel welcome in the UK.

“The polling starkly tells how Jews blame two successive governments, as well as inert police chiefs and prosecutors, for the explosion of antisemitic extremism which has left two Jews dead and much of the rest of the community reluctantly eyeing the exits,” a spokesperson for CAA said. "After two years of two-tier policing and institutional cowardice, there is still an alarming lack of urgency from the authorities.

“The appeasement of extremists has so far borne the same fruits as it always does: people dead at the hands of Islamists, the growing radicalisation of our children, the crumbling of law enforcement and now a community questioning whether it has a place in this country at all.

"Until politicians and police chiefs muster the fortitude to act forcefully, Britain will only slide further into the abyss that fanatics have opened up beneath us.”

CAA carried out its survey of 4,490 British Jews mainly by contacting “seed organisations”, which included religious bodies, Jewish online networks and community welfare organisations, to contact potential respondents.

It said it had modelled the poll on the National Jewish Community Survey (NJCS) conducted by the Institute for Jewish Policy research.

It explained that, like the NCJS, it had relied on the seed organisations to initiate a “snowballing” process, whereby participants refer other potential respondents who fit the criteria of the study.