One in four ‘progessive activist’ Green voters say Hamas support is acceptable

The findings are drawn from More in Common's values segmentation, based on polling of around 20,000 people. The organisation describes "Progressive Activists" as "idealistic and globally minded, driven by social justice", with the group making up roughly 12 per cent of the UK population.

The polling was commissioned for a new report, titled Britain Under Strain: The Broken Social Contract, Democratic Distrust and the Mainstreaming of Extremism, which launched in Parliament this week.

Led by a former government advisor on extremism, Dame Sara Khan, the research also found antisemitic attitudes are prevalent among parts of Britain’s Muslim population.

Twenty-seven per cent of British Muslims believe the Holocaust is "invented or exaggerated", while only 17 per cent said coexistence was possible with "all Jews and Zionists", per the study.

The polling of 1,300 British Muslims, conducted by Yonder for the report, found that greater interfaith interaction did not translate into more positive attitudes towards Jews or reduce belief in antisemitic tropes.

Asked whether different groups were "working against Muslims", 64 per cent of British Muslims said they believed white people were, while 56 per cent said they believed Jewish people were.

Dama Sara Khan discusses combating extremism during a meeting of the Home Affairs Select Committee[Missing Credit]

Among the wider British public, antisemitic attitudes were also mapped.

Twenty-eight per cent believed Jewish people held most of the world's wealth and power, compared with 43 per cent who rejected the claim and 30 per cent who said they did not know.

The research found that Jewish people were viewed as the least safe minority in Britain, with only 38 per cent of respondents saying the UK was a safe place for Jews, but that perceptions of which minorities were most at risk varied according to political outlook.

Socially progressive groups were more likely to view Muslims and transgender people as under threat, while socially conservative groups and white respondents were more likely to regard Jews as being at risk.

The report's authors said this pointed to “a worrying trend in which perceptions of minority safety are increasingly shaped by ideological predispositions rather than a shared assessment of evidence”.

The More in Common polling of 4,094 adults, conducted this spring, found broader signs of political and social strain.

Fifty-five per cent said Britain's national identity was disappearing because of diversity rather than being strengthened by it.

Twenty-eight per cent said individuals should ignore rules and institutions that stood in the way of change, while one in seven believed political violence was acceptable in at least some situations.

The report also warned that hostile states, including Russia and Iran, were exploiting Britain's increasingly fractured society by amplifying extremist narratives and cultivating Islamist and far-right networks.

Researchers mapped far-right and Islamist extremist events over the 12 months to March 2026 and found 1,784 far-right events against 225 Islamist extremism-linked events, with the latter clustered in cities with “repeated mobilisation” around Palestine protests in London.

Iran-aligned actors “embedded within” UK Islamist ecosystems “reinforced and scaled” narratives during geopolitical flashpoints, according to the report, “with messaging most synchronised around the Iran-Israel conflict and the war in Gaza.

Pro-Palestine supporters wave flags and hold placards as they demonstrate at Piccadilly Circus in London on October 9, 2023. (Getty Images)AFP via Getty Images

“Iran matches Russia's sophistication in embedding UK infrastructure: IRGC-affiliated accounts posed as Scottish and Irish nationals, spending months building credibility on X, Instagram and Bluesky with anti-Labour, anti-Union, anti-Starmer and anti-Royal content, before pivoting to glorify the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and circulate Al-generated images purporting to show destroyed US military bases once war with Iran began,” the report said.

Speaking at the report's launch, Khan warned there was a "vanishingly small" window in which a new prime minister could act effectively to address growing division and extremism.

The report, co-written with Dr Matthew Godwin, was published on Wednesday as the inaugural study of the new independent research centre, The UK Extremism and Democratic Resilience Centre, which Khan will lead.