UK
Nearly half of Britons believe the UK is ‘an unsafe place for Jewish people’
Overall, 45 per cent of Britons surveyed believe the UK is now either a very or mostly unsafe place for Jews, polling has found
November 20, 2025 15:39
Overall, 45 per cent of Britons surveyed believe the UK is now either a very or mostly unsafe place for Jews, polling has found
November 20, 2025 15:39Nearly half of Britons believe that the UK has become unsafe for Jewish people, while six in 10 people say they worry about a rise in antisemitism as a result of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Overall, 45 per cent of Britons surveyed believe the UK is now either a very or mostly unsafe place for Jews, while 44 per cent of people believe it is a safe place, according to the latest polling from More in Common, a think tank set up following the murder of MP Jo Cox in 2016 that seeks to understand polarisation.
That is compared to 37 per cent of the population that believes the country is unsafe for Muslims, and 24 per cent who feel it is unsafe for them personally.
Since October 7 2023, “many British Jews have felt targeted by other Britons for their beliefs about Israel, or for what other people assume are their beliefs, or simply for being Jewish,” a report published by More in Common states to coincide with the release of the research, conducted in the wake of the deadly Heaton Park shul terror attack on Yom Kippur.
“While many Britons don’t personally know any Jews closely, the rise in antisemitism has become a top concern for the British public more widely,” it notes.
“Six in ten Britons now say they worry about a rise in antisemitism as a result of the [Israel-Hamas] conflict – a slight increase since November 2023 over a time when total worries about the conflict have fallen slightly."
Britons are also becoming more concerned about anti-Muslim hate in the UK as a result of the war, according to the findings – but these views are becoming more polarised: While right-leaning segments of the population are “much more likely to be concerned about antisemitism than Islamophobia”, left-leaning segments are “relatively more concerned about Islamophobia than antisemitism”.
Meanwhile, previous More in Common research has found that antisemitic attitudes are held by significant numbers of people across the UK. Eight per cent of Britons admit to having a negative attitude towards Jews, rising among younger age groups. Nearly one in five (19 per cent) of Britons say it is “probably true” that “Jews have too much power in the media”, while 28 per cent say “Jews are more loyal to Israel than to this country” and 22 per cent say “Jews still talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust”.
When it came to protests demonstrating for or against Israel, there were clear signs of fatigue. While Britons support the right to protest about the conflict, that does not necessarily mean they feel warmly about those who do so. More than one quarter (27 per cent) of Britons would think worse of someone for going to a pro-Palestine march, and 30 per cent would think worse of someone for attending a pro-Israel march.
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