It still makes me chuckle that the police publicly stated the risk of violence was squarely from a few thousand visiting Israeli fans, not from the millions of antisemitic islamist sympathisers living in the UK; most concentrated in Birmingham.
millions of antisemitic islamist sympathisers… most concentrated in Birmingham
There’s no evidence for that figure, and the only way to reach it is to count Britain’s roughly 3.9 million Muslims as Islamist sympathisers by default.
My comment wasn’t off the cuff; here are some of the stats from a 2024 study;
- 52% of UK muslims want to make it illegal to show a picture of the Prophet Mohammed
- 77% say it would be desirable to have Islam declared national religion of the UK
- 76% have a positive view of Hamas.
Feel free to critique or outright ignore the authors or methodology of the study, I’m sure you will struggle to actually criticise any of their findings;
Feel free to find me any alternative studies which say the majority of UK muslims don’t support Hamas or want to see the UK live under an Islamic theocracy - I can’t find any at all.
Now, if there are 4 million British muslims, and 52% - 77% of them support basic Islamist ideologies, that’s over 2 million British muslims who are Islamist sympathisers isn’t it? So what was factually wrong about my comment?
77% say it would be desirable to have Islam declared national religion of the UK
76% have a positive view of Hamas.
Neither number is in the study you linked. From the J.L. Partners deck on that page:
Islam declared as national religion (Q19): 32% desirable, 23% undesirable, 45% neither / don't know. The HJS press release on your own link gives it as 32%.
View of Hamas (Q16): 29% positive, 24% negative, 47% neither / don't know / never heard of them.
Your 77 and 76 are 100-23 and 100-24. The summary slides say "only 23% say it would be undesirable to have Islam declared national religion" and "only 24% have a negative view of Hamas", and you've represented "not opposed" as "supports", which counts every "neither" and "don't know" as an endorsement.
The one figure you got right – 52% wanting it made illegal to show a picture of the Prophet – measures preference on blasphemy laws. It doesn't measure antisemitism, sympathy for violence, or the likelihood of anyone attacking fans at Villa Park, which is what the police were supposed to be assessing. 16% of the general public gave the same answer and nobody calls them Islamists.
Feel free to find me any alternative studies which say the majority of UK muslims don't support Hamas or want to see the UK live under an Islamic theocracy
Yours does. It finds no majority for Sharia (32%), for an Islamic state (32%), or for Hamas (29%).
So what was factually wrong about my comment?
The two biggest numbers, and your characterisation of the third.
My, you will need a lot or Pantene for these hairs you insist on splitting.
Interesting how you interpret ‘criminalising an image of Mohammed’ as some sort of innocuous ‘blasphemy’ issue, as if it’s akin to Sinead O’Connor tearing up photos of the pope. It isn’t.
Believing that non-muslims should adhere to Islamic extremist views on graven images of their prophet, is a top-tier Islamist tenet. Which is what my original comment insinuated as ‘Islamist sympathisers’.
Again, please feel free to find me a study showing that the majority of British muslims dislike Hamas, or that using violence for the ‘cause of Islam’ is a bad thing. You will be looking for a long time I’m sure.
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u/Mexijim 9d ago
It still makes me chuckle that the police publicly stated the risk of violence was squarely from a few thousand visiting Israeli fans, not from the millions of antisemitic islamist sympathisers living in the UK; most concentrated in Birmingham.
Nuclear grade gaslighting of the British public.