Religion and Voting and Other News

Four stories are covered in today’s BRIN post, including new data on religion and prospective voting behaviour.

Religion and voting

Two new large-scale polls (from YouGov and Populus) shed light on the relationship between religion and voting intentions since UKIP’s emergence as the fourth force in British politics (so clearly demonstrated in the recent Eastleigh by-election). The studies show that prospective voters for the two parties towards the right of the political spectrum (Conservative and UKIP) are more likely to espouse a religion than those towards the left (Labour and Liberal Democrat). Summary results are set out in the table below, percentages reading downwards. 

It should be noted that the polls used different measures of religious affiliation, which explains why people of faith were less numerous in one than the other. The YouGov question wording is fairly neutral, making no assumptions about religious affiliation, whereas the Populus one might be considered to be somewhat leading, implying some expectation that respondents will belong to one of the religious groups.

The religious category was sub-divided in the Populus survey, enabling an assessment of the current voting intentions of adherents of the major faiths. The single most striking finding is that the majority (58%) of Muslims now incline to follow Labour, contrasting with the 2010 general election in which around one-third (36%) of Muslims recalled that they had actually voted for Labour, at a time when the party (then in government) was unpopular with Muslims because (especially) of its perceived anti-Islamic foreign policy. Also notable is that 54% of Jews support either the Conservatives or UKIP. Details are below (percentages reading across in this instance):

Source: Online surveys of adult Britons aged 18 and over conducted by a) YouGov throughout February 2013 (n = 28,944), the religious affiliation question being ‘do you regard yourself as belonging to any particular religion?’; and b) Populus for Lord Ashcroft on 22-31 January 2013 (n = 20,022), the religious affiliation question being ‘which of the following religious groups do you consider yourself to be a member of?’

The YouGov data were published on 5 March 2013 and are at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/mse55iouje/UKIP-profile-Feb-2103.pdf

The Populus/Ashcroft data were published on 8 March 2013 and can be found in table 100 at:

http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/LibDem_Poll.pdf

Attitudes to Muslims

British Muslims continue to have a major public image problem, according to two recent polls commissioned by Matthew Goodwin of the University of Nottingham in connection with his Chatham House briefing paper on the English Defence League (EDL). This was published on 6 March 2013 as: The Roots of Extremism: The English Defence League and the Counter-Jihad Challenge.

In the second of Goodwin’s surveys, the proportion of all adult Britons responding to various statements about Muslims was as follows: 

• 50% anticipated there will be a ‘clash of civilizations’ between British Muslims and native white Britons (26% disagreeing)
• 44% agreed that free speech in Britain is threatened by the influence of Muslims in the media (32% disagreeing)
• 43% agreed that differences in culture and values make future conflict between British-born Muslims and white Britons inevitable (28% disagreeing)
• 31% disagreed that British-born Muslims generally share the culture and values of the majority society (36% agreeing)
• 30% agreed that British Muslims pose a serious threat to democracy (41% disagreeing)
• 23% disagreed that Muslims make an important contribution to British society (41% agreeing)
• 12% disagreed that the vast majority of Muslims are good British citizens (62% agreeing)
• 12% agreed that British Muslims are part of an international plot to abolish Parliament (54% disagreeing)

Source: Online survey by YouGov of 1,691 Britons aged 18 and over on 20-21 November 2012. Detailed table (with breaks by gender, age, social grade, region, and vote) available at:

http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/Research/Europe/0313bp_goodwin_dataconflict.pdf

The first poll, likewise by YouGov and conducted online on 21-22 October 2012 among a sample of 1,666 Britons, focused on knowledge of and attitudes to the EDL. But it also posed several additional questions about Islam and Muslims, four of which are worth highlighting: 

• 63% wanted the number of Muslims coming to Britain to be reduced
• 57% considered Islam to present a serious danger to Western civilization
• 52% believed higher Muslim birth rates threaten British national identity
• 48% argued that Muslims are incompatible with the British way of life

The detailed tables from this poll are available as follows:

a) breaks by general demographics:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/nvm151779n/YG-Archive-221012-EDL-National-sample.pdf

b) breaks by general demographics and degree of support for the EDL:

http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/Research/Europe/0313bp_goodwin_dataissues.pdf

Goodwin’s Chatham House paper is at:

http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/Research/Europe/0313bp_goodwin.pdf

Islamist terrorism

Britons are somewhat less apprehensive about the threat of terrorism than they were in 2010, on the fifth anniversary of the London bombings. Even so, 44% currently think that a terrorist attack within the UK is very or moderately likely to happen in the next year, while 70% anticipate an incident as deadly as the 2005 London bombings occurring during their lifetimes. The source of the threat is most widely perceived to be al-Qaeda and ‘other Islamic-based terrorist groups’, with 68% currently concerned about them compared with 3% for residual terrorist groups in Northern Ireland. Anxiety about Islamist terrorism builds steadily with age, from 50% of the 18-34s to 81% of the over-55s, but otherwise varies little by key demographics.   

Source: Online survey by Angus Reid Public Opinion among 2,013 Britons aged 18 and over on 26-28 February 2013. Report and full data tables published on 4 March 2013 and available at:

http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/48686/fears-of-an-imminent-terrorist-attack-subside-in-britain/

Flesh and blood

Regular churchgoers in the UK are more likely to have given blood than the general public, according to new research. Whereas 9% of the former say they have given blood during the last year, no more than 4% of all adults have given blood in the past two years. Moreover, 33% of regular churchgoers claim to have registered as a blood donor (apparently with no statistically significant differences by denomination, gender, or age); while 48% report they have joined the NHS organ donor register, which is 17% more than in the population as a whole. Blood and organ donation is already considered as part of their personal Christian giving by 28% (rising to 35% of clergy and church leaders), with a further 42% being open to the idea. However, as experienced by these worshippers, three-quarters of churches do not mention or encourage either blood or organ donation.

Source: Survey of a representative sample of 3,171 UK Christians of all denominations attending church at least two to three times a month and agreeing that their faith is either the most important thing in their life or more important than most other things. They were drawn from the Christian Research Resonate panel of both church leaders and laity and interviewed online between 10 December 2012 and 9 January 2013. The study was undertaken on behalf of Kore in connection with the launch of the fleshandblood campaign, a partnership with NHS Blood and Transplant to mobilize the Church to increase the number of blood and organ donors in the UK. A summary report, Fleshandblood 2013 Research Results, was published on 5 March 2013 and is available at:

http://fleshandblood.org/resource/2013-research-results/