Political Leanings of Britain’s Jews

Posted on May 1, 2010 by Clive D. Field

‘There is no Christian vote’ ran the headline for Nick Spencer’s article on The Guardian’s ‘Comment is Free’ pages on 26 April, trying to assess how significant faith voting would be in next Thursday’s general election.

But is the same true of the Jewish vote? Thanks to the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR), we now have some answers to this question for the first time since 1995 when the JPR collected data for a report on The Social and Political Attitudes of British Jews.

The latest data are extracted from an online survey of self-identifying British Jews aged 18 and over in January and February 2010, undertaken primarily to measure the attitudes and attachments of Jews to Israel. This study was commissioned by the Pears Foundation, conducted by JPR, with fieldwork overseen by Ipsos MORI.  

Although the full results of this survey have yet to be published, JPR has randomly selected 1,000 responses and analysed the answers to the question on party political preferences (as opposed to the more explicit current voting intention).

This subset of data was published on 29 April in David Graham’s paper The Political Leanings of Britain’s Jews, which can be downloaded from:

http://www.jpr.org.uk/downloads/Political%20Leanings%202010%20Final.pdf

There is also a much shorter news report in the Jewish Chronicle for 30 April: Simon Rocker, ‘Who Votes for Whom?’.

Overall, the Jewish population is evenly split between Labour (31%) and the Conservatives (30%), with 11% favouring the Liberal Democrats, 8% other parties and 15% undecided at the time of fieldwork.

Younger Jews are more likely to be undecided, and less likely to support the Conservatives, than older respondents. Conservative preferences rise from 24% for those aged 18-39 to 29% for 40-59 to 33% for 60+. Support for Labour does not vary with age.

Jewish men are considerably more likely (36%) than Jewish women (22%) to prefer the Conservatives. Women are more likely than men to be Labour (33% against 28% for men), Liberal Democrats (12% against 10%) and undecided (16% against 14%).

Jews who are married are more likely to prefer the Conservatives (34%) than never married Jews (22%) or cohabitees (12%). Single (never married) Jews are more likely to prefer Labour (34%) than married respondents (28%). Liberal Democrats draw disproportionate support (24%) from cohabitees.

Self-employed Jews are more likely to be Conservatives (39% compared with 29% for Labour), whereas full-time employees prefer Labour (38% versus 25% Conservative). Retired Jews also prefer the Conservatives over Labour (37% and 29% respectively).

Jews demonstrate different political leanings depending upon where they live. Respondents in Hertfordshire (54%) and West London (46%) are overwhelmingly Conservative. In North and East London 40% prefer Labour, as do 35% in Northern England.

Jews with a self-assigned secular outlook prefer Labour, those with a religious outlook the Conservatives. The Conservative leaning grows from 21% among the secular to 29% of the somewhat secular, 38% of the somewhat religious and 45% of the religious. The Labour leaning moves in the opposite direction (42% for the secular to 24% for the religious).

Conservative support is disproportionately to be found among Central Orthodox synagogues than Reform synagogues (48% against 28%). For Labour the reverse is true (22% versus 34%). Respondents who do not belong to any synagogue are most likely to support Labour (40%).

Since Jews only constitute approximately 0.5% of the electorate, these trends are unlikely to have a seismic effect nationally. However, the community is highly concentrated spatially (for example, in Greater London and the South-East and in Greater Manchester), so in particular constituencies, especially the marginals in the 2005 general election, the Jewish vote could be influential on 6 May. However, the beneficiaries are likely to be Conservatives and Labour in equal measure. So there is no distinctive Jewish vote, after all!

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Voting Intentions and Attitudes to Religious Minorities

Posted on April 27, 2010 by Clive D. Field

With just over a week to go before the general election, we are literally awash with opinion polls at present. Unfortunately, few of those conducted during the present campaign have featured faith-specific issues, while the relatively small sample sizes mean that we get few clues about the attitudes of people who support political parties other than the ‘big three’.

It thus seems appropriate to recall one very large scale survey which YouGov ran for Channel 4 in the lead-in to last year’s European parliamentary elections, when the ‘minor parties’ were expected to make a strong showing in Britain.

No fewer than 32,268 electors were interviewed online between 29 May and 4 June 2009, including 2,749 persons intending to vote for the Green Party, 4,306 for the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and 985 for the British National Party (BNP).

The findings, which have long been in the public domain at

http://www.yougov.co.uk/extranets/ygarchives/content/pdf/Megapoll_EuroElections.pdf

have attracted scant attention. For us, they are especially useful in highlighting opinions about religious minorities, specifically Jews and Muslims, by voting intentions.

10% of all voters considered that Jews suffered unfair discrimination in Britain. Green supporters were the most sympathetic (15%), with Labourites and Liberal Democrats on 12%, Conservatives and UKIP voters on 9% and the BNP on 6%.

6% overall thought the Jews benefited from unfair advantage in Britain. Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green supporters all stood at 5%, UKIP at 6% and the BNP at 12%.

Asked whether there was a major international conspiracy led by Jews and Communists to undermine traditional Christian values in Britain and other western countries, 17% said this was completely or partially true.

The proportion rose to 21% for UKIP and 33% for BNP voters, the other parties ranging from 9% (Greens) to 19% (Conservatives). Those who said the statement was completely untrue numbered 62% in the aggregate but only 48% in the case of BNP followers.  

Just 1% of the sample registered as holocaust deniers (and no more than 2% even for BNP voters). However, 8% of UKIP and 18% of BNP supporters thought the scale of the holocaust had been exaggerated.

Turning to Muslims, 21% of all voters held that they suffered unfair discrimination in Britain. The highest percentages were for the Greens (40%) and Liberal Democrats (33%), with Labour on 29% and the Conservatives on 15%. UKIP (8%) and BNP voters (3%) were least sympathetic to Muslims.

39% felt that Muslims in Britain enjoyed unfair advantages, and this figure rose to 61% in the case of UKIP and 70% for BNP voters. They were followed by the Conservatives on 44%, Labour on 27%, the Liberal Democrats on 26% and the Greens on 22%.

Still larger numbers agreed that, even in its ‘milder forms’, Islam constituted a serious danger to western civilization. 44% overall held this view, with 64% among UKIP and 79% BNP voters. Conservatives stood at 49%, Labour at 37%, Liberal Democrats at 32% and the Greens at 27%. Those in disagreement were 32%, with only the Greens achieving a majority (55%); among UKIP supporters the figure was 17% and for the BNP’s 7%.

Three conclusions emerge from these results. First, there is significantly more prejudice against Muslims than Jews. Second, the actual level of prejudice varies considerably according to the measure used and the wording of the question. Third, Green and Liberal Democrat voters are most tolerant (but by no means totally unprejudiced), and UKIP and (in particular) BNP supporters apparently most prejudiced against Jews and Muslims.

It should be noted that all the above data relate to the views of those intending to vote for one of the six political parties in May-June 2009. These views may not necessarily be current. Nor should they be confused with the official positions of each of the parties as set out in their general election manifestos or by their leadership.

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Scottish Jewry in Decline

Posted on March 19, 2010 by Clive D. Field

The current issue (19 March 2010, pp. 4-5) of the Jewish Chronicle includes a two-page feature by its political editor, Martin Bright, on the decline of the Scottish Jewish community, from 18,000 in the 1950s to 10,000 today. The overwhelming majority of these Jews are concentrated in the Greater Glasgow area.

The article announces that, following a meeting earlier this month with the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities, the Scottish Government (through its Community Safety Unit) has committed to launch an enquiry into the causes of this decline, amid growing concern about anti-Semitism north of the border. Scottish ministers have yet to make any online public statement on the matter and to decide on the exact form of this investigation.

The anxiety about growing anti-Semitism is voiced in a recent online essay by Kenneth Collins and Ephraim Borowski on ‘Scotland’s Jews: Community and Political Challenges’, published on the website of the Institute for Global Jewish Affairs. The authors claim that much Scottish anti-Semitism is associated with events in the Middle East (specifically hostility to Israel and support for the Palestinians).

Some confirmation of this comes from the number of anti-Semitic incidents reported to the Community Security Trust (CST). There were just 10 of these in Scotland in 2008 but 30 in 2009, including 16 in January alone when the Israelis were mounting Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. One of the most serious incidents was the desecration of Jewish graves at Glenduffhill Cemetery in Glasgow, pictures of which have only just been released to the media.

Another potential indicator is prejudice against Jews and/or Israel expressed in public opinion polls. Unfortunately, although there is no shortage of such polls on a Britain-wide basis (see Clive Field, ‘John Bull’s Judeophobia’, Jahrbuch für Antisemitismusforschung, Vol. 15, 2006, pp. 259-300), the Scottish sub-samples (where analysed) are typically too small to be meaningful.

In any case, no causal link between anti-Semitism and the decline of Scottish Jewry is yet proven. Indeed, the Jewish Chronicle quotes spokespersons from the Scottish Jewish Archives Centre and the CST who appear rather dismissive of any such link.

For an overview of Scotland’s Jewish community, see Kenneth Collins with Ephraim Borowski and Leah Granat, Scotland’s Jews: A Guide to the History and Community of the Jews in Scotland, second edition, Glasgow: Scottish Council of Jewish Communities, 2008. The same publisher also issued in the same year Marlena Schmool, Scotland’s Jews, a study of Scottish Jews in the 2001 census.

Also of interest is Nathan Abrams, Caledonian Jews: A Study of Seven Small Communities in Scotland, Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2009. This focuses on the Jews of Aberdeen, Ayr, Dundee, Dunfermline, Falkirk, Greenock, Inverness, the Highlands and Islands.

POSTSCRIPT [11 June 2010]: Recent reports in the Jewish Chronicle qualify Martin Bright’s original feature article in three important respects:

a) Alex Salmond, Scotland’s First Minister, does not accept that anti-Semitism is a growing problem in Scotland;

b) the Scottish Government has not agreed to conduct an investigation into the causes of Jewish decline in Scotland; and

c) the Glasgow Jewish Educational Forum is critical of the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities for exaggerating the threat of anti-Semitism in Scotland

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Jewish Emigration from the United Kingdom to Israel

Posted on February 21, 2010 by Clive D. Field

The Jewish Agency for Israel has announced that the number of United Kingdom Jews emigrating to Israel, or making Aliyah, in 2009 was, at 853, the highest recorded figure in 26 years and 37 per cent above the 2008 level. About one-quarter of these olim arrived in Israel on three special Aliyah flights, in August, October and December 2009. The head of the Agency’s delegation in the United Kingdom has attributed the increase to the relatively good economic situation in Israel and to a new tax package reform.

The 2009 figure brings to 37,293 the number of United Kingdom Jews who have emigrated to Israel since the latter’s establishment as a state in 1948. Only in 1969-72, 1978-79 and 1982-83 did the annual total exceed 1,000. The United Kingdom accounts for just 1.2 per cent of all Jewish emigrants to Israel since 1948, the former Soviet Union countries (at 38.4 per cent) being the largest single component. The number of British Jews at the 2001 census was 267,373 or 0.5 per cent of the population.

Full details of Aliyah statistics since 1948 will be found at:

http://www.jewishagency.org/JewishAgency/English/About/Press+Room/Aliyah+Statistics

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Anti-Semitic Incidents in the United Kingdom

Posted on February 5, 2010 by Clive D. Field

The Community Security Trust (CST) has published its detailed (36 pages) Antisemitic Incidents Report, 2009. This is available on the Trust’s website at http://www.thecst.org.uk/docs/CST-incidents-report-09-for-web.pdf

The CST has been monitoring anti-Semitic incidents in the United Kingdom on an annual basis since 1984. A registered charity since 1994, the CST has 55 full-time staff and 3,000 volunteers who provide physical security, training and advice for the protection of British Jews; represent Jewry to Government and police in respect of matters affecting security and anti-Semitism; and assist victims of anti-Semitism.

924 anti-Semitic incidents were recorded by the CST in the United Kingdom in 2009, the highest annual total since statistics commenced, and 55 per cent more than the previous high of 598 incidents in 2006. This 924 represents an increase of 69 per cent on the 2008 figure of 546 and follows two years in which incidents had fallen.

The main reason for this new peak of incidents is the unprecedented number recorded in January and February 2009 (288 and 114 respectively), during and after the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. The level of incidents did not return to something like a ‘normal’ figure until April. 23 per cent of all incidents during the year included a reference to Gaza.

The majority (605) incidents in 2009 were categorized as involving abusive behaviour, followed by 121 instances of assault, both being the highest ever recorded figures. The remaining types of anti-Semitism were: damage and desecration (89), literature (62), threats (44) and extreme violence (3).

There was a close correlation between the number of incidents and areas of Jewish concentration, with 460 incidents being reported for Greater London, 206 for Greater Manchester and 258 from more than 70 other locations throughout the country.

In addition to the 924 confirmed anti-Semitic incidents in 2009, CST investigated a further 489 cases which it ultimately judged not to be anti-Semitic in nature.

The 2009 report includes, at page 35, monthly incident figures for 1999-2009. Detailed reports for 2005-08 inclusive are also available on the CST website.

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Institute for Jewish Policy Research

Posted on January 8, 2010 by Clive D. Field

The Institute for Jewish Policy Research, originally founded in New York in 1941 but located in London since 1965, has appointed Jonathan Boyd as its executive director. Mr Boyd joined the Institute a year ago as a research fellow and has recently been its acting director.

Mr Boyd will oversee the launch this week of the first national online survey of the attitudes of British Jews towards Israel, which is being conducted for the Institute by Ipsos-MORI. The survey can be found at http://www.ipsos-mori.com/israelsurvey

Future projects from the Institute will include a community-wide survey of Jewish identity in the UK and an analysis of the Jewish results of the 2011 national census, which will include a question on religious profession, as in 2001.

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