Nearly half of Tory members don’t want a Muslim prime minister

Nearly half of Tory party members said they would prefer not to have Britain led by a Muslim, a new poll shows.

Only 8% of members agreed with the statement that they ‘would be proud of Britain if we were to elect a Muslim as our Prime Minister’, while 43% agreed that ‘I would prefer to not have the country led by a Muslim’.

Polling carried out by YouGov revealed anti-Muslim attitudes running through the party.

A total of 40% of members believe that we should lower the number of Muslims entering Britain.

In comparison, only 5% wanted to see fewer Christians or Jewish people enter the country.

The online poll of 864 adults was commissioned by Hope Not Hate and carried out between June 14 – 18.

New @hopenothate polling on @Conservatives #Islamophobia is pretty shocking. https://t.co/nPc2wksRe2

— Joe Mulhall (@JoeMulhall_) June 24, 2019

It showed many people buying into Islamophobic myths, such as 67% who believe ‘there are areas in Britain that operate under Sharia law’, as opposed to just 18% who do not believe this to be the case.

In addition, 45% believe ‘there are areas in Britain in which non-Muslims are not able to enter’, as opposed to just 34% who do not believe this to be the case.

The poll also found that 39% of members believe that ‘Islamist terrorists reflect a widespread hostility to Britain amongst the Muslim community’.

When asked about immigration, only 3% say that policy should be geared to higher Muslim immigration, compared to 12% for people fleeing war, 16% for Jewish people and 25% for Christians.

Despite the poll results, only 8% of members said they thought there was a problem of Islamophobia or racism towards Muslims within the Conservative Party. A total of 79% don’t think there is a problem.

Hope Not Hate said: ‘While any legal immigrant should expect the same welcome, the fact that members view immigrants differently according to their faith suggests an underlying prejudice.’

‘These numbers underline the fact that the spate of media stories about Conservative members are not isolated incidents.

‘Given the anti-Muslim sentiments of huge numbers of members, it is not surprising to learn that they dismiss the recent spate of incidents of Islamophobia.’

They called on the new Tory leader to ‘stand by their commitment made at last week’s leadership debate to hold an independent, external investigation into Islamophobia in the party, and the party’s reaction to it.’