A new report about how well different groups live together in Britain has uncovered troubling attitudes. Four in ten Britons say Muslims cannot fit into British society. More than half worry that Britain's national identity is fading because of diversity. The findings come from a study called "Britain Under Strain: The Broken Social Contract, Democratic Distrust and the Mainstreaming of Extremism," written by Sara Khan, who stepped down in 2024 from her job as Britain's first counter-extremism commissioner, and Dr Matthew Godwin from the Tony Blair Institute The Guardian.

Khan's background matters. She spent three years as the government's main adviser on how communities get along and stay resilient. That job gave her direct access to data about government extremism referrals, tensions between communities, and hate crime. The survey questioned 4,094 adults in spring 2026, enough people to show differences between age groups, political parties, and religions.

But here is something surprising: when the researchers asked British Muslims directly, 85% said they wanted to integrate into British society. This doesn't match what non-Muslims say. Four in ten non-Muslims think Muslims do not want to integrate, yet the Muslims themselves mostly say they do. This gap suggests people may be expressing worry about change itself rather than describing what is actually happening.

The worry runs wide. Six in ten people said the basic deal between citizens and their government — where people accept rules in exchange for institutions working fairly — has broken down. One in three said people who want to move to another country should be able to do so regardless of government rules. Nearly one in three agreed that non-white people could never be truly British. These views split sharply by political party: among Reform UK voters, seven in ten believe Muslims cannot integrate.

The report also found concerning beliefs within Muslim communities themselves. Nearly two-thirds of British Muslims surveyed said white people work against Muslims. More than half said the same about Jewish people. Roughly one in four British Muslims said the Holocaust was invented or made worse than it was. These findings matter because distrust appears across many communities, not just one side of the divide.

Younger people show different attitudes toward political violence. Eight in ten Britons overall say it is never acceptable. But nearly three in ten people aged 18 to 34 said political violence could be justified in some situations. About one in four people overall said it is fine to ignore rules and institutions when they get in the way of change — a sign that faith in how democracy works is eroding.

The researchers counted how many protests and rallies happened. They found 1,784 far-right events and 225 Islamist events over 12 months, offering hard numbers instead of guesses about which side organizes more.

Khan's position gives her findings weight. She held two of the most important government advisory jobs on extremism and cohesion. When she publishes warnings, officials cannot easily ignore them. Later in 2026, a new government organization called the UK Extremism and Democratic Resilience Centre will launch, and it will likely rely on data like this.

The implications of this report go beyond any single number. What matters more is that it measures, carefully and with numbers, worries and suspicions that people have been talking about for years across Britain. When people quote the 42% figure or the 33% remigration figure, some will say it proves multiculturalism has failed in Britain. Others will say it proves the survey just captures fear that people have been taught to feel. Both these readings miss something harder to accept: distrust in government, dislike of people outside one's own group, and willingness to break democratic rules are not stuck to one community or one side of politics. They are spread unevenly across all of British society.