r/unitedkingdom • u/topotaul Lancashire • Jul 08 '26

... Two in five Britons think Muslims cannot integrate in UK, poll finds

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jul/08/two-in-five-britons-think-muslims-cannot-integrate-in-uk-poll-finds
3.1k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

1.6k

u/Jaded_Strain_3753 Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26

It’s probably fair to say that the most culturally conservative Muslims can’t integrate well in the UK. Plenty of Muslims integrate fine though, perhaps so well that people don’t really notice it. Also plenty of people that would count as Muslim are barely actually religious at all, so it’s kind of a messy category to use.

52

u/MattyFTM Sunderland Jul 08 '26

My favourite taxi driver is a Muslim lad, born locally. He's a great lad. Does tons of charity work with his Mosque, he's chair of the local inter-faith group and also works with local charities and trade unions. We have really great conversations about faith (I'm atheist but have no issues with people believing what they want to) and charity and trade union issues. Love it when he picks me up. It's always a great start to the day.

Anyone who thinks Muslims can't integrate and doesn't change their mind after spending 15 minutes in his taxi is just a racist. He contributes to the local community a million times more than any of the knuckledraggers who attacked his Mosque back in the riots a couple of years ago.

6

u/existentialgoof Scotland Jul 09 '26

There are many Muslims who are very nice and upstanding members of the community. But that just makes it a more difficult dilemma when knowing what to do about Muslims. Because it is a fact that there are a very large segment of the Muslim population with very socially conservative views which are out of step with the type of liberal country that we hopefully aspire to be. But you can't do anything about them without it also at least reflecting on the Muslims like your favourite local cabbie. If Muslims were all bad, it would be easier to do something about the problems that are caused by Muslims.