Jews seen as Britain’s least safe minority, warns Dame Sara Khan report

Britain’s Jewish community is viewed as the country’s least safe minority group, according to a major new report warning that rising extremism and collapsing trust in public institutions are becoming a threat to both national security and democracy.

The report, Britain Under Strain, by former Counter Extremism Commissioner Dame Sara Khan and extremism researcher Dr Matthew Godwin, argues that growing distrust of the state, increasing support for extremist ideas and the spread of conspiracy theories are all part of the same national challenge rather than separate problems.

Among its findings, only 38 percent of people believed Britain is a safe country for Jewish people, making Jews the minority group the public perceives as being at greatest risk.

The research also found that 27 percent of British Muslims agreed with the statement that the Holocaust has been “invented or exaggerated”, while 40 percent of Britons believe a secret group controls major world events. The authors say such conspiracy theories are often drawn on longstanding antisemitic narratives.

The report also found that support for the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory exists across the political spectrum. More than half (54 percent) of Reform UK supporters said they believe the theory was true, alongside 26 percent of Conservative voters, 19 percent of Labour voters, 14 percent of Liberal Democrat supporters and 13 percent of Green voters.

Researchers have said the conspiracy theory has been promoted by hostile foreign states and extremist groups and is closely linked to antisemitic ideas about hidden Jewish influence.

The report paints a wider picture of declining confidence in British democracy. It found that 61 percent of people believe the country’s social contract has broken down, while 28 percent said rules and institutions should be ignored if they stand in the way of change.

It also found growing concern over national identity, with 55 percent saying Britain’s identity is disappearing because of increasing diversity. Meanwhile, 31 percent agreed that non-white people would “never be as British” as white people.

The authors also warned that younger adults are becoming more accepting of political violence. While 80 percent of Britons overall said political violence is never acceptable, almost three in ten people aged 18 to 34 said it could sometimes be justified.

Alongside the polling, the report’s year-long monitoring project recorded 1,784 far-right offline events across Britain between March 2025 and March 2026, compared with 225 Islamist events. It also claims Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has built links with around 30 UK charities, with 10 currently under investigation by the Charity Commission, while Russia has sought to fuel far-right activity in Britain.

Dame Sara Khan said: “The challenge now facing us is more serious, and more deeply rooted, than when I was Counter Extremism Commissioner. This is not a passing dip in confidence but a structural crisis as a result of a chronic erosion of trust in institutions.”

She added: “The window to grip this is vanishingly small. The incoming prime minister must address these issues before our social contract anxieties shred away our democratic values.”

The report calls on the Government to treat democratic resilience as a national security priority, strengthen efforts to counter online extremism, rebuild trust in public institutions and develop new ways of promoting democratic values.

Britain Under Strain: The Broken Social Contract, Democratic Distrust and the Mainstreaming of Extremism was commissioned ahead of the launch later this year of the UK Extremism and Democratic Resilience Centre. It is based on polling of more than 4,000 adults, a separate survey of 1,300 British Muslims, a year-long extremism monitoring project and expert workshops involving government, academics and civil society representatives.