Who doesn't feel British? Divisions over Muslims

Abstract

Politicians increasingly promote Britishness. We thus ask who do they think has difficulty feeling British and why do they think this? Scholars have not yet tried to address these questions and in this article we attempt to do so. Using interviews with former home secretaries, junior ministers and their shadow cabinet counterparts, we examine whether leading politicians think that Muslims have difficulty feeling British. We show that senior members of the main political parties are not only internally divided on this issue, but that a cross-party divide exists and that many of the members of these divisions are unaware of the relevant sociological data.