British Muslims face barriers and prejudice, says QED founder

Despite its rather dry title - The Economic Contribution of British Muslims to the UK’s Growth and Prosperity, and the Risk of Exodus - the report makes some interesting points.

It highlights the huge impact that British Muslims have on the UK economy and society in general, but warns we risk facing a ‘brain drain’ unless the country addresses the concerns that are causing many ambitious and talented British Muslims to consider moving abroad to live and work.

As the report shows, British Muslims generate around £70 billion a year for the UK economy. But their impact goes far beyond money. We know they fill crucial roles as doctors, teachers and bus drivers, and that Muslim-owned businesses create vital jobs in towns and cities like Bradford. So far, so positive.

However, barriers and discrimination faced by British Muslims risk inhibiting this contribution. This summer’s riots that brought violent disorder to the streets of some of our towns and cities (though thankfully not here in Bradford), was fuelled by online misinformation and racist and anti-immigration sentiments. Mosques and hostels were targeted leaving many Muslims feeling terrified.

According to the report, British Muslims are 50 per cent more likely to want to leave the UK than the average British citizen and among affluent Muslims this figure is even higher. It goes on to say if they did leave this would hit the UK economy to the tune of £1.1bn a year.

And this isn’t a lone voice. In her new book Muslims Don’t Matter, Baroness Warsi, former Conservative Party chairwoman and the first female Muslim to sit in the cabinet, warns that Islamophobia is increasing in Britain with anti-Muslim racism now dangerously out-of-control.

Such rhetoric might sound alarmist to some people but not to the four million British Muslims, of whom I am one.

Dr Mohammed Ali speaking at the launch of the national Network of Pakistani Voluntary Organisations in 2019 (Image: Dr Mohammed Ali)

A study published in 2022 by the University of Birmingham, carried out in conjunction with YouGov, found that nearly 26 per cent of the British public have negative feelings towards Muslims. The survey, presented in a report titled The Dinner Table Prejudice: Islamophobia in Contemporary Britain, also found that British people are almost three times more likely to hold prejudiced views of Islam than they are of other religions.

This goes to the heart of the problem. Arguably the biggest issue facing Muslims in the UK and in the West in general is the perception other people have of them.

It has been reported that for every positive news story about Muslims there are 22 negative ones, which is a startling and depressing statistic. It’s why I would say of all the work we’ve done at QED Foundation over the past 34 years, the programmes we run aimed at educating people about Muslim communities are some of the most important.

We must challenge misinformation and prejudice wherever we encounter it, and in my experience the most effective way is through education and talking to people. Only by showing that Britain’s Muslims are ordinary people with the same hopes and fears as everyone else can we overcome the false misconceptions that persist.

There are other issues, too. Figures published during the last 10 years show that Muslims face some of the lowest employment rates and lowest earnings of any group in Britain and are underrepresented in managerial and professional roles. They also often live in some of the country’s most deprived areas. According to a study published by the ONS in 2021, people who identified as ‘Muslim’ were nearly four times more likely to live in overcrowded homes than the overall population of England and Wales.

In a nutshell, most indicators concerning people’s quality of life show Muslim communities languishing near the bottom. This is despite the fact that they make a huge economic and social contribution to the UK.

Such inequities have existed in this country for a long time and the fact that some of our most talented young Muslims are looking to move to wealthy Middle Eastern countries like Qatar and UAE is a concern.

But I still believe Britain is one of the best places in the world to live and work. It’s certainly a more prosperous and tolerant country than the one I first moved to in 1969.

So it’s not all doom and gloom. Far from it. Following the recent general election there are now 25 Muslim MPs, compared to just four from all ethnic minority backgrounds back in 1987. We also have successful Muslim entrepreneurs, business leaders, scientists and media figures. But what Equi’s report and Sayeeda Warsi’s book starkly illustrates, is there is still much more work to be done before we have true equality for all British communities.

* Dr Mohammed Ali is Founder and Chief Executive of QED Foundation.