Black Lives Matter has increased racial tension, 55% say in UK poll

A majority of people believe Black Lives Matter, the anti-racism movement that spread across the UK this summer, has increased racial tension, according to a poll.

Just over half (55%) of UK adults believe the BLM protests that took place in big cities but also in the Shetland Islands and the Isle of Wight, increased racial tensions, according to a survey of more than 2,000 people by pollsters Opinium. Only 17% of the people polled in October disagreed. The polling also showed 44% of ethnic minorities felt BLM increased racial tensions.

The findings, which BLM organisers said showed the movement has exposed existing fault lines, comes alongside parallel research indicating sharp rises in the number of black people saying they faced discrimination in the last year, rising from 74% in 2019 to 81%. In a possible sign of racism arising from the origin of Covid-19 in Wuhan, the proportion of Chinese people saying they faced discrimination over the same period rose from 68% to 76%, according to polling carried out in June.

Opinium’s annual survey of multicultural Britain also found that 71% of Asian people had suffered discrimination or abuse because of their ethnicity, rising to 81% among black people.


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/27/black-lives-matter-has-increased-racial-tension-55-say-in-uk-poll?CMP=share_btn_tw