Welcome
Welcome to the Fear & Hope website where you will find our report of one of the largest and most comprehensive surveys ever commissioned examining attitudes to English identity, faith and race.
We commissioned this survey at Searchlight Educational Trust because we wanted people of goodwill to be armed with the facts about the new politics of identity that the mainstream political parties have yet to take fully on board.
There is much to be digested as we see new political forces coalescing around extreme forms of national and religious identity. And being new forces they have to be combated in new ways, ways that have not been necessarily fully discovered yet.
That is not to say that we throw away all our past understandings of nation, identity and race, far from it. What we hope this report will help to do is build on our past understanding of these issues and further develop that knowledge for the new challenges that we undoubtedly face.
Fear has always been a major engine of bigotry, and people’s genuine fear of their own social and economic future opens them up for exploitation by organisations whose agenda is not to unite people against our common problems, but rather to divide them with narrow notions of who they are.
In contrast to fear, this report is born out of optimism and hope. It is our contribution to a debate, and hopefully the beginning of a new understanding of identity. We welcome your responses and views and would love to hear from you.
Please keep checking the website as we will be adding more information and further details of the Together campaign.
Nick Lowles
HOPE not hate Educational Ltd
