More than one in five Britons now hold or agree with anti-Semitic views, a study has found. 

The study found that 21 per cent of the public affirmed four or more anti-Semitic statements, compared to 16 per cent last year. In 2021, the figure was just 11 per cent.

Researchers said the findings showed that the number of people holding what would be considered entrenched anti-Semitic views has doubled in less than five years to more than a fifth of the population.

The figures are the highest since similar surveys began a decade ago.

This comes after the Oct 7 attacks on southern Israel, which killed more than 1,200 Jews – the single highest death toll since the Holocaust.

Continued images of the devastation in Gaza caused by the Israeli retaliation appear to have fuelled growing anti-Semitic sentiment, with criticism of Israel tipping into wider anti-Jewish sentiment.

The YouGov survey, commissioned by the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA), found that 45 per cent of the British public – almost half of the population – believes that Israel treats the Palestinians like the Nazis treated the Jews.

This is a record figure and a marked increase from last year’s prior record of 33 per cent. Some 60 per cent of young people believe this, along with 48 per cent of people living in London.

The CAA said equating Israel’s actions with those of Hitler’s Nazis was “one of the most common anti-Semitic tropes that we see”.

The campaign group said: “It both trivialises the Holocaust, in which six million Jews were industrially slaughtered, and insultingly accuses victims of the crime committed against them of perpetrating it.”