Mick Hartley

Nick Cohen looks at the prevalent belief in the US that it somehow integrates its Muslim immigrants better than we do in Europe…

Conservatives claimed that immigrants could not sit resentfully at home living on welfare payments and developing sectarian grievances, as they could in corrupt Europe, but had to find jobs that inevitably brought them into contact with Americans from other cultures.

"In the United Kingdom, 81% of Muslims consider themselves Muslims first, British second. In the United States, only 47% consider themselves Muslim first," wrote an author for Slate magazine in 2007, who once again emphasised the chances for immigrants to get on in life as a main reason why the home-grown bomb plots that had so worried MI5 had rarely troubled the FBI.

and suggests that, with the arrest in Pakistan of five potential al-Qaeda recruits from Virginia, and the recent Fort Hood shootings, they shouldn't be quite so smug. And now we have this new poll to cheer us up, suggesting that the UK's Muslims are the most patriotic in Europe:

The report, funded by George Soros, the billionaire philanthropist, found that on average 78% of Muslims identified themselves as British, although this dropped by six points in east London.

This compares with 49% of Muslims who consider themselves French and just 23% who feel German.

I think we take it that those 49% who consider themselves French, and the 23% who feel German, are in fact based in, respectively, France and Germany, and not in the UK. At least I hope so.

The report appears to contradict previous research in the UK suggesting some Muslims are failing to embrace British values. A Populus poll in 2006 claimed that 7% of British Muslims believed suicide attacks on fellow civilians could be justified….

The survey found that levels of patriotism are much higher among second-generation Muslims. In Leicester, 72% of Muslims born abroad said they felt British; this figure jumped to 94% among UK-born Muslims.

Experts believe that Muslims in Germany may feel less patriotic because they have only been allowed citizenship since the 1990s. France’s divisive history with its colonies, such as Algeria, could explain its lower levels of patriotism.

Well, whatever it all means, we'll take comfort from that – until the next poll comes along.