Lies, damn lies, and statistics. How More in Common builds bias on Palestine and Israel into its research   

JVL Introduction

We are delighted and really appreciate that Mandy Turner agreed to develop her initial observations on bias in research on the “Israel-Palestine” conflict for us to publish. Her forensic eye focused on the work of “More In Common” but, especially in the West, we are fed from a biased narrative such that we may not even notice it; helping and giving us the tools to  notice is one of the reasons this article is so important.

LL

More in Common does focus groups for the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg. You see its UK director Luke Tryl regularly on the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme Newsnight.[1] It investigates public attitudes on everything from political parties, the economy, and public services, through to online safety and masculinity. The research group is an accredited member of the British Polling Council, giving it a scientific seal of approval.

In November 2025, More in Common produced a report After Choosing Sides: Britain’s Changing Views on the Israel-Palestine Conflict based on opinion polls and focus groups. This is an important issue, worthy of investigation. Yet, After Choosing Sides is riddled with skewed questions, unbalanced coverage, and biased framing. Israel’s rights are privileged and Zionism is given a sparkling makeover, whereas Palestinian rights are completely ignored in favour of a focus on Hamas.

The squeaky-clean and neutral image projected by More in Common is what especially worries me about this report, because it is being quoted as an authoritative piece of research in media across the political spectrum – from The Independent and Arab News, to The Telegraph and the Daily Mail.  But few will take the time to examine the report closely and see how it is promoting a biased political agenda often not even supported by the statistics it provides. Even fewer will look at who funded this research and consider how this might have influenced it.[2]

Skewed questions and uneven logic

Let’s start with the basics. The report uses the term “the Israel-Palestine conflict” but only once, tangentially, is the term “occupation” used. Questions were asked on “does Israel have a right to exist” and whether “Jewish people have a right to a nation in Israel”. There were no similar questions related to Palestinian rights. Not one. This privileges Israel’s “rights” from the get-go.

For research balance and for understanding public opinion, the survey should have included questions on “do Palestinians have a right to live without Israeli occupation” or whether “Palestinians have a right to a nation”. Otherwise, you are helping to feed the idea that “the conflict” started in October 2023 and that the attack on October 7 by Hamas and other groups happened out of the blue. Most British people know this is not the case.

Instead, there are questions on Hamas and lots of reference to Hamas in the narrative explanation. I thought we had long gone past the “do you condemn Hamas” phase where over 100 years of Palestinian dispossession and 77 years of Israel’s settler colonial expansion magically disappear. But not in this case.

Why no question about how people understand what is going on – does, for instance, Israel have “the right to exist” as an apartheid state?  Does it “have the right” to blockade Gaza and annex the West Bank? Instead, the report presents responses on Israel’s “right to exist” immediately after a question on whether “Israel’s military response in Gaza has been proportionate” (only 19 percent thought it had).

This was my first alarm bell.

Words and terms are a political minefield, because they mean different things to different people. Our understandings of terms are crucial because they underpin how we view the world and potentially decide how to act. The report acknowledges that terms and words can be politically loaded and a point of profound disagreement, but the two it focuses on and the way it does is pretty revealing.  “Zionism” and “genocide” are regarded as flashpoints – neutral and factual terms to some, but offensive to others – that make “constructive conversation” harder.

No definition of genocide is provided, despite it being a legally defined term in international law.

But a definition of Zionism is provided – as the “right of Jewish people to have a nation in Israel”. Quite aside from the clumsy framing, this definition of Zionism is heavily disputed by anti-Zionists, including Jewish Voice for Liberation which states “whatever some believe Zionism once had the potential to be, it is now irredeemably racist and imperialist, supremacist and exclusionary.” So, the question is: why did More in Common decide to use one, heavily disputed, definition of Zionism in its report?

This was my second alarm bell.

There is a very odd logic underpinning the report. Those who have “taken a side” are defined as extreme whereas those who have not taken a side or say they do not know enough are defined as moderate. Politically and ethically this is troubling, although logically it might make sense if the extreme are statistically the minority, whereas moderates are the majority.  Bear with me, I will explain why this is important.

Because, on occasion, this logic is reversed. In reply to the question “how appropriate is it to use the word genocide to describe the conflict between Israel and Palestine”, 46 percent said it was very appropriate or somewhat appropriate whereas only 34 percent said neither or don’t know, and 20 percent said it was very inappropriate or somewhat inappropriate.

You don’t need to be a professional pollster to work out which is the majority view and so, according to the earlier logic, the moderate view, and which is the minority and therefore extreme view when it comes to opinion on whether Israel is committing a genocide.

It is very significant that nearly 50 percent believe that Israel is committing a genocide against Palestinians, particularly given how allergic the British government and mainstream media have been to the term. What policy advice could be gleaned from this majority position amongst the British public? One springs to mind: that the UK government should end its arms trade with Israel.

But this is not a conclusion reached by More in Common. Instead, the report chides that “Despite this, for many others, the term genocide is innappropriate [sic] and for some offensive.” In anyone’s definition, 20 percent is not “many” compared to nearly 50 percent.  This is followed by reference to the Holocaust as a reason not to conclude that Israel is committing genocide – whereas this is clearly a minority opinion. It’s fascinating how More in Common privileges certain minority opinions at opportune moments.

The way in which After Choosing Sides questions and discusses Zionism goes well beyond what a poll might probe and is further evidence that bias underpins the whole report. There is a very deliberate attempt to explain away the huge lack of support (only 9 percent) and the very large percentage of “don’t knows” for the statement “I consider myself to be a Zionist” by dismissing it as “Britons’ understanding of what the term means is limited.” This is a bit patronising, to say the least.

But More in Common saves the day, by conveniently placing this question beside one on “the right of Jewish people to have a nation in Israel”. This is used to hammer home what More in Common believes Zionism is and what it is not. We are then given an opinion – because it is neither supported by a poll question or a focus-group quote – that those who are critical of Zionism are misinformed and misguided.

Jewish News reported on this “finding” very favourably, stating that “the majority of British adults are Zionist – but don’t seem to know it”. Dear Jewish Voice for Liberation readers, please take a deep breath before reading this section.

Glossing over inconvenient findings. Who is more hateful and why it matters

One of the novel aspects of the report is that it probed how people consider each other’s motivations for sympathising with Israel or sympathising with Palestinians. I was keen to read about this. And I wasn’t disappointed, because the poll proved something I have long considered to be the case: that people sympathising with Israel are more hateful towards people sympathising with Palestinians than vice versa.

Check out the facts yourself – there is a very significant difference.

People sympathising with Israel think that 65 percent of people who sympathise with Palestinians are motivated by antisemitism and 62 percent “don’t believe in Israel’s right to exist”. Only 40 percent think that people supporting Palestinians are motivated by opposition to “occupation and displacement”. That’s a lot of hate being ascribed to people who support Palestinian rights to live in freedom and with dignity.

Compare this when the question is reversed.

People sympathising with Palestinians think that 40 percent of people sympathising with Israel are motivated by being “anti-Muslim/anti-Arab”, 39 percent because they support the “right of Israel to defend itself”, and 38 percent because they “sympathise with the Jewish people because of historic persecution”. This is surprisingly balanced and generous given how those who support Palestinian rights have been censored, hounded out of jobs, vilified by the media, and ignored by politicians.

But the narrative explanation given by More in Common ignores this very big difference. Why? What motivation is there for presenting this as an equal problem of hate on both sides?

There is a similar curious silence over the results of the question on whether “the Israeli government represents the view of ordinary Israelis”. We have seen this trick before – the “blame Bibi” approach to explaining Israel’s genocide. Yet More in Common clearly did not get the result it presumably wanted. The poll shows that 61 percent sympathising with Palestinians say the government does not represent ordinary Israelis, whereas 60 percent sympathising with Israel say it does. Again, this is surprisingly generous of those sympathising with Palestinians to see Israelis in a better light than their government given that opinion polls show the public supports the actions of its government in Gaza, including one in June 2025 that 82 percent of Israelis support expelling Palestinians from Gaza. I won’t even begin to consider what this tells us about British citizens that sympathise with Israel – they clearly see government and people united in their war crimes.

There is a pattern here that is a very familiar one – of privileging a Zionist perspective (using a particular definition of a contested ideology) and if that doesn’t work then blame both sides.

Biased framing. Mis-portraying antisemitism as a problem on the left, defining anti-Muslim hate as complex

The sections on “Is Britain a safe place for Jews” and on “What can be done about anti-Muslim hate” are also riddled with skewed questions and biased framing.

We are told that only 8 percent of British people have “negative attitudes about Jews” and that all sections of the public consider antisemitism to be a problem – there is literally no difference in the attitudes polled between left/progressives and right/conservatives on this.

Yet the report blames the left/progressives and tries to explain away rising support amongst British Jews for far-right leaders such as Tommy Robinson. The section ends with a warning that progressives need to do more to prevent antisemitism becoming a partisan issue even though More in Common’s opinion polls show it is not.

When it comes to addressing anti-Muslim hate, More in Common reports that 21 percent of British people have a “negative view of Muslims” but then devotes nearly four pages to discussing fears over whether a formal definition of Islamophobia would restrict freedom of expression. This section ends, yet again, with a warning to progressives concerned about anti-Muslim hate that they should not dismiss worries about free speech and integration “as inherently bigoted.”

The difference in the way these two important issues are dealt with is stark and really jars, especially from an organisation whose public mission is to understand polarisation and tackle community division.

There is no equal concern or space given to consider the feelings of those afraid of being wrongly accused of antisemitism when expressing support for Palestinian rights. The report does not mention the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism (IHRA) nor its negative impacts on academic freedom and free speech. Yet this is not a marginal concern – it was highlighted in a June 2024 report by Irene Khan the UN special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression and in a February 2025 report by Liberty, the British civil liberties group. The UK was the first government to adopt the IHRA and used threats of financial sanctions on British universities if they did not adopt it. Why were there no questions about this, or reference to it? I have a possible answer for this later, so keep reading.

More in Common recommends that schools should be spaces for open debate. But there is not one single reference to the UK government’s anti-terrorism “Prevent” strategy. There has been ample research on the worrying trend of students – both at school and university – being investigated for expressing pro-Palestine views under “Prevent”. Because this strategy has been so divisive and censorial, completely ignoring it seems deliberate.

There are other examples of how the report tries to explain away or account for conservative/right-wing views or anti-Muslim perspectives and blame those on the left. It is frankly disturbing that two pages are devoted to “progressive activists” defining them as a problem who use “extreme language” and support “disruptive protest”.

This is pure and simple left-baiting camouflaged by the way More in Common uses “seven segments” to understand the British population – a questionable research method that helps provide a further smokescreen for bias in this report.

Why the bias? Who is More in Common?

The big question now is why is this report so biased? Who is More in Common and why is its investigation into this important issue so fundamentally skewed?

In terms of origins, More in Common was founded in the aftermath of the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox in 2016 by a far-right extremist. It took its name from Cox’s first speech in the UK parliament where she said: “We are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us.” It is part of a multinational network with separate legal entities in Brazil, France, Germany, Poland, Spain, the UK, and the United States.[3] The directors cross the political spectrum from mainstream left to mainstream right. More in Common UK is registered as a non-profit private limited company governed by 11 directors and it is headed by Luke Tryl, a former Conservative government adviser, and co-author of After Choosing Sides.[4]

More in Common’s work is regularly quoted in the media, it holds events at most party political conferences,[5] and it has conducted research for clients as diverse as UK government departments, the British Library, the National Trust, and Friends of the Earth. This creates an air of respectability and trust.

In terms of More in Common’s funding, this comes from consultancy work and organisations such as the John Ellerman Foundation – although, in the UK, private limited companies do not need to reveal full information about their finances.

But, significantly, funding for After Choosing Sides was provided by the Pears Foundation, which is a driving force of liberal Zionism in the UK. The report states that “More in Common has retained full editorial control over its content, and the findings are our own.” This is a common disclaimer, but nevertheless this funding might help us understand the deafening silence on the IHRA definition in More in Common’s report. Why? Because the Pears Foundation has notoriously interfered in freedom of speech with regards to who it funds, particularly those who oppose the IHRA and engage in critical discussions of Israel.[6]

One prominent example was in April 2021, when the Pears Foundation withdrew its name (and core funding, although it still provides some) from the Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism – now the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism. While it has never been publicly revealed why the Pears Foundation did this, the European Jewish Congress and the Antisemitism Policy Trust, who we can assume are in the know on these issues, explained it as a political decision, taken because Pears Institute director, Professor David Feldman, very publicly opposed the IHRA definition of antisemitism adopted by the British government and criticised its imposition on UK universities. You would have to be naïve not to see this as a very big signal to recipients – and future recipients – of Pears Foundation funds.

This is further compounded by the fact that the Pears Foundation is an invitation-only funder, which means that its people seek you out. You need to have caught their eye.

Amy Braier, director of the Pears Foundation, greeted the publication of After Choosing Sides with a post on the social networking platform LinkedIn stating: “After the horrific events of 7 October 2023 and the start of the war that followed, one of the first calls we made was to the team at More in Common.” Braier amplifies the report’s concerns about “strong viewpoints”, “opposing camps” and “countering polarisation” to strengthen “social cohesion”.

These concerns appear reasonable and that is what makes it so difficult to criticise this report, because it immediately presumes that to do so is unreasonable. But it seems to me that the core concern of After Choosing Sides is to repackage Zionism, try to cover up the stench of genocide, and mask shifting opinions amongst the British public.

What happens when the middle ground shifts?

One of my final bugbears with After Taking Sides is that it used what More in Common considers its novel approach to researching British public opinion. Described as “seven segments: the new tribes of Shattered Britain” that it purports captures a more interesting dynamic “beyond a simple left-right spectrum”, which segment you belong to is determined through a 21-question quiz.[7] I took the quiz and can vouch that the questions are far too simplistic.

In this research framing, categories traditionally used such as class, ethnicity, sexual identity, age, or geographical location are of no consequence; beliefs are untethered from life experiences.[8] This means there is no way of determining who holds what opinion and why, and what this knowledge might mean politically or in policy terms. So, if everyone’s beliefs are valid and all have equal weight, moderation is “the middle ground”.

But what happens when the middle ground shifts? What happens when public opinion changes on a subject? What should we make of the finding that nearly 50 percent of the British public think that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians and only 9 percent say they are Zionists (despite More in Common’s very visible, and risible, attempt to disguise it)? Surely this indicates a new middle ground.

Opinion polls across Western states show that people are turning against Israel and more are sympathising with Palestinians – and this is even stronger amongst young people. What does this information mean politically? Basically, it means that, just as in the 1980s when Western publics became aware of and acted against apartheid South Africa, they are now increasingly acting against Israel through initiatives to divest and boycott. Soon, Israel will become a pariah state until it stops oppressing Palestinians. This new middle ground also means that think tanks such as More in Common will have to work even harder to mask the facts. Maybe statistics do not always lie.

Mandy Turner is a writer affiliated with Security in Context as a senior researcher. She would like to thank the Jewish Voice for Liberation team for comments made on an earlier draft, but all opinions and any errors are hers alone.

End notes

[1] Thanks to Jonathan Rosenhead for pointing this out to me, because I stopped watching or listening to BBC current affairs programmes long ago.

[2] I am a former university professor who taught research methods and ethics at postgraduate level, with 25 years’ experience of researching and writing about the situation in Israel and Palestine and the politics of it in the UK. I read the report and attended the webinar launch on 24 November 2025, then wrote to the group outlining my concerns. My email was politely acknowledged, but More in Common did not further engage.

[3] Their occupations include journalists, management consultants and wealth fund managers, British peers, a Dutch princess, a member of prime minister Keir Starmer’s team, social entrepreneurs, and serial think tankers.

[4] When Tryl was a special adviser to Conservative education minister Nicky Morgan he logged receiving a lunch from Conservative Friends of Israel on 16 December 2014. Presumably, this was the annual CFI Business Lunch where prime minister David Cameron made a speech to 750 people, including the Israeli Ambassador, pledging support for Israel – “an incredible nation” which is the “homeland of the Jewish people”.

[5] While Tryl speaks at many political events, he was a speaker on nine panels at the 2025 Conservative party conference – this far outstrips talks at the other party political conferences.

[6] The Pears Foundation has financially contributed to the development of “Israel Studies” in the UK through funding professor posts in various universities. It also funds initiatives designed to undermine the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Executive chair of the board of trustees is Trevor Pears, who has served on the boards of Israel lobby group BICOM and the Antisemitism Policy Trust. For further analysis see Hil Aked Friends of Israel: The Backlash Against Palestine Solidarity (Verso, 2023), pp.156-164.

[7] The seven “tribes” and their population percentages are: “progressive activist” (12 percent), “incrementalist left” (21 percent), “established liberal” (9 percent), “sceptical scroller” (10 percent), “rooted patriot” (20 percent), “traditional conservative” (8 percent), or “dissenting disruptor” (20 percent).

[8] It is not clear what the benefits are, if any, of this approach, particularly given that More in Common is forced, on occasion, to present findings from traditional categories (i.e., age, gender, ethnicity, geographical location, etc). But what it does show us is more extreme bias in After Choosing Sides. There is no quote from a “progressive activist” until page 88 and there are only two quotes from this group throughout the whole report and they are from the same person. There are far more quotes from “dissenting disruptors” (13 quotes) and “rooted patriots” (22 quotes), despite rooted patriots having been only one focus group compared to two focus groups with progressive activists. Research reports should strive to avoid this level of imbalance because it indicates bias.