I’m very happy to announce the forthcoming publication, ‘The Credential Reversal: Blocked Credentialism, Ethnic Penalties, and Institutional Trust among British Muslims’, in Ethnic and Racial Studies with my colleague Özge Onay of the Department of Sociology, University of Cambridge. This short blog is a summary of its key findings and contribution to current debates. For…… Continue reading Degrees of Distrust: How Higher Education Alienates British Muslims
Author: prof.t.abbas
The Racialisation of the Ballot: Why Muslim Political Power is Pathologised in Multicultural Britain
The Green Party’s historic victory in the Gorton and Denton by-election on 26 February 2026, represents one of the most dramatic and structurally significant electoral realignments in recent British political history. In capturing approximately 40% of the electorate and overturning a massive Labour majority of over 13,400 votes, 34-year-old local plumber and councillor Hannah Spencer…… Continue reading The Racialisation of the Ballot: Why Muslim Political Power is Pathologised in Multicultural Britain
Manufactured Collapse: From the Iraq Dossier to the Iran Strikes
This morning’s events, Israel’s coordinated strikes on Tehran followed by Donald Trump’s announcement that the United States has commenced “major combat operations” against Iran, represent a calculated escalation that is as lawless as it is historically predictable. The parallels with the Iraq catastrophe of 2003 are not merely rhetorical; they are structurally identical. Then, as…… Continue reading Manufactured Collapse: From the Iraq Dossier to the Iran Strikes
The Gorton and Denton By-Election: A Laboratory of Post-Labour Politics
The Gorton and Denton by-election has transcended the typical local skirmish to become a high-stakes referendum on the soul of British politics. As voters prepare to head to the polls on 26 February, the constituency has transformed into a laboratory where three distinct political eras are colliding: the entrenched localism of the Greens, the transatlantic…… Continue reading The Gorton and Denton By-Election: A Laboratory of Post-Labour Politics
The Secular Paradox: Why Britain’s Non-Religious Aren’t as Tolerant as You Think
The Hook: A Nation in Transition The prevailing “Progressive Secular Narrative” has long suggested that as the foundations of “Christian Britain” crumble, they are naturally replaced by a more inclusive, tolerant civic identity. The logic is enticingly simple: as religious dogma and “blood and soil” nationalisms fade, the frictions associated with them should vanish. We…… Continue reading The Secular Paradox: Why Britain’s Non-Religious Aren’t as Tolerant as You Think
The Geography of Discontent Revisited
New Publication: The Geography of Discontent RevisitedAccepted at National Identities I’m pleased to share that my latest paper, The Geography of Discontent Revisited: Decoupling Attitudinal Clustering and Affective Intensification in Urban Britain, has been accepted for publication in National Identities. This piece represents several years of work as scientific coordinator for the Horizon 2020 DRIVE…… Continue reading The Geography of Discontent Revisited
Beyond the Neighborhood: 5 Surprising Truths About Islamophobia in Modern Britain
In the wake of the 2024 Southport riots and a 2025 political climate defined by Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s warnings of social fragmentation, a convenient but lazy narrative has taken hold: the idea that multiculturalism has “failed” because of where we live. Political leaders routinely point to segregated neighborhoods and “parallel lives” as the engine…… Continue reading Beyond the Neighborhood: 5 Surprising Truths About Islamophobia in Modern Britain
Immigration Rhetoric and the Politics of ‘Colonisation’ in Modern Britain
The comments from Sir Jim Ratcliffe in relation to the idea that Britain has been colonised by immigrants need careful unpacking. This is a man who lives in Monaco as a tax exile, avoiding £4 billion in taxation; he is arguably Britain’s seventh-richest man and is a part-owner of Manchester United Football Club. These comments…… Continue reading Immigration Rhetoric and the Politics of ‘Colonisation’ in Modern Britain
How I get the best out of ‘free’ AI/LLM tools. I’ve done the research so you don’t have to.
Everyone is using LLMs to help with their work – why wouldn’t you? Well, there is a good answer to that – which is that it is not possible to rely on the outputs it produces when it thinks for itself, even at your request. It literally guesses and often hallucinates. It cannot know enough…… Continue reading How I get the best out of ‘free’ AI/LLM tools. I’ve done the research so you don’t have to.
What a terrible week it’s been for British politics, and I have my own Peter Mandelson story
Some events have the ability to truly shake up our political landscape in ways that have significant and lingering impacts for years, if not decades, ahead. Many are currently talking about a political scandal of this nature. One is related to a certain Peter Mandelson, who, up until very recently, was appointed as the UK…… Continue reading What a terrible week it’s been for British politics, and I have my own Peter Mandelson story