More people gloomy about prospects for divided Britain after virus

THE PROPORTION of people believing Britain will be united after the coronavirus pandemic halved in three months, figures suggest.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) surveyed 12,630 adults between April 24 and June 28 about their perceptions of unity and division in Britain.

Over the period as a whole, 46 per cent of adults on average thought that Britain will be united after society has recovered from Covid-19.

At the start of the period, a higher proportion of people felt

Britain would be “very or somewhat” united after the pandemic than felt this way at the end of the period.

More than half (57 per cent) felt the UK would be more united in the first week of the survey period, falling to 28 per cent in the final week.

Exactly half of female respondents believed this compared to 41 per cent of men.

Over the same period, expectations of a divided Britain increased by 33 percentage points.

In the first week of the survey, 22 per cent felt Britain would become “somewhat or very” divided, rising to 55 per cent at the end of the survey period. This suggests perceptions of unity during lockdown “have gradually dissipated as things have slowly started to return to normal”, the ONS said.

Dawn Snape, assistant director at the ONS’s sustainability and inequalities division, said: “Today’s research shows that, earlier in the national lockdown, people believed that a post-pandemic Britain would be a more united one.

“However, over subsequent weeks, this belief declined.

“Most people also expected that inequalities in society would remain.”