Four in five people in the UK believe in being ‘woke’ to race and social justice

Protesters in Trafalgar Square, London, on 5 March. A survey of public attitudes had found that 43% of people in the UK are in favour of taking in more Ukrainian refugees. Photograph: ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy

An overwhelming majority of people in the UK hold the “woke” belief that it is important to be alive to issues of race and social justice, according to a new analysis of public attitudes.

Four in five Britons believe in being attentive to those issues – the definition of “woke” used by the Merriam-Webster dictionary – leading researchers to claim the country is not as divided by culture wars as is often assumed. An overwhelming majority of Conservative voters and those who backed Brexit also said it was important to be attentive to the issues.