ETHNIC and religious minorities in Britain are suffering “strikingly high” levels of abuse, according to a major survey into race equality to be released this week.

Research by the universities of St Andrews, Manchester and King’s College London found more than one in three people from minority backgrounds have experienced racially motivated physical or verbal abuse.

Collated into a book, Racism and Ethnic Inequality in a Time of Crisis, which will formally launch tomorrow, the two-year research project discovered widespread inequality and racial discrimination at work, education, housing and dealings with police.

The study was headed by Nissa Finney, professor of human geography at St Andrews, who said it proved racism was “part of daily lives."

She said: “The UK is immeasurably far from being a racially just society.

“The kinds of inequality we see in our study would not be there if we had a really just society.”

More than 14,000 people from 21 ethnic groups, including white British, were questioned for the Economic and Social Research Council-funded survey between February and October 2021.

Among the findings, the survey found more than a quarter of people from minority ethnic groups had experienced racial insults with almost one in three experiencing racism in a public place.

One in six reported suffering racism from neighbours while 17 per cent had suffered damaged property in racist attacks.

Among minority ethnic and religious groups, one in six said they had been victims of racist physical assault prior to the coronavirus pandemic – a figure which increases to one in five Jewish people and more than one in three from Gypsy, Traveller and Roma respondents.

Other findings saw 29 per cent of respondents from ethnic and religious minorities say they had experienced racial discrimination in both education and employment, almost a fifth reporting the same in the search for housing.

Discrimination in dealings with the police was reported by more than one in five of all respondents.

But that soared to 43 per cent among black Caribbean groups and more than one in three of those from Gypsy, Traveller and Roma groups.

Overcrowding housing and lack of outdoor space at home were also common responses in the survey.

It found 60 per cent of Roma families lived in overcrowded conditions with a quarter of Pakistani and Arab people reporting the same.