A Step Forward, But Not Far Enough: Prof Nasar Meer on the Limits of the UK’s Anti-Muslim Racism Definition
Published: 23 March 2026
Commentary
Following the UK Government’s newly announced definition of anti-Muslim racism, Professor Nasar Meer explains why, although this is a step in the right direction, much more still needs to be done.
For years, Britain has argued not only about how to tackle anti-Muslim hatred, but whether it could even be defined in terms public institutions would recognise.
In the absence of an agreed definition has come to rest a familiar mixture of euphemism, avoidance and denial, including how attempts to name anti-Muslim racism are met with the claim that the real danger is a creeping ban on criticism of religion.
The basic case was simple: if institutions cannot name a problem, they struggle to count it, respond to it, or prevent it. The government’s newly announced definition is meant to provide that shared language, and to make visible what would otherwise be dismissed as misunderstanding, written off as isolated incidents, or denied altogether.
That is not trivial and there are real strengths in what has been announced, including how it is linked it to a wider package that includes funding and a new special representative on anti-Muslim hostility.
It also explicitly covers not only Muslims, but people perceived to be Muslim, including where that perception is based on ethnicity, race or appearance. That matters because anti-Muslim racism rarely operates as a neat disagreement with theology. It works through names, skin colour, dress, headscarves, facial hair, mosque association, or the assumption that someone belongs to a suspect collective. Building on the work a number of us have developed over two decades, the definition at least acknowledges that reality, and even uses the language of racialisation.
This marks a significant advance on older official habits of pretending anti-Muslim abuse is simply criticism of religious ideas.
But the definition’s central weakness is also hard to miss. It sets the threshold so high that it will be out of reach for much real anti-Muslim racism. For example, prejudicial stereotyping becomes anti-Muslim hostility when it is carried out with “the intention of encouraging hatred”. Unlawful discrimination is included where it is “intended to disadvantage Muslims”.
That is a very high bar.
Much anti-Muslim racism in Britain does not present itself as a direct call to hatred. More often it appears as insinuation, selective suspicion, respectable contempt, policy bias and cumulative exclusion. It is diffuse, ordinary and institutional. By making intent do so much of the work, the definition risks identifying only the most blatant forms of hostility while missing the more embedded ones.
This is where the government’s own document becomes contradictory.
On one page, it recognises that anti-Muslim hostility can involve practices and biases within institutions. On the next, it narrows discrimination to deliberate targeting. Yet one of the most basic lessons of equality law is that institutional discrimination is not reducible to openly hostile intent. Indirect discrimination exists precisely because harmful outcomes can be produced by rules, routines and cultures that present themselves as neutral.
Comparison with other definitions makes the problem clearer. The government invokes the IHRA working definition of antisemitism as evidence that having a definition matters.
Fair enough.
But IHRA begins with an open-ended statement about antisemitism as “a certain perception of Jews” that may be expressed as hatred, and then relies on contextual examples. It does not hinge everything on proving a specific intent to stir up hatred in each case.
The 2018 APPG definition of Islamophobia took a different route, arguing that Islamophobia is rooted in racism and targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness. That formulation was stronger at naming the process through which Muslims are made into a racialised problem. The new definition sits somewhere between the two, but ends up narrower than both.
That caution is also visible in the choice of language. Ministers have opted for “anti-Muslim hostility” rather than Islamophobia or anti-Muslim racism. “Hostility” sounds behavioural, episodic and visible. It evokes acts of abuse, intimidation and harassment. It is less able to capture the broader structure through which Muslims are cast as suspect citizens, treated as culturally alien, or imagined as always somehow adjacent to extremism.
That matters because anti-Muslim racism in Britain is not confined to street abuse or overt incitement. It also operates through securitisation, media narratives, political suspicion and everyday discrimination in work, housing and public services. The issue is not only one of prejudice. It is one of unequal citizenship.
So yes, the new definition is a step forward because official recognition is better than official silence.
It is useful that the text recognises perceived Muslimness, includes institutional practices, and makes clear that protecting Muslims does not mean shielding Islam from criticism.
But we should not confuse a beginning with an adequate settlement. A definition that is strongest when describing overt hostility, and weakest when confronting structural racism, cannot by itself meet the scale of the problem.
This article first appeared in PoliticsHome.
First published: 23 March 2026