20 May 2026 | London, UK
Last Saturday’s (16 May 2026) far-right protests, and the recent failure to address racist and Islamophobic violence in the public domain, will leave some in the UK feeling afraid and uncertain about the safety of the place they call home.
Over the weekend, London’s streets were once-again co-opted with thousands joining the far-right ‘Unite the Kingdom’ protests. Despite being dwarfed in numbers by parallel pro-Palestinian marches nearby, the nationalist rally successfully stoked division and fear. It was defined by an overt display of hostility, with explicit demands for mass remigration,vitriolic Islamophobic slogans, to the staged mocking of niqabi Muslim women. Despite the highly public nature of these bigoted acts, they have been met with a marked absence of widespread condemnation from both political leaders and the mainstream media channels. For Black, Asian and minoritised ethnic individuals – British Muslims in particular – this institutional silence deepens fear and anxiety, sending a message that their safety is not a public priority.
We are seemingly failing to learn the lessons of 2024.
The fear and profound lack of safety felt across the country during the 2024 race riots should have been a permanent catalyst for systemic change. It should have triggered an uncompromising overhaul of how our institutions confront racism. Instead, we are seemingly repeating a dangerous pattern. These protests keep happening on the streets and online because they are fueled by a public sphere that routinely sanitises bigotry. When mainstream media and political leadership omit the specific terms of “racism” and “Islamophobia” from their reports, they create a permissive environment. Silence is not neutral; it directly bridges the gap between hateful words in public forums and physical, real-world racialised violence. (Racist abuse of NHS nurses has jumped by 86% in the last few years; meanwhile Black and ethnic minority TUC members reported a shocking increase in explicit racism at work).
When we fail to condemn the blatant racism and Islamophobia on display, we lay the groundwork for unabashed acts of racism and violence, as seen in the UK during the 2024 riots.
The solutions needed to dismantle this permissive environment are not a mystery – the blueprint already exists. Following the violence of 2024, the Race Equality Foundation led a sector-wide series of roundtables with key partners to inform a collaborative report: ‘Understanding the Racist Riots of 2024 and what should be done’. This report confronts the structural root causes of the riots and lays out the long-term policy strategies needed to prevent its recurrence.
To safeguard our communities and move beyond temporary, superficial talk of “community cohesion”, policymakers must urgently implement the report’s core recommendations:
- Adopt and Monitor a Clear Definition of Islamophobia: Without an official, institutional framework to define and monitor anti-Muslim hate, Islamophobic rhetoric goes completely unchecked. A non-statutory definition of anti-Muslim hostility does not go far enough. This systemic vacuum is precisely what allows the toxic slogans witnessed at the ‘Unite the Kingdom’ rally to become normalised in public discourse.
- Implement a Public Health Approach to Violence Prevention: We must move away from relying solely on short-term, punitive policing after the damage has already occurred. A public health model requires identifying and dismantling the cumulative structural factors, deprivation, and extremist radicalisation that lead to violent behavior in the first place.
- Centre Affected Communities in Anti-Racist Initiatives: Effective, sustainable policy cannot be designed in isolation. The government must directly consult and empower grassroots and VCSE organisations, and local authorities to build protective strategies that meaningfully address the lived fears of those targeted by far-right hostility.
Britain stands at a critical crossroads. Words are not harmless, and they are never without consequence. If we want safe communities, we must call these acts what they are, dismantle this harmful rhetoric, and demand immediate policy action.
Read our full report on ‘Understanding the Racist Riots of 2024’
