by Peter Franklin, UnHerd
The British Government’s long-promised definition of Islamophobia is expected to be published as early as next week. But according to a report this week in The Sun, this has been “watered down” out of fear of a “free speech backlash”.
Ministers are right to be worried. The very concept of Islamophobia is riven with controversy for the obvious reason that the word references a belief system, not a group of individuals who need protection. In February 2025, when politicians established a task force to draft the definition, they called it the “Working Group on Anti-Muslim Hatred/Islamophobia Definition” — a name that suggests ministers were already hedging their bets. By October last year, it was reported that the Islamophobia label would be dropped altogether, with the definition referring exclusively to anti-Muslim hatred or anti-Muslim hostility.
The latest climbdown is just as significant. According to The Sun, “ministers have struck out references to the ‘racialisation’ of Muslims amid concern it is a vacuous term that could be weaponised to silence critics of the religion.”
This matters because it runs counter to the longstanding push for an official definition which explicitly links Islamophobia with racism. The All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims, for example, has stated that Islamophobia is “rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness”. Labour adopted this definition in 2019, while the Runnymede Trust’s 2017 definition was even more concise: “Islamophobia is anti-Muslim racism.” In a 2025 publication, Runnymede expanded this language to reflect broader social concerns: “It is now widely recognised as a form of racism towards Muslims that is deeply embedded in societal structures and systems of power.”
By contrast, a BBC report from late last year noted that the draft definition produced by the Government’s working group omits the word “racism”. It does, however, include the following formulation: “Anti-Muslim hostility […] is also the prejudicial stereotyping and racialisation of Muslims, as part of a collective group with set characteristics, to stir up hatred against them, irrespective of their actual opinions, beliefs or actions as individuals.”