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.”

If the word “racialisation” has also been expunged from the definition, then that represents much more than a mere watering down. Governments dilute their policies all the time for reasons of expense, practicality or party politics. But the de-racialisation of the draft definition would pose a fundamental challenge for the entire enterprise. In effect, it admits to a plain truth, which is that Muslims are not, by any definition, a race.

So if what we’re left with is an attempt to define and condemn hostility towards Muslims as members of a faith group, then the burning question is: why shouldn’t there be equivalent official definitions covering members of other faith groups?

For that matter, why not produce definitions for particular faith groups within (or adjacent to) Islam, many of which face very specific forms of discrimination? Not doing so would be equivalent to discussing hostility towards Christians in the UK without addressing the specific issue of, say, anti-Catholic prejudice.

But that’s the basic flaw in the definition that the Government is about to publish. Each time the word “Muslim” appears in the text, ministers will need a really good reason why it doesn’t refer to all believers (or non-believers). They won’t be able to produce one.

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Peter Franklin is Associate Editor of UnHerd. He was previously a policy advisor and speechwriter on environmental and social issues.

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