Of the 7,164 religious hate offences (up 3 per cent from 6,973 offences recorded in the previous year), almost half (45 per cent) targeted Muslim communities (4,478 offences), but the data excludes the Metropolitan Police (due to changes to their recording systems).

The Home Office briefing made clear that a “clear spike in these offences in August 2024, which coincides with the Southport murders on the 29 July and the subsequent disorder across several English towns and cities”.

Following the swathes of far-right violence, disorder and rioting, police forces recorded 10,097 racially or religiously aggravated offences in August 2024, the highest monthly total ever recorded. Again, however, the data excludes the Metropolitan Police.

A further breakdown of the data from the 35 police forces revealed 624 anti-Muslim hate crimes in August 2024 alone, up 122.85 per cent from the previous month, before returning to reporting levels seen before the Southport murders.

Racist hate crimes rose 6 per cent, with 82,490 hate crimes (as of March 2025), accounting for 71 per cent of all offences. Public order offences rose by 7 per cent (2,736 offences) as racist and religiously aggravated harassment rose by over one-fifth (21 per cent, 1,497 offences), and violence without injury rose by 10 per cent (771 offences).

Almost one-fifth of anti-Muslim hate crimes involved assault with or without injury (18 per cent), which echoes a worrying trend Tell MAMA detailed in our previous report, as we recorded a 73 per cent rise in assault cases in 2024, verifying 171 cases.

As with previous statistical bulletins, Muslim and Jewish communities are disproportionately impacted by religious hate crimes, with the latest figures showing the rate of Religious hate crimes rate per 10,000 population is 12 for Muslims and 106 for Jewish communities, respectively (2,873 antisemitic hate crimes).

Despite the lack of Met police data in this bulletin, the force had specified that Jewish communities faced 40 per cent of all religious hate crimes in the past year.

Tell MAMA Director Iman called for a meaningful government response to rising hate crimes and racism and bigotry more generally in society, beyond gesture politics. In a statement, she said: “The latest Home Office hate crime figures showed a staggering 19% rise in hate crimes (4,478 hate crimes) against Muslims (excluding data from the Met police), a key driver was the spike in far-right violence and rioting after the Southport murders.

Our data at Tell MAMA has shown record levels of reporting of anti-Muslim hatred and Islamophobia in 2024 and into 2025.

The sharp rise in religious hate crimes again shows the continued disproportionate impacts on Muslim and Jewish communities, yet many other faith groups face rising hate, too. Racist hate crimes rose by 6% (82,490 hate crimes). Communities deserve more than platitudes and gesture politics. They want to feel safe at their places of worship, on our streets, and in public. There is a failure of leadership and of a coherent strategy to address this growing scourge and improve community relations, whilst ensuring there is no place for racism and bigotry in political and public life.”

Read More: Muslim and Jewish communities targeted in 65% of religious hate crimes in 2021/2022

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Over the last few months, the group of young people damaged various wing mirrors of cars in her street and the harassment has continued with the teenagers knocking on her door, making racial and anti-Muslim slurs and then running away when she opens the door. This has continued for some time and is escalating.

Today, this was scrawled outside her house. Clearly visible is a Nazi Swastika and it has been targeted at her Muslim identity. This example shows that if perpetrators are not effectively stopped earlier on, they will continue to raise the bar on their actions.

This individual approached us and we will be acting on her behalf and advocating for her with the police. It is still shocking to see such symbolism drawn on our streets by young people, when so many died tackling fascism.

The post How Nazi Ideology is Associated in Minds with Being Against Other Races or People appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Residents of Hexthorpe, an area made infamous by the Daily Mail and Daily Express for having an out-of-control Roma population has seen a high-level of anti-social crime as well as other offences such as fly-tipping and litter, in addition to some violent crimes and drug offences. Local Britain First officers and activists arrived on (Saturday) to distribute leaflets in the village.

The video of their day action shows Britain First members slipping leaflets through mail-slots and talking to residents. While residents complain about gangs and intimidating anti-social behaviour, Britain First was clearly in town to provoke and agitate minority residents in the area. They mention a number of ‘Muslims’ (though they are never shown on camera), that have shouted abuse at them and ‘threatened’ them. Further, the Britain First activists are seen in front of a group of youths and eventually began to provoke them on camera.

The location of this ‘day of action’ and the approach that Britain First has taken is quite important. As they did with the management of Star City Vue Cinema in Birmingham, Britain First confronted locals based on reports that they were given from the media. In the video, they used screenshots from the Daily Mail and Daily Express about ‘Roma’ gangs terrorising Hexthorpe. This means that reporting about ‘immigrants,’ ‘asylum-seekers,’ and ‘benefits scroungers,’ in papers like the Daily Mail and the Daily Express have, it seems, a direct influence on far-right activism, giving them legitimacy to make accusations and inflame community tensions.

While it is absolutely true that Hexthorpe has had a problem with anti-social crime in the last year, which the Daily Mail reports is based on lax immigration policies allowing Roma communities into the UK. This ‘day of action’ was directed against the Roma population in Hexthorpe and the Britain First video opens with random shots of ‘brown bodies’ going about their day as if it were some sort of crime. Britain First actually offers no proof of anti-social behaviour by any Roma people in the area, but paints them as such based on their different skin colour. In addition, the Britain First activists handed out anti-Muslim leaflets featuring Drummer Lee Rigby.

Instead of encouraging a dialogue between community groups, or even simply speaking with Hexthorpe residents about what they would like done differently, Britain First activists have stormed in, handed out misleading literature, and called for “immigrants out!” This kind of action serves only to deepen community tensions and the racist undertones that motivate Britain First are clear in the video and through their language which constantly draws on divisions between ‘English’ people and all the other ‘immigrants’.

The post Britain First, the Roma and More Agitation From the Extremist Group appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Kureishi picks up on a time in our country when unemployment was still high, racism and prejudice were open and where Asian communities were still trying to find their feet, whilst some were exploiting cheap labour within their own communities. It talks about mixed relationships and the relationship with the wealthy Thatcherite (Nasser Ali – played by Saeed Jaffrey), and Rachel (played by Shirley Anne Field), where it becomes clear that Rachel’s life is one shaped by a lack of attention, affection and care. The film also explores the views of a working class Rachel and aspiring Tory, Nasser, with a measure of voodoo thrown in, which many within Asian communities can relate to and dare we say, laugh at.

That Britain of Kureishi has changed and thank God for that. The showing of ‘My Beautiful Launderette,’ really demonstrates how far we have travelled as communities together, though there are continuing issues in some parts of our country and more work has yet to be done. Also, what is interesting to note is that lack of religious terms in the movie with the segmentation into faith identity politics coming very much after the Salman Rushdie affair and which was still to come a few years later. Today, unfortunately, we have a segmentation based on faith politics that has become embedded in our psyche and much of which has been driven by the press and events like the Salman Rushdie affair. Yet Kureishi’s film is also a refreshing look back at an Asian man of Pakistani heritage (Omar), who wants nothing more than to be comfortable and to live out his sexuality. If there is anything we can take away from Kureishi’s film today, it is this. That we all want the same things. Peace, comfort and to live our lives free from fear. In some small way, we are trying to support this reality by ensuring that those who continue to hate and play out the roles of Daniel’s hateful gang, find that the rest of the country sees them more of an aberration than the norm. Much more work has to be done, but Kureishi’s film is an icon in film-making that led the cultural revolution that took place in the 80’s led by black film makers that shaped Britain.

The post The Reshowing of Hanif Kureishi’s ‘My Beautiful Launderette’ Shows How Far Britain Has Come appeared first on TELL MAMA.

The report goes onto highlight the most recent IPCC survey of public confidence in the complaints system (2011), which “showed a marked lack of confidence in the complaints system from ethnic minority respondents, 43% of whom feared that their complaint would not be taken seriously, and 40% of whom feared that they would suffer harassment if they complained.”

These descriptions resonate with the work of TELL MAMA particularly around community confidence. TELL MAMA has been running since March 2012, yet time and time again, a lack of public confidence about reporting issues to local forces comes up since many from BAME communities believe that nothing will be achieved by reporting in, particularly around ‘low level’ incidents such as race or faith hate incidents. BAME public confidence around reporting in low level hate incidents and specific complaints against the police needs to be worked upon as the iPCC report outlines.

The iPCC report also looks at the communication sent to complainants and conducted a case ‘dip test’ and file review. It adds,

“The evidence from the file review was that outcome letters were sent at the conclusion of investigations; however the majority of them followed a standard format which focussed on whether officers had a case to answer for misconduct without also considering whether there had been a failure in service. Some of these letters, particularly drafted at borough level, were extremely poor. Investigating officers had obviously used templates and some appear to have used several template paragraphs mixed together, giving the impression that the writers did not understand what they were saying about the police complaints system.”

TELL MAMA is aware through victim feedback that communication from forces, including the MET, to keep victims updated on their cases, is poor and that more needs to be done to keep victims informed on what is taking place regarding investigations and outcomes. Simply sending a letter to the victim explaining the outcome of a case is not sufficient and does not help to instil public confidence, particularly if the victim was initially hesitant to report in their concerns. Good clear communication is the fundamental building block to developing strong community confidence in a public service delivery agency.

The report goes onto focus on the quality of investigations and states that:

“even though exploring perception is difficult and time consuming, it is an essential part of dealing with race complaints and goes beyond examining the incident complained about in isolation. This difficulty may be compounded if, on the face of it, the complaint appears to be a minor one, or without obvious function. However, as stated above, the subtler forms of racism or discriminatory treatment may been just as damaging as, and more pervasive than, direct or overt racist behaviour or language. It does not appear that investigating officers, particularly at borough level, have had the time or training to explore such issues effectively.”

 Given that in 2012 and early 2013, the TELL MAMA data on cases shows that in quite a number of cases of anti-Muslim prejudice reported in, racism and anti-Muslim prejudice take place in incidents against the victim, it is imperative that forces receive training on how to identify, record and work through such cases. With these added complexities, it is fundamental that forces look at immediate training and on-going support in order to upskill officers.

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