There is a question about whether hate crimes against Muslims in Britain are underestimated, or even downplayed. The Times reported on April 30th that Jews are nearly ten times more likely than Muslims to be victims of religious hate crimes.
According to BBC Panorama in the same month, per capita, Jews faced more than eight times as many hate crime incidents as Muslims. In July 2026, Lord John Mann, who held the government's tsar for antisemitism, stated that 'proportionally, Jews face the highest level of recorded hate crimes among any religious group.'
Although the rise of antisemitism is acknowledged in political discourse, hate crimes directed at Muslims appear to be significantly underrepresented in police data. A recently published Home Office report indicates that Muslims face the highest level of hate crime in the country, but this is not reflected in police statistics.
Labour MP John McDonnell told Middle East Eye that 'the serious underestimation of hate crimes against Muslims by the police and other bodies distorts the policy needed to protect the Muslim community.' He added that if this issue is not recognized and addressed, it could put Muslims at even greater risk, and he urged the government to urgently acknowledge the seriousness of the matter.
When hate crimes are covered by the media or discussed by senior politicians, including government ministers, police data is often cited. According to police records of religious hate crimes for 2025, 12 out of every 10,000 Muslims experienced such a crime in the 'religion' category, whereas among Jews, this figure was 106 out of 10,000.
There are various categories of hate crimes, including 'religion' and 'race'. Police data does not record the religion of victims of hate crimes in the 'race' category, making it significantly less complete than the data published every three years in the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW).
According to CSEW data from April 2022 to March 2025, 1 percent of Muslims experienced a hate crime in the 'race' category, and 0.8 percent in the 'religion' category. This data showed that Muslims were the most likely group to experience hate crimes based on both religious and racial grounds among all religious and ethnic groups.
In comparison, figures for the Asian population were 0.7 percent for race and 0.5 percent for religion; for Black populations, 0.7 percent for race and 0.1 percent for religion; for Sikhs, 0.5 percent for race and 0.1 percent for religion; and for Jews, 0.2 percent for race and 0.4 percent for religion.