Racism is creeping back into Britain, says Keir Starmer

After nearly four decades in Britain, Ali Haydor says there are now days when he wishes he could hide his brown skin. Violent protests erupted in his home city of Southampton after a British-born Sikh, who falsely accused his white victim of a racist attack, was jailed for murder. A video of police handcuffing his dying victim, released alongside the man's sentencing on June 1, sparked outrage and cross-party calls to scrap police guidance on differing treatment by ethnicity.

A week later, gangs of masked men went door to door seeking out migrants after a white man in Belfast was stabbed multiple times and lost an eye in an attack by a Sudanese immigrant. While such cases are rare, they have become a rallying point for right-wing activists and politicians, whose focus on crime has tapped into simmering tensions over national identity ⁠and immigration. The net result is that, for some, the Britain that has been a stable home for many ethnic minority communities has turned more hostile.

"Anybody of colour is at risk at the moment," said Haydor, a 44-year-old who moved from Bangladesh aged five. "As much as we love our heritage and identity, sometimes (I wish) we could just hide it." According to the Migration Observatory, by the early 2020s Britons were more open to immigration than most of Europe but multiple polls suggest attitudes have hardened since 2022. Polling typically showed younger and left-leaning voters more favourable towards immigration than older or more right-leaning groups.

British Social Attitudes surveys suggest that much of the concern may be linked to asylum seekers arriving in small boats, not those arriving to work or study. Reuters spoke to policy experts and 10 trade unions, whose members have reported an increase in racist incidents, including some patients refusing care because of a nurse's race, an increase in racist remarks in the workplace, and migrant workers reporting experiences of racism at work.

The Royal College of Nursing, as an example, reported a 55% rise in workers experiencing racial discrimination since 2022. Paul Rees, the head of the Nursing and Midwifery Council, said in 2025 a third of the sector's staff were ⁠Black, Asian or minority ethnic, and that many say "they are today facing the kind of abuse they haven't received in decades." Prime Minister Keir Starmer has repeatedly condemned all forms of racism and the violence and disorder linked to it, warning that racist language is making a return.

But union leaders and experts say political rhetoric — from the government and other politicians — has helped create a more permissive environment for overt racism. The focus on crime, even if it does not reflect the behaviour of the vast majority of immigrants, has added to the pressure on social cohesion. Populist political leader Nigel Farage, speaking after the Southampton protesters clashed with police, said British institutions were prejudiced against white people. Starmer strongly rejected the allegation and said Farage was seeking to exploit a tragedy to fuel division.

Britain is home to large and diverse migrant communities that historically stemmed from its days of empire. According to the 2021 Census, 18% of the population of England and Wales identified as Black, Asian, mixed, or other ethnic groups. While racism has a long history in Britain, rooted in transatlantic slavery and colonialism and remaining endemic throughout most of the 20th century, it has been seen as comparatively successful in integrating diverse communities, with ethnic minorities increasingly represented in public life.

Rishi Sunak was Britain's first prime minister of colour when he took over as leader of the Conservative Party in 2022. He was succeeded in the party post by Kemi Badenoch, who was born in Britain to Nigerian parents and spent much of her childhood in Nigeria. A 2016 EU survey found migrants in Britain from Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and South Asia reported the lowest levels of discrimination when compared to other European countries surveyed.

However, public opinion appears to be shifting. The British Social Attitudes survey found the share of people who think immigration benefits the economy and culture fell from 50% in 2022 to 32% in 2025. Immigration was a major factor in Britain's 2016 vote to leave the European Union and its freedom of movement system. But net migration rose sharply afterwards, as it brought in healthcare workers from ⁠India and Nigeria to fill post-Brexit staffing gaps and saw a rise in non-EU students attend its universities.

While net migration averaged 223,000 during the 2000s and 260,000 during the 2010s, it hit a record of 944,000 in the year ending March 2023. Farage's Reform UK, which has had to remove some candidates and activists for making racist remarks, has led every political poll in the last year. Among its policies it wants a mass deportation of anyone who arrived illegally and to remove foreign nationals from social housing. Interior minister Shabana Mahmood warned in March that the record levels of immigration, recorded under the former Conservative Party, put a strain on public services. Imposing tougher rules on getting citizenship, she said people who settled in Britain decades ago risked being caught ⁠up in a backlash if she could not fix the system. Tougher visa rules cut net migration sharply in 2025 — to 171,000 from 331,000 the year before — but the arrival of asylum seekers in small boats continued to increase.

Reuters