Spike in anti-muslim and antisemitic incidents as hate crime hits record high

Hate crime incidents in England and Wales have risen seven per cent in a year, new data shows, with an marked increase in cases targeting both Jewish and Muslim people.

Across the two groups, there were a total of 146,825 hate crimes record by police in the year to March 2026, according to the Home Office figures.

Both race and religious hate crimes were the highest on record when figures for the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) are excluded because of a change in their crime recording system.

Hate crimes recorded against Muslim victims rose by 15 per cent in the year, from 4,479 to 5,132, while incidents against Jewish people rose by 10 per cent, from 2,874 to 3,162.

The increase in religious hate crimes against Muslims spiked in September 2025, which the Home Office said coincided with protests and public disorder. This was the month that over 100,000 people joined the anti-immigration rally organised by far-right activist Tommy Robinson in London.

There was another marked increase following the beginning of the US-Iran conflict in February, the data shows. Not counting Metropolitan Police data, hate crimes against Muslims rose to 3,660, which is their highest annual level since the data was first collected in the year to March 2018.

The Home Office found that incidents against Jewish people surged in October 2025 following a series of antisemitic crimes after the Heaton Park Synagogue terror attack. These incidents have been elevated since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas conflict, the government body added.

Met Police data excluded, hate crimes against Jewish people were at their second highest level on record at 2,003 offences, This was was just below the 2,093 record high in the year ending March 2024.

Ilyas Nagdee, racial justice lead at the charity Amnesty International UK, said: “The shocking rise in hate crimes show that racism, violence and fear are tragically becoming a day-to-day reality across the UK. Behind these statistics are stories of children who are afraid to go to school, families who are scared to leave home and communities divided.

“When there are over 10,000 racially or religiously aggravated offences record in a single month, and hate crimes are increasing in double digits year on year, we are in a genuine emergency.

“The UK government must act now and resource hate crime investigations to cut down the delays present between hate and non-hate offences, hold perpetrators to account, and send an unambiguous message that racism and all forms of hate will not be tolerated.”

A breakdown of police data reveals that London saw the vast majority of hate crimes in the past year, with 20,753 cases of race incidents. This was followed by Manchester (9,754), West Midlands (7,972) and West Yorkshire (6,483).

The government-funded British Muslim Trust (BMT) said it has tracked and verified 78 attacks and incidents at Muslim places of worship in the 12 months to July, including vandalism and intimidation.

In its report published on Thursday, the trust said this averaged around one attack every five days in the UK and Channel Islands. BMT chief executive Akeela Ahmed said: “The rising tide of hatred in this country requires a whole society response.”

The Community Security Trust (CST), which monitors antisemitism and publishes its own data on attacks, said the latest figures “show that antisemitic hate crime remains at an unacceptably high level”.

There is an “an urgent need to reduce the amount of incitement connected to conflict overseas”, the CST said, adding that “much more needs to be done across society to tackle this problem”.