Last month, M-Legal submitted evidence to the UK Government’s Working Group on Anti-Muslim Hatred/Islamophobia Definition — an independent panel tasked with recommending a national, non-statutory definition that can be used consistently across public policy and institutions.

Our submission was informed by three roundtable meetings with Muslim community organisations, legal practitioners, and civil society leaders, exploring how Islamophobia is experienced in education, policing, media, housing, and public life. These conversations ensured the proposed definition reflects lived realities and commands broad community confidence.

We also met members of the Working Group in person to present our legal analysis, community evidence, and recommendations.

A Comprehensive Definition

Drawing on the expertise of our Chair and informed by UN, EU, and OSCE best practice, our submission argues that Islamophobia must be recognised as religious bigotry, racial bigotry, or a complex combination of both — racialised religious bigotry.

It manifests across three interconnected domains:

1. Othering – dehumanising narratives, stereotyping, and exclusion from public life.
2. Discrimination – structural and institutional barriers in services, education, housing, and employment.
3. Hostility – hate speech, incitement, and violence.

While it can occur in purely religious or purely racial forms, it is most often an overlap of the two — a point that should be explicit in any agreed definition.

M-Legal has submitted detailed evidence to the Government’s Equality Law Call for Evidence, which is examining whether current legislation — particularly the Equality Act 2010 — is fit for purpose in tackling persistent inequalities.

Our submission focuses on where the law fails to fully protect Muslim communities, particularly in areas such as equal pay, harassment protections, and intersectional discrimination. Drawing on our legal expertise, case law, and engagement with affected communities, we highlight specific provisions in the Equality Act that result in unequal treatment and propose practical reforms to close these gaps.

Our Position

The Equality Act 2010 was intended to harmonise protections across protected characteristics. However, it does not provide equivalent protection for Muslims as it does for other ethno-religious groups, such as Jews and Sikhs, despite the well documented reality of racialised religious bigotry faced by Muslims.

This exclusion is most visible in:

• The omission of multi-ethnic religious groups like Muslims from the statutory definition of race under s9 Equality Act.
• The absence of equal pay provisions for religion or belief, leaving Muslim workers without the same pay transparency or remedies available for gender, race, or disability.
• Gaps in harassment protections for religion in key areas of public life, including service provision, education, and public functions.
• The lack of a legal route to bring combined discrimination claims, meaning that intersecting prejudice — for example, against Muslim women — is not properly recognised or addressed.

Why This Matters

Muslim workers, particularly Muslim women, face some of the largest pay gaps and employment penalties in the UK. Government statistics and independent research show that:

• Muslim men and women earn significantly less than White Christian counterparts, even after accounting for education, occupation, and region.
• Muslim women face compounded disadvantage due to gendered Islamophobia, with evidence of bias at recruitment, progression, and pay negotiation stages.
• Overrepresentation of Muslims in outsourced, insecure, and subcontracted roles limits access to equal pay comparisons, making it harder to challenge disparities.

Without reform, these patterns will remain embedded, and the Equality Act will continue to deliver unequal protection for equal harms.

M-Legal has submitted its formal response to the UK Government’s consultation on extending mandatory pay gap reporting to cover ethnicity and disability. These proposals, part of the draft Equality (Race and Disability) Bill, offer a critical opportunity to improve workplace transparency, strengthen legal coherence, and address persistent structural inequalities across the UK economy.

What Is The Consultation About?

Since 2017, large employers have been required to report annually on gender pay gaps. The Government is now considering whether similar obligations should apply to ethnicity and disability. The consultation covers how data should be collected, reported, and acted upon, and explores whether public bodies should have additional duties to monitor recruitment, retention and progression.

This marks a key moment in the evolving discussion around fairness at work—and the role of law and data in realising it.

Why M-Legal Is Responding

M-Legal funds support and strategic litigation for individuals and communities facing structural discrimination, particularly where race, religion, and class intersect. We have a long-standing interest in the way UK legal frameworks fall short in protecting racialised and religious minorities, especially those whose experiences of discrimination are rendered invisible by outdated or fragmented definitions of race.

We view pay gap reporting as more than a technical requirement. It is a tool that, if designed well, can help challenge deep-rooted patterns of exclusion in recruitment, progression, and reward—particularly for those at the sharpest end of institutional bias.