Britain is far less openly racist than 1974, but racism has not disappeared. It has changed clothes.
In 1974, racism in the UK was often blunt, public and socially tolerated: “No Blacks, No Irish, No Dogs” was still within living memory, far-right street politics had traction, and the Race Relations Act 1976 had not yet created the stronger legal framework against discrimination.
Today, the law is much stronger. The Equality Act 2010 protects against race discrimination in employment, housing, services and public functions. Hate crime laws also allow tougher sentencing where hostility based on race or religion is proved. So legally, Britain is a very different country.
But the ground reality is mixed. Open racism is less acceptable in polite society, workplaces and public institutions. Yet covert racism remains: recruitment bias, housing discrimination, school exclusions, stop-and-search disparities, online abuse, “go back home” language, Islamophobia, antisemitism, and suspicion directed at migrants and visible minorities.
The numbers show the problem is not marginal. In England and Wales, police recorded 140,561 hate crimes in the year to March 2024, of which 98,799 were race hate crimes, around 70% of the total.
Religious hate crimes rose 25% that year to 10,484, driven by rises against Jewish people and Muslims after the Israel- Hamas war.
For 2024/25, police recorded 137,550 hate crimes in England and Wales. Excluding the Metropolitan Police because of a recording-system issue, race hate crimes rose 6% year-on-year.
On legal cases, CPS data shows hate-crime prosecutions remain substantial. In 2023/24, the CPS completed 12,866 hate-crime prosecutions and charged 10,029 suspects. By July to September 2025 alone, prosecutors received 4,358 hate- crime referrals, with 3,098 racially motivated, and completed 4,079 prosecutions with an 85% conviction rate.
So are the laws enough? No. The law is necessary, but not sufficient. Britain has moved from overt exclusion to a more complex battlefield: institutional trust, policing, online radicalisation, workplace culture and social resentment.
1974 racism shouted. Today, much of it whispers, codes itself, hires selectively, polices unevenly, and explodes online.
