When racism hides behind ‘anti-immigration’

What a harder public climate means for workplaces, leaders and the people most affected

Recently, I was at an event where a Black woman shared an observation that has stayed with me. She spoke about how waiting has become something many folk whose identities are marginalised have become expert at. Waiting for harm to be named, waiting for people to show up with care, waiting for institutions to catch up with realities that have already landed in our bodies, waiting for plans to move from words on a page into actions and behaviours. And because that waiting can become so familiar, so repeated and so normalised, it starts to shape how people move through the world and settles into the system around them.

When I speak to Black and brown people in organisations, I hear many people living in that space between waiting and what comes next. The reality of a much harder climate where anti-immigrant sentiment is becoming more visible and more acceptable is being widely felt. We are living in times where hostility is increasingly directed not only at immigrants, but at those considered, in an expanding number of ways, as not fully belonging. This is already shaping bodies, routines, relationships and working lives in ways that create discomfort, anxiety, distress, fear and panic. What’s concerning is either this is going unnoticed, isn’t being held or supported or isn’t being taken seriously enough by organisations and leaders.

What gets hidden when racism is called ‘anti-immigration’

Perhaps that is because the shift towards dehumanising language and othering has been incremental, unfolding over years rather than all at once. So some of its logic may even have started to feel normalised, including to those most affected by it.. But this is not background noise, nor can it be neatly contained under the label of a problematic ‘minority of idiots’, conveniently cast as unlike the rest of us.

It is being legitimised across all kinds of settings and situations, whether in the normalisation of ‘anti-migrant’ rhetoric in media, the suspicion attached to Muslims and others seen as having foreign allegiance that creeps into everyday moments, the inflammatory views being openly shared by high-profile CEOs or politicians that vilify groups in society, the actions or practices of institutions or organisations silencing dissent or questioning about International issues, or the real increased risk that visible difference can make someone more exposed to hostility or physical attack.

What we are facing is partly a difference in naming. For the people most affected, this is not a debate about immigration. It is being experienced more clearly, and more viscerally, as racism: in the conditional nature of belonging, in the way foreignness is assigned, and in the sense that safety, credibility and legitimacy are becoming less secure. For others, the same moment is still being framed as politics, opinion or a conversation about borders, which isn’t seen to have a valid place inside workplaces and is easily dismissed as being irrelevant to their lives and not in scope for work conversations.

Returning to the question of waiting: what happens when you are seeing something more clearly, and living it more directly, while others, especially those in your workplaces, are minimising it, misnaming it, or seem unable to name it at all? There is something deeply unjust about asking people to be endlessly patient, endlessly resilient, and endlessly explanatory in the face of a climate they did not create.

What this is doing to people’s lives

This climate is not only changing what people think, it is changing how people live. It shapes how those most at risk move through public space, what risks they assess, how visible they feel able to be, and how much trust can be placed in the people and institutions around them. The Angelou Centre’s work last year on the impact of the far-right riots makes that plain, showing how fear, vigilance and reduced safety on public transport have remained part of everyday life for Black, brown and migrant women long after the headlines moved on. This weekend’s march in Manchester is likely to have sharpened that reality again for many people living and working in the area, especially in a region where Reform has already built strong support and with elections just around the corner.

For some, this shows up in very ordinary decisions that no longer feel ordinary at all: whether to take a particular route home, whether to enter a certain space, whether to speak or speak up in certain contexts, whether to correct an assumption, whether to make yourself smaller, quieter, less noticeable. It also shapes what it means to travel to and from work, to move through stations, buses, streets and public places while carrying a heightened sense of risk that others may not have to think about in the same way.

The rise in public hostility, including the increase in public-facing abuse and attacks matters not only because of its impact on safety on the street, on transport, or in other everyday settings. But also because it builds permission. What can now be said more openly, what can be acted on more confidently, and what kinds of suspicion or exclusion are allowed, all become looser and easier to justify - and that should be deeply concerning for any employer committed to inclusion, anti-racism and creating workplaces of belonging.

How workplaces fail to meet this moment

That permission does not stop outside the workplace door. There is very little documentation about the rise of far-right sentiment in workplaces, but an October 2024 Irish Times report found that around a quarter of people reported a rise in far-right sentiment in their workplace. That number is likely to have grown since, and I find it interesting that there isn’t more documented data about this given the external climate.

We have to wake up to the reality that the outside climate will be reshaping organisational life. When public hostility becomes easier to carry into meetings, corridors, customer interactions, hiring decisions, performance judgements and everyday conversations about who is seen as credible, trustworthy and part of the team because of their identity - it becomes a matter for leadership and employer concern.

This matters across organisations, but it matters especially for those in public-facing roles where they are feeling the full force of the rising racist sentiment on a day to day basis. Workers in retail, hospitality, healthcare, transport and other customer-facing settings are more exposed to whatever the wider climate makes possible. For them, the spillover is immediate, often personal and harder to avoid. The same permissions that make hostility easier to voice in public also make it easier to direct at workers whose jobs require them to be visible, accessible and in contact with the public.

This is where employers are already letting people down. Too many organisations still behave as though the wider climate is external to work, or treat what is happening as politics, opinion or isolated incidents rather than recognising the full pattern of discrimination their staff may be living. The result is that workers are left carrying not only the hostility itself, but the additional burden of judging what is safe, what can be reported, and whether anyone will really act.

That is part of why the October 2026 law change matters. Employers will be under stronger duties in relation to harassment by third parties, including customers and the public. In other words, the law is beginning to catch up with what many workers already know: that hostility from outside does not stay outside. It becomes part of the conditions people are working in.

We may not like to think that this could happen in our own organisation, but it would be naive not to prepare for the fact that it might.

What workplaces need to do now

If this is the reality people are moving through, then the question is not whether organisations should respond, but whether they are willing to respond in ways that match the scale and nature of what is happening.

Part of the problem is framing. When this is treated mainly as a matter of immigration, politics or opinion, organisations place it outside themselves, something to stay neutral on, something awkward, something easier left untouched. But that position is increasingly irresponsible.

There is also a failure of scope. Many organisations still approach this through separate categories such as race, religion, harassment or customer abuse, and in doing so miss the convergence of the moment. They miss how race, religion, accent, visible difference and perceived foreignness are being read together, and how that changes what people are carrying at work. We need to get more comfortable in being with the complexity and looking at this in a more joined up way.

That gap between what organisations say about anti-racism and what they are prepared to name in practice is now too wide to ignore. General language about inclusion is no longer enough.. A more honest response would begin by measuring what is actually happening, not only race or religious harassment in isolation, but tracking and being connected to the wider patterns shaping safety, belonging and perceived ‘foreignness’ at work.

There is a need to treat organisational values as something more than language. In a harder climate, values either shape behaviour or they do very little at all. That means being clearer about how colleagues speak about identity, migration, religion and difference, and being equally clear about what is not acceptable.

There is work to do in ensuring people feel supported to uphold these values in practice so that there is less room for harmful narratives to hide inside the language of opinion or debate. Managers cannot be left without the confidence or permission to challenge misinformation, coded hostility or disinformation when it appears in everyday working life.

Leadership matters here too. Leaders have to name what is happening, challenge harmful narratives, and make clear what will be protected. Silence does not create neutrality. It creates permission. If leaders are serious about anti-racism at this moment, they have to treat the wider climate as relevant to organisational life and respond in ways that make staff feel recognised and protected, not left to absorb the hostility alone.

For public-facing workers, the stakes are even sharper. In retail, hospitality, healthcare, transport and other customer-facing roles, the outside climate becomes part of the conditions of work. The October 2026 changes on third-party harassment make that harder to deny, but the reality is already here. Employers have to make reporting routes clear, follow up consistently, and put visible protections in place for workers exposed to customers and the public. This cannot remain vague or optional.

And if workplaces are serious about staying in touch with the reality their staff are living, then conversations about safety and belonging cannot remain occasional or reactive. They have to become part of how organisations pay attention. Not one-off listening exercises after the damage is done, but regular opportunities to notice what is shifting before people are left carrying it alone.

The start of meaningful action

If anti-racism means anything in 2026, it has to be broad enough to respond to the full reality of this moment: the hardening of anti-immigrant sentiment, the conditional nature of belonging, and the way public hostility is already entering organisational life.

The question is not whether this climate reaches the workplace. It already does. The real question is whether organisations are prepared to recognise it in full, and whether their version of anti-racism is broad enough, honest enough and brave enough to respond to it.

References

Angelou Centre, Why Do I Have to Hide Away? executive summary, August 2025.

Irish Times archive entry for 21 October 2024, including the article ‘A quarter of people report rise in far-right sentiment in the workplace’.

GOV.UK, Plan to Make Work Pay and Employment Rights Act: timeline update, updated 15 April 2026.

Acas, Employment Rights Act 2025 guidance.

British Future / Ipsos, Noise and Nuance: What the public really thinks about immigration, 2025.

Migration Observatory, UK Public Opinion toward Immigration: Overall Attitudes and Level of Concern.