Muslims face ‘bleak and dystopian’ climate in UK, says head of thinktank

Shabna Begum: ‘The way politicians talk about Muslims is so derogatory, it’s in the most brutally divisive terms.’ Photograph: Linda Nylind/The Guardian

Islamophobia has become “brutally divisive” in the UK and failure to challenge its root causes will lead to more racist riots, the head of the UK’s leading race equality thinktank has said.

Shabna Begum, who became the chief executive of the Runnymede Trust earlier this year, said the country was entering a new phase in how it talks about Muslims.