Surge in Threats Creates ‘Culture of Fear’ for UK Charities
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A disturbing rise in death threats, rape threats, and harassment is fostering a “culture of fear” within UK charities, particularly those serving vulnerable populations like women and refugees, alongside faith-based organizations. The warning comes from the head of the Charity Commission, who fears growing hostility towards charity staff, volunteers, and beneficiaries is becoming normalized and eroding essential societal values.
The Charity Commission is responding to the escalating crisis by issuing formal guidance to help charities protect their workers from “unacceptable” personal risks stemming from threats, abuse, and intimidation. This guidance acknowledges the “current antagonistic surroundings” facing many organizations.
Rising Hostility and Targeted Attacks
A range of charities are reporting being specifically targeted by extremist groups, coinciding wiht an increase in divisive political rhetoric surrounding immigration. incidents of violence and vandalism are increasingly viewed as the “new normal,” prompting enhanced security measures. Organizations supporting refugees and asylum seekers, and also Muslim, Jewish, and ethnic minority groups, are among those experiencing a surge in incidents since the unrest in Southport in 2024.
“Over recent months,we’ve seen charity workers verbally and physically abused on the streets. We’ve heard of death threats, threats of sexual assault, witnessed damage and vandalism done to charity offices,” the Commission head will state during a speech at the organization’s annual public meeting. “The charities targeted vary – some support women, some refugees or asylum seekers, some work with young people or homeless people. Some are places of worship. What unites them is that they are doing what they were set up to do – fulfilling purposes their governing documents set out, and which parliament has ruled are charitable.”
A Disturbing Normalization of Abuse
the Commission chair expressed particular concern over the lack of widespread surprise at these events beyond the charity sector itself. “If we except as normal charity workers being abused on the street, their families threatened with violence, what will shock us?” he asked, warning of a dangerous “normalization” of such behavior.He likened the situation to an “eroding shoreline,” with “waves of violence crashing against land, day by day, wearing down, inch by inch, the values and norms we once took for granted.”
The Commission will demonstrate “sympathy” towards organizations requesting the removal or redaction of trustee names from the public register, should evidence suggest they are at risk of being targeted by extremists.
Protecting Staff and Challenging Misuse of Regulatory Systems
The new safeguarding advice emphasizes the need for charities to regularly review the security of their staff, visitors, and premises, and to consider upgrading existing security measures, including ensuring secure entry doors and identifying “choice exit routes.”
The National Council for Voluntary Organisations is expected to release a report this week detailing how some charities are operating in a “culture of fear,” with staff apprehensive about commuting and beneficiaries fearful for their safety in public spaces.
the Commission chair also intends to address the issue of activists attempting to “weaponize the legitimate work of charities” by filing frivolous complaints through the Commission’s system. “we will not indulge those who seek to misuse the commission as regulator to further political ends or undermine the rights of charities under the law,” he asserted. “Our job is to uphold charity law, the laws a democratically elected parliament has passed.”
In recent years, right-wing activists and Conservative MPs have filed complaints against several prominent charities – including the National Trust and Barnardo’s – alleging breaches of charity law, frequently enough labeling them as “woke” or “marxist.” To date, none of these complaints have been substantiated.
As the Commission chair prepares to pass the role to Julia Unwin in January, he paid tribute to the charity sector as a “bedrock of decency, compassion and civic strength” that steps forward to “protect the shoreline of a civilised, humane, hopeful society.”
