‘Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness’ (APPG, 2017: 11). This definition is endorsed by all political parties in the Scottish Parliament. In Scotland, there is a tendency to deflect, displace and disengage from the topic of racism; the result is that attention to it does not feature significantly in political or policy discourse. This strong tendency to adopt this approach of Scottish exceptionalism was a key motivation for establishing the Cross-Party Group (CPG) on Tackling Islamophobia.