The Inter Faith Network for the UK (1987–2024): An Historical Overview and Preliminary Evaluation of Its Achievements, Challenges and Potential Inheritances

Abstract

The Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom was founded on 9 March 1987. Until the closure of its office on 30 April 2024, followed by its formal dissolution on 21 January 2025, it was a significant part of the religion and belief and inter-religious relations landscape of the United Kingdom (UK). This essay aims, as soon as possible following the Network’s closure, but also in a scholarly way, to document some key aspects of its origins and development, and thus to make an initial contribution to the likely later creation of a more comprehensive and definitive historical record of the Network’s origins, development, achievements, challenges and closure on the basis of which future work in relevant scholarly fields such inter-faith studies, the sociology of religion, and political science will be able to build. For now, building on the documentary record which this essay sets out, an early preliminary identification and contextual evaluation is offered of some of the Network’s key achievements and challenges. And finally, the article aims to make an informed and contextually evaluated contribution to such practitioner and policy-related discussions that have emerged and are still emerging around the gaps that have been identified as having been left by the closure of the Network, and the desirability and viability of how aspects of its inheritance might or might not be taken forward into the future in addressing those gaps.

1. Situating This Essay

1.1. Introduction

The Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom (2026a)—hereafter generally referred to as the “Network”—was founded on 9 March 1987. Until its offices closed on 30 April 2024, followed by its formal dissolution on 21 January 2025, the Network was a significant part of the religion and belief and inter-religious relation landscape of the United Kingdom (UK). This essay therefore aims, as soon as possible following the Network’s closure (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 2024c), but also in a scholarly rather than journalistic way, to document some key aspects of the Network’s origins and development. By building on this documentary record, it aims in an authorially transparent way, also to offer an early preliminary contextual evaluation of some of the Network’s key achievements and challenges drawn from the nearly four decades of its existence and work.

It is important to be clear that even in its more descriptive parts, this essay is only intended to be (and can, in fact, only be) a provisional piece of work which will, at a later stage, benefit from being at least complemented, and very likely superseded, by a more comprehensive and definitive historical chronicling and, of a kind appropriate to the Network’s longevity and substance than it is currently possible for anyone to produce. This is because the present article is based on parameters that have been limited to drawing on the Network’s own publicly available documents, together with a review and analysis of what, up until now, has been a relatively limited amount of published scholarly discussion focused on the Network. And this will also be supplemented by perspectives and insights informed by the author’s history of professional engagement with aspects of the Network and its work. The benefits and limitations of the parameters that pertain to these sources and therefore, in addition, to the whole article, are identified and discussed in Section 1.2, Section 1.3 and Section 1.4.

1.2. Insight and Perspectives from the Present Author

Coming out of the Network’s nearly forty years of existence, this author’s history of a total of five years of various forms of direct involvement in the Network in the two capacities of Resources Officer (1988–1990) and Trustee (2020–2023), as well as other experiences of project-related professional engagement with the Network1 informs perspectives that can in some measure supplement the publicly available sources on which this review article is otherwise built. At the same time, because it is ethically and methodologically important to differentiate informal knowledge from data that are collected when acting formally as a researcher, nothing that is descriptively new is introduced into this article by this author which has either not already been in the public domain and/or would be against the ethical principle of “informed consent.”

Even so in the light of what, within Religious Studies (which is the broad academic field from within which this essay is written), is often called the “insider-outsider problem in the study of religion” (McCutcheon 1999) the potential difficulties as well as benefits that arise from authorial involvement in the subject matter of a publication should be acknowledged. At the same time, in this instance the potential issues involved are of a much more limited kind than would be the case when a scholar as author working in this mode of the study of religion discusses what is his or her own religious tradition, community or organization. Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that it is not possible for the present author to have a completely dispassionate view of the Network. At the same time, this is not judged to be a reason for the author to abstain from undertaking scholarly writing about the Network, not least because all who write about it are likely to have their own positionalities in relation to it. Rather, especially in the context of a publication that is subject to peer review, the importance of authorial transparency is underlined in terms of enabling its peer reviewers and ultimate readers to take these factors into account in their own reception and evaluation of this work.

1.3. The Network’s Repository of Publicly Available Materials

As soon as it became clear that the Network would need to close, the attention of its staff and Trustees turned to how at least aspects of its inheritance might be appropriately preserved and made accessible for the future. This not least included the substantial body of resources that the Network itself had produced during its nearly four decades of operation. According to the Network’s Closing Review (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 2024a, p. 81), these resources will be available on the Network’s website for three years after its closure. A substantial number of these resources were, in fact, previously available in digital format. In addition, however, many (although not all) of its earlier documents were digitized for public access via the Network’s website. (See Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 2026b). Although these documents are what might be described as “self-authored” by the Network, as long as that is borne in mind when using them, they offer a rich vein for tracing the history of the Network and of its wider contributions to the religion and belief landscape of the UK. In addition, after an appropriate period has passed, scholars will likely be able to conduct a more comprehensive work informed by the possibility of a systematic engagement with relevant primary archival materials, bringing that together with the benefit of a temporally more extended and detached historical perspective than is at the moment possible for this or indeed any other contemporary author to offer.

1.4. Published Work About the Network

With regard to published scholarly work about the Network, as distinct from more journalistic coverage of it, there is relatively little that currently exists. In what was, at the time of writing2 the most recent substantive publication to focus specifically on the Network and its work, van Eck Duymaer van Twist (2020, p. 208) explained that her chapter “…builds on and updates” what she identified as “…the limited existing secondary literature” that exists about the Network. In connection with this she lists, cites and discusses: a primarily descriptive book chapter about the origins, work and development of the Network that was authored by Brian Pearce (2012), who was the first (1997–2007) Director of the Network; an extended case study of the Network by the present author in a broader chapter on inter-religious co-operation in the UK (Weller 2013, in particular pp. 369–89); an analysis of the Network by Andrew Dawson in the context of a chapter of his edited book (Dawson 2016, pp. 133–52, in particular pp. 141–50) discussing the politics and practices of religious diversity; and, finally, a brief overview and analysis of the Network that forms a part of the chapter on “Dialogue” in the report of the Commission on Religion and Public Life (2015, pp. 50–51).

van Eck Duymaer van Twist’s chapter also discusses Samuel Westrop’s polemical report on The Interfaith Industry which, among other sections, contains sections called “An Inter Faith Cartel” (Westrop 2013, pp. 25–30) and another called “Interfaith Exploited”, the latter of which has a specific sub-section on the Network (Westrop 2013, pp. 11–14). Although she is correct to highlight the limited amount of literature, her summary did not, in fact, cover all the extant relevant literature extant at the time of her chapter. Missing from the published work she identifies were a number of older publications by the same author. These included an early short journal article (Weller 1988) that provided brief overview of the first decade of the Network; a later book chapter (Weller 1993a) in German; and a later journal article (Weller 1994) in English. Other relevant pieces that were published subsequently to van Eck Duymaer van Twist’s chapter, and which contained substantial reference to, and discussion of, the Network were this author’s book chapter was a book chapter (Weller 2016) which incorporated an extended discussion of the Network as part of the broader inter-faith context for the development of Religious Education in England, and Prudence Jones’ (2022) article on “Pagans and Dialogue”. This present essay has therefore engaged with all these publications as well as drawing upon material in three unpublished conference papers about the Network that were prepared and presented by the present author during the 1990s.

1.5. Present Contributions and Future Possibilities

Overall, then, the fact that this is the first extended work of its kind on the Inter Faith Network for the UK means that, although the essay seeks to offer some initial contextual evaluations of the Network with reference to its wider religious, social and political environments, the constraints of space and the absence until now of what this essay already seeks to do, means that its primary focus will be on as accurately as possible, delineating the internal developments in their interaction with external and contextual factors, both national and international.

In due course, there will likely be a larger range of published scholarly work about the Network itself which it will also be possible to bring into more systematic engagement with what is still a relatively small, but nevertheless emergent body of literature that situates inter-faith developments in the context of public policy analysis. In relation to the UK, this already includes such as Dawson (2016) and Prideaux and Dawson (2018), while more internationally it includes Griera (2012); Martikainen (2013); Dick and Nagel (2016); Griera (2020); Griera and Nagel (2018); Martínez-Ariño (2020); and Winkler et al. (2023). And this convergent engagement of emergent literatures will, in turn, make it in future possible for others to build upon, deepen and, where necessary correct the necessarily more limited and constrained contextual description and evaluation of this essay through the conduct of more detailed and analytical discussions as situated within a full range of relevant literature across such scholarly fields such as those of inter-faith studies, sociology of religion, urban studies and political science.

However, the more limited aim of this essay is, in as early and as accessible a way as possible, to nevertheless make a scholarly informed contribution to such wider practitioner and policy-related discussions that have emerged and are still emerging around the gaps that have been identified following the Network’s closure, as well as to the desirability and viability of how aspects of the Network’s inheritance might or might be taken forward into the future in addressing those identified gaps.

2. An Historical Overview of the Network

This main section of the article seeks to offer a primarily descriptive overview of the trajectory of the Network from just prior to its formal beginning in March 1987 until just after the closure of its office at the end of April 2024 and its formal dissolution on 21 January 2025.

2.1. The Network’s Origins

The Network emerged (Braybrooke 1992, pp. 88–90) in a UK religion and belief context that had become increasingly pluralistic, as traced by Woodhead and Catto (2012), particularly (but not only) since the end of the Second World War in connection with the labour migration movements of peoples into the UK, and especially those from the former New Commonwealth countries of the Caribbean and Indian subcontinent. When added to by the wider movements of asylum-seekers and refugees, the religious landscape of late-twentieth-century UK became increasingly religiously plural, adding to the longstanding presence of the Jewish community and smaller historic numbers of Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Zoroastrians and others.

In the context of these changes, people working within Religious Education (Gates 2016) and/or involved in local community relations started to engage in dialogical initiatives with a focus on addressing some of the practical issues arising in schools and neighborhoods. In addition, from within the majority religious tradition of Christianity, a number of theologians (for example, Hick 1973; Race 1983) and Church bodies (British Council of Churches 1981) began to ask questions and make proposals concerning the theological significance and implications of the presence in the UK of people of other than Christian faiths, while increasing numbers of people and organizations from migrant minority ethnic backgrounds began to identify either additionally, or primarily, in terms of religious identities (for example Knott 1986; Modood et al. 1994).

All of the above contributed to the environment in which it was possible for the Network to emerge, with the words of its founding declaration stating that:

We meet today as children of many traditions, inheritors of shared wisdom and of tragic misunderstandings. We recognise our shared humanity and we respect each other’s integrity in our differences. With the agreed purpose and hope of promoting greater understanding between the members of the different faith communities to which we belong and of encouraging the growth of our relationships of respect and trust and mutual enrichment in our life together, we hereby jointly resolve: The Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom should now be established….

(Interfaith News 1987, p. 2)

In legal terms the Network was officially founded as an unincorporated charity in 1997, but becoming a company limited by guarantee (see Companies House 2026c) with the transfer of the activities, assets and liabilities of its unincorporated predecessor passing, in 1998, to the registered charitable company of the same name (see Charity Commission 2026). Its establishment followed two years of extensive and careful preparatory consultation by its founding Director (1987–2007) Brian Pearce. As an active voluntary member of the World Congress of Faiths, in September 1984 he had taken leave of absence from his employment in the civil service in order to map the emerging inter-religious architecture of the UK and to identify and explore how stronger and more extensive linkages might be formed and progressed. Against this overall background, the Network’s founding aim was to:

…advance public knowledge and mutual understanding of the teachings, traditions and practices of the different faith communities in Britain, including an awareness both of their distinctive features and of their common ground and to promote good relations between persons of different religious faiths.

(Interfaith News 1987, p. 2)

2.2. The Network’s Categories of Affiliation

2.2.1. Its Overall Pattern

From its outset, the structure of the Network was complex and multi-layered. Unlike many other inter-faith organizations (Braybrooke 1980, 1992), it was composed not of individual members but of affiliated organizations. During its existence, the number of organizations affiliated to the Network grew from what many Network publications refer to as around 60 founding organizations3 to a total of 175 member organizations at the time of its closure (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 2024a, pp. 99–100). Because of this the Network might be described as a network of networks and/or an organization of organizations. which can clearly be seen in the overall shape of its membership that, with only a small number of changes and developments, characterized the Network throughout its nearly forty years of existence.

Within this overall organizational shape, the Network’s mode of operation was typically one in which it sought to amplify and complement, rather than to displace, the work of its affiliated organizations. Such an approach was reflected in the Network’s own frequent use of the words “link” or “linking” when describing its role. Associated with this was the somewhat “looser” word “affiliation” that originally tended to be used of the organizations that constituted the Network rather than the harder-edged word “membership”.

2.2.2. National “Faith Community Representative” Bodies

At its inception, the Network had 27 affiliated organizations (Interfaith News 1987, p. 2) in this category of membership, while in its Closing Review, a total of 32 were listed (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 2024a, p. 99). In 1987, these included bodies from within the Bahá’í, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jain, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh communities. Membership of a Zoroastrian community organization was formally added in 1989, although Zoroastrians had previously been involved in the consultative work leading to the Network’s founding.

As early as in a Memorandum of 26 July 1978, the Christian clergy Canon Peter Schneider and Revd. Marcus Braybrooke, together with Buddhist Revd. Jack Austin had undertaken some exploratory thinking about the possible formation of a “Consultative Religious Council” within which “members of various faith communities would meet and discuss as equal partners” and which would “consciously seek to relate to the various Faith Communities as a whole.” (quoted in Braybrooke 1992, p. 89). Although soon after the founding of the Network there were wider voices who argued for the creation of a Council of Faiths on the basis that such “would simply be to give institutional form to a process which has been gathering force over the years” (Lamont 1989, p. 204) this was not something to which the original vision of the Network aspired.

Nevertheless, in very deliberately including the category of member organizations that were nationally representative from within the world religious traditions having communities in the UK of a substantial size, the very structure of the Network represented a major and distinctive step forward in the development of inter-religious relations in the context of the wider public life of the UK beyond. This distinguished the Network from the vast majority of inter-faith initiatives that pre-dated it, which were generally composed of individuals who (albeit firmly rooted in their own traditions), might be described as “inter-faith enthusiasts”; working together with those who, for one reason or another had become “refugees” from their own traditions and/or communities; and/or who were “seekers” who had not yet found a religious home. In due course, and especially as the Network became increasingly involved in facilitating a more religiously inclusive engagement with the UK government and issues of public life (Prideaux 2020), in 2003 the Network also established within its structure a specific “Faith Communities Forum”, through which the sometimes distinct interests of this category of its membership could be expressed and pursued.

2.2.3. National and Regional Inter-Faith Organizations

At its inception, the Network had six affiliated organizations (Interfaith News 1987, p. 2) in this category of membership, while in its Closing Review, a total of 29 were listed (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 2024a, p. 99). While the involvement of national faith community organizations did give the Network potential scope and reach beyond the confines of “inter-faith enthusiasts”, nevertheless this membership category was formed on the basis of either a commitment to positive relations between one or more religious traditions and/or on the basis of bringing one or more traditions together in order to address issues such as peace or human rights. Thus it was both distinct from, and complementary to, the category of the national faith community organizations.

Indeed, in what was the first initiative that gave a more structural expression to its “linking” role, from 2001 onwards the Network brought these national level inter-faith organizations together on a regular basis in order to share experience and perspectives. In due course, this membership category expanded to include what, in Network parlance, became known as the inter-faith “linking bodies” for the three parts of the UK (Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales) that have devolved governance. These included the Northern Ireland Inter-Faith Forum (2026), founded in 1993; Interfaith Scotland (2026), originally founded in 1999 as the Scottish Inter Faith Council; and the Inter Faith Council for Wales/Cyngor Rhyng-greyfyddol Cymru (2026), founded in 2004; and, from 2005 onwards, these “linking bodies” met together regularly with each other and with the Network.

For a period during the early to mid/late 2000s, regional inter-faith bodies also became an important part of this category of Network affiliation, reflecting the growth in the number and significance of these in articulation with the then “New Labour” government’s regional agenda (Prideaux 2020) that saw the establishment of Regional Development Agencies and Regional Assemblies. From 2006 onwards, working together with the Faith Based Regeneration Network, the Network facilitated regular meetings of an English Regional Faith Forums Network. In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash and the formation, in 2010, of a Conservative-Liberal coalition government shaped by the politics and economics of financial austerity, the public funding that had been a central part of the budgets of many of these regional bodies was withdrawn, as result of which the majority of these fora struggled to continue their work, and many were relatively soon dissolved, although some managed to continue.

2.2.4. Local Inter-Faith Groups

At its inception, the Network had 24 affiliated organizations (Interfaith News 1987, p. 2) in this category of membership, while in its Closing Review, a total of 99 were listed (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 2024a, p. 100). It was therefore this category of affiliation which, over the lifetime of the Network, saw the largest growth in organizational affiliation. In many ways this is not surprising since it was often at the level of localities where the practical issues, challenges and opportunities of increasing religion and belief diversity first came into focus (Prideaux 2020). Indeed, some of the earliest local inter-faith groups developed out of the work of local Community Relations Councils that had originally been set up in order to facilitate the integration of primarily immigrant communities and groups which had originally been understood mainly in terms of national and/or ethnic identities.

The total number of local inter-faith groups always exceeded the number of those in membership of the Network, and those that were affiliated were not, as was sometimes thought, “branches” of the Network. Rather they were independent groups which in some cases had existed for some years before the Network. Between the beginning of 2000 and the 2003 publication of a report from a Network project which showed, through a survey mapping of local inter-faith activity, that the number of local inter-faith groups expanded rapidly, 43% of all local inter-faith bodies had come into existence during that period (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 2003b, p. vii).

Many of these groups were established in urban localities with a high degree of visible ethnic and religious diversity, although some could also be found in more rural areas where this is less the case. Many were quite informal and based on individual membership. Others had a more “corporate” and “official” feel, aspiring to have a balanced representation of the religious traditions, communities and organizations in a specific geographical area in order to have a platform on the basis of which credibly to work with local authorities. While some of these developed on the basis of their own vision and organizational impetus, especially during the period of the “New Labour” Governments (which were strongly influenced by “communitarian” thinking on social policy), an increasing number were, in effect, called into existence through what Dawson called the opening of a “religion policy window” (Dawson 2016, pp. 135–41) which, in turn, offered the promise of potential public funding for their work (Prideaux and Dawson 2018).

This was even more the case in the wake of the 2001 disturbances in the former northern English mill towns as well as in the context of the global repercussions of the 9/11 attacks on the USA, and the UK Government’s subsequent emphasis on “social cohesion”. By the time the Local Government Association (2002, p. 24, para. 7.9) issued guidance on the interface between local government and inter-faith initiatives, it was stating that “The value of more formal structures of this kind in multi-faith cities and towns is becoming increasingly apparent”. Developments of these kinds often took place in the context of wider so-called “City Partnerships” which were engaged in trying to unlock and deploy “social capital” from across the whole of the voluntary and community sectors, and they reached a peak in the context of the social policy shock that was experienced through the 7/7 London Transport bombings in 2005.

Over the years, Network staff sponsored and serviced regular consultations or “link meetings” between local inter-faith groups in the various regions of England, as well as in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. These meetings were open to all such groups in the region concerned, whether affiliated to the Network or not. They provided an opportunity for these groups to more widely share, as well as to learn from, their respective experiences of inter-faith work at a local level, while also offering a means through which the day-to-day concerns of grassroots inter-faith work could, in turn, inform the wider work and agendas of the Network.

2.2.5. Academic and Educational Initiatives

At its inception, the Network had 10 affiliated organizations (Interfaith News 1987, p. 2) in this category of membership, while in its Closing Review, a total of 15 were listed (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 2024a, p. 99). Although this membership category was, perhaps, the least clearly delineated in comparison with the other categories, it was never intended for it to include all UK academic or educational organizations engaged in the study of religion and religions. Rather, its focus was on organizations which, with a concentration on the UK context, contributed from an academic and/or educational perspective to the lived and relational dimensions of the religions concerned. Unlike the other categories of Network membership, these organizations were not themselves necessarily constituted on either a religious or inter-religious basis, although all included individuals and/or member organizations who had a religious self-understanding.

From the earliest days of the Network onwards, the organizations in this membership category played a pivotal role at the interface with developments around the Religious Education (RE) curriculum in schools. An important partner (through mutual organizational affiliation) in this was the Religious Education Council (REC). Like the Network, the REC has also been an “umbrella” body formed of a range of different kinds of independent member organizations. These are described on the REC’s website as including “national organizations which have an active interest in RE, including those for RE professionals and for faith and belief bodies” (see Religious Education Council 2026).

The REC was originally established as long ago as 1973 to provide a framework for faith communities and others to work together on a broadly inclusive basis in relation to issues and opportunities around Religious Education (RE) and Collective Worship (CW) in schools and to engage with Government on these. Its membership of the Network was informed by an agreement that the Network would not try to duplicate the REC’s work that was focused on RE and that both would seek to act in mutually complementary ways. As well as having worked with the REC in its capacity as an umbrella body, the Network also co-operated on specific projects with some of the REC’s member bodies. This, for example, included a June 2001 joint seminar and report with the National Association of Standing Advisory Committees on Religious Education on the challenges and opportunities involved in integrating inter-faith issues into the school curriculum (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom and National Association for Standing Advisory Committees on Religious Education 2001), as well as a jointly sponsored 2009 seminar on collaborative working between local inter-faith groups and SACRES. (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom and National Association for Standing Advisory Committees on Religious Education 2009).

2.3. The Network’s Key Areas of Work: Contributions and Achievements

2.3.1. Introduction

Growing out of its founding principles and its subsequent development, the Network consolidated what became its distinctive role around a number of key areas of work. In the following sections, these are identified under the headings of a source of information (Section 2.3.2); a means of communication (Section 2.3.3): an actor in the negotiation of difference (Section 2.3.4); a facilitator of shared representation and interests (Section 2.3.5); and a promoter of participation and inclusion (Section 2.3.6). The headings are those of the author, as is the allocation to each of them of various examples, and it is recognized that at least some examples could potentially have been located and discussed under a different heading than is the case in the following.

2.3.2. A Source of Information

It is not uncommon for religious traditions, communities and organizations—and especially minority ones—to feel that they encounter ignorance among the general population and that their depiction in the media is often subject at least to distortion, if not worse. Therefore, some of the Network’s early work addressed media issues. In addition, one of the important services offered by the Network from its beginning, was the provision of a central point of reference for enquiries and information. However, alongside this more responsive mode of operation, the Network also undertook proactively planned work to provide reliable and accessible information about the religious traditions, communities and organizations of the UK and the relationships between them.

The first product of this work was a handbook (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 1988) of its own affiliated organizations which included contact details and summary information about them. Developing out of that, and extending beyond it, between 1991 and 2001, the Network worked collaboratively—initially with the University of Derby and subsequently with the Multi-Faith Centre at the University of Derby—on the Multi-Faith Directory Research Project (Weller 2002–2003) which produced successive editions of the Religions in the UK directory (Weller 1993b, 1997, 2001), the 2001 edition of which was awarded the 4th Annual Shap Award of the Shap Working Party on World Religions in Education for “… a significant contribution to education and the study of religion” (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 2002, p. 6). The 1997 edition of the directory became the basis for the development of Religions in the UK: On-Line which was located within the University of Derby’s MultiFaithNet Internet service (Weller 1998a, 1998b) while the final edition (Weller 2007), in which the Network was not formally involved, included a searchable CD-ROM for the organizational contact details.

At the start of the directory project, although well-established directories existed on Christian and Jewish organizations in the UK, similar directories did not exist for Hindus, Muslims and others, and there was no such overall multi-faith work of reference. The project sought to fill such lacunae through producing a publication aimed at a general professional readership combining accessible, but also academically defensible introductory descriptions to the world religious traditions with substantial communities in the UK, within which descriptions those within the traditions and communities concerned would be able to recognize themselves, with collated contact details about local places of worship, religious organizations and interreligious initiatives at local and national levels.

While the first three editions of the Religions in the UK directory also included contextual material on inter-faith relations and contact listings for inter-faith organizations and initiatives, from 2004 onwards the Network produced its own Inter Faith Organisations in the UK: A Directory (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 2004b) followed by updated editions in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2009, with the latter of these including details on around 260 organizations working at UK, national, regional, and local levels to promote good inter-faith relations. (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 2009).

Together with such works of reference the Network has, over the years, produced a number of specific briefing notes and also a series of regular circulars for its member organizations. Thus, from 1996 to 2008, the Network produced a regular newsletter called Inter Faith Update in order to highlight and disseminate information on the Network’s own activities; other inter-religious initiatives; and details of developments on public policy issues of particular interest and concern to faith communities. Since 2009 this work took the form of an E-Bulletin. As part of the Network’s closing curation of relevant work, these materials have all been brought together into a specific section of the Network’s website (see Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 2026b).

2.3.3. A Means of Communication

The diversity of standpoints and perspectives found among the four categories of Network member bodies meant that, from its outset, the Network already contained an inbuilt tension which, at one and the same time, both constrained its possibilities but also offered a potential for facilitating mutual exposure to, and communication between, these different interests and perspectives. For example, although Pagan organizations were not, for many years, admitted to the Network’s membership category of faith community national representative organizations (Jones 2022), a number of local inter-faith groups that were in membership with the Network included Pagans in their own membership. Because of this, at least a measure of communicative confidence-building was able to take place across the Network membership categories until the Network’s own position with regard to the membership of Pagan national organizations was changed (see Section 4.2).

Throughout its history the Network organized annual meetings at which all its affiliated organizations could be represented and its formal business transacted. But these also provided a forum for communication around wider issues of shared concern, and opportunity was often taken to build on publications and other initiatives of the Network. The public visibility of key people from across its affiliated organizations coming together in common ownership of the Network and its agendas and activities was itself a product and embodiment of the often almost invisible but nevertheless critical role of the Network as a means of communication through its acting as a facilitator, servant or midwife in support of relationships and the building of trust.

The value of the Network’s quiet relationship-building became evident as early in its history as Autumn 1988 when, with the coming into wider public view of what later became globally known as the “Rushdie Controversy” or the “Satanic Verses Controversy” (Akhtar 1989; Sardar and Wyn Davis 1990; Malik 2010) a number of Muslim individuals and organizations contacted the Network to inquire about its stance on the issues that were emerging around Salman Rushdie’s (1988) book, The Satanic Verses. Within the Network (as in the wider society) there were a wide range of perspectives. Many sympathized with the hurt that was widely expressed by Muslims. Others, even if they also felt such sympathy, argued that it was also important to defend Rushdie’s freedom of expression and, especially, to oppose any use of the then still existing blasphemy laws to restrict that. By the time the Ayatollah Khomeini issued his fatwa on Rushdie, the book and its publishers and Salman Rushdie had himself gone into hiding, the pressure for the Network to publicly do or say something was intense and the officers of the Network felt it was their responsibility to issue a statement.

At this point in its history, however, the Network had no agreed procedure for issuing public statements and there was concern about how its affiliated organizations might react if the officers of the Network were perceived to be saying things with which Network organizations might not agree. The statement that was eventually issued walked a careful tightrope of a kind often later reprised, between not being in a position to express a clearly unified position on some of the substantive issues involved, while attempting to express something specific enough to be of some value. In the end, the statement was barely reported in the national media. However, in this and in many later instances, local inter-faith groups often found such Network statements to be of value in helping to orientate and inform their own local responses. As a significant early test of the Network’s relevance, robustness and resilience, its response to the Rushdie controversy demonstrated the Network’s growing maturity as a facilitator of communication in highly polarized public environments. However, in the context of some of the initiatives that it took, the Network went beyond facilitating such communication to itself becoming an actor in the negotiation of difference.

2.3.4. An Actor in the Negotiation of Difference

In building on its facilitative work in the context of The Satanic Verses controversy, together with then Commission for Racial Equality, the Network also took on the opportunity and responsibility to co-sponsor a seminar which drew together religious and media representatives and legal experts to discuss the then existing (and since abolished) legal provisions for blasphemy under English law, with a view to exploring whether they should be extended, abolished or replaced with other legislation. The consensus from that seminar (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom and the Commission for Racial Equality 1990a) was that the existing blasphemy law did not provide a helpful way forward. In a further joint seminar, participants went on to debate the helpfulness or otherwise of the introduction of new legislation focused on the protection of believers rather than of beliefs. (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom and the Commission for Racial Equality 1990b).

Over its history, the Network engaged its affiliated organizations in a range of consultative exercises, the conduct of which involved the negotiation of difference. One of the earliest of these was the evolution and publication of its multi-lateral Statement on Inter Religious Relations in Britain (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 1991). This included a series of summary paragraphs (which were separately and freely distributed) supplemented, in each case, by a more extended commentary. One of the Statement clauses referred to the:

…need to respect the integrity of each other’s inherited and chosen religious identities, beliefs and practices. To be able to live by our traditions, share our convictions, and act according to our consciences are freedoms which we all affirm and which we wish the framework of society to uphold. But these freedoms must never be used in order to pressurise others into changing their religious identities, beliefs or practices.

(Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 1991, para. 11)

This paragraph touched upon some of the most challenging issues in the relationships between people of different religious traditions, communities and organizations. And, indeed, the sensitivity around this was soon to be underscored when the Christian Churches of Britain and Ireland designated 1990s as a “Decade of Evangelism/Evangelization” and a number of other than Christian faith groups expressed concern about the potential implications of this for them and their adherents. Once again, however, this presented the Network with opportunity and challenge to work proactively on the negotiation of difference which eventually led to the publication of its booklet on Mission, Dialogue and Inter-Religious Encounter (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 1993b) that included a briefer and widely distributed code of practice on Building Good Relations with People of Different Faiths (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 1993a) which was translated into a variety of community languages and widely distributed.

2.3.5. A Facilitator of Shared Representations and Interests

As trust was built, it proved possible for the Network also to develop a facilitative role in the making of representations to government and other public bodies. Initially this was taken forward in more of an indirect than a direct manner. For example, during the discussions which preceded the passing of the 1988 Education Reform Act (which, amongst other changes, introduced new requirements for generally strengthening the emphasis on Christianity within collective worship and Religious Education in publicly funded schools) in order to assist its affiliated organizations in making their own representations, the Network circulated briefing papers. In addition, however, through a letter to the Anglican Bishop of London who (as a member of the House of Lords) was undertaking wide ranging consultations on potential amendments to the Bill, the Network did also corporately express the basic conviction that the new Act should reflect the multi-faith society which England and Wales had become.

Around a decade later, in relation to the considerable degree of unease which developed following the issue of guidance with regard to collective worship within county schools, acting jointly with the REC and with the National Association of Standing Advisory Councils on RE, the Network facilitated a two year process involving three one day conferences and wider postal consultation, the outcomes of which were collated in the report Collective Worship Reviewed. (RE Council of England and Wales et al. 1998).

In relation to the public events intended to mark the year 2000 as the Millennium, the Network was directly involved in discussions around the development of the Millenium Dome’s “Spirit Zone”. In addition, in association with the Government Department for Culture, Media and Sport, it was involved in the development of guidelines on Marking the Millennium in a Multi-Faith Context: Guidelines for Events Organisers (Churches and Other Faiths Sub-Group of the Government’s Millennium Co-Ordinating Group 1998) which identified the range of potential issues involved and provided practical guidance. The Network also worked across religious community groups, and with the assistance of government, to create an Act of Commitment by the Faith Communities of the United Kingdom (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 2000) which, as part of the official millennium celebrations, took place in the Royal Gallery of the House of Lords.

On a more strategic level, the Network played a significant role in facilitating the UK government Home Office’s consultation with, in particular, other than Christian religious groups, that led to the Working Together (Home Office Faith Communities Unit 2004) report. This included a number of recommendations that were intended to help government departments “improve their engagement with citizens from the faith communities in matters of national policy”, with the document also suggesting “various approaches which the faith communities themselves can adopt to get the most out of their dealings with Government”. Building on this, the Home Office Faith Communities Unit’s (2005) follow-through report helped to inform the 2006 foundation of the Faith Communities Consultative Council (FCCC).

The FCCC was intended to act as a focus for communication between government and civil servants and representatives from national faith community bodies (see Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 2006, p. 8). The responsibility for convening the FCCC was, in due course, located with the Department for Communities and Local Government within which, in 2009, an Expert Panel on Faith (see Denham 2010) was also appointed with the intention that its input to government would be complementary to that of the FCCC, its membership being composed of a group of academics and community actors with substantial knowledge of the religious traditions and communities in the UK, and of which the present author was a member. However, following the formation of the Conservative-Liberal Coalition government both the FCCC and the Expert Panel were abolished.

2.3.6. A Promoter of Participation and Inclusion

The original aims of the Network had referred to what was identified as “the common ground” between the religions, while the Network’s Statement on Inter-Religious Relations (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 1991, para. 4) had held that “a recognition of the extent to which we share a range of common values and ideals can contribute to a wider sense of community in our society”. In relation to this, as early as 1990, the Network had already launched a Values in a Multi-Faith Society Project while, in 1991, a Faith in Public Life Programme was initiated, both of which provided a broad framework for some of the ongoing agendas and specific initiatives undertaken by the Network. With regard specifically to “values”, on 10th December 1996, the Network brought together a range of the key individuals and organizations involved in values debates—including representatives of the Values Education Council, the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority, Churches Together in England, and other religious bodies—to explore the possibilities and problematics of the values agenda, and which resulted in the publication of a report The Quest for Common Values (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 1997b).

During 1997–1998, the Network worked closely with the Inner Cities Religious Council (ICRC) that had been created in 1992 by then Conservative government as part of a shared response between the Church of England and the government to the Church of England’s critical Faith in the City report (Archbishop’s Commission on Urban Priority Areas 1985) on disadvantaged areas and communities. As a government-established forum for advice on a range of inner-city regeneration and policy issues, the ICRC was formed of faith community representatives from within the Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh traditions (albeit therefore not involving the Bahá’í, Buddhist, Jain and Zoroastrian traditions which had national faith community representation in the Network).

The ICRC and the Network worked together with the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) in exploring the case for the introduction, in England, Wales and Scotland, of new law to address matters of religious, as distinct from racial and ethnic, discrimination. Also, as discussion around the desirability or otherwise of a question on religious affiliation in the decennial Censuses of England and Wales gradually gathered pace, the Network helped to facilitate the consultation with religious communities that was undertaken by the Office for National Statistics. At a 15 October meeting, the Network’s Executive Committee expressed the concern of faith communities about the initial position of the ONS that a religion question was not a priority for inclusion in the upcoming Census question testing. In November 1997 the Director of the Network wrote to the ONS (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 1997a, pp. 3–4) following which it was announced that ONS would, after all, include a question in its Census test questions.

In the context of the spread of local and regional inter-faith initiatives, in 1999, in association with the ICRC the Network published the first edition of The Local Inter Faith Guide (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 1999). This provided advice on the setting up and running of local inter-religious initiatives and was followed by Local Government Association’s (2002) Faith and Community. Finally, in partnership with the Local Government Association, the Home Office and the ICRC, the Network brought out the Partnership for the Common Good (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 2003c) good practice guidelines for the relationship between inter-faith structures and local government, while a second edition of The Local Inter Faith Guide (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 2005b) was also published.

Local inter-faith groups have, from their earliest days, been an arena within which women’s leadership has been particularly active and prominent in ways that has not always been reflected in the other categories of Network member organizations, especially that of the national representative organizations. Recognizing that this relatively weak position of women in many national faith community structures posed at least a challenge to the overall inclusivity of inter-faith relations, particularly during the period of Harriet Crabtree’s Directorship of the Network consciously focused attempts were made to address this (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 2003a, p. 9), while wor together with TimeBank and the National Youth Agency other inclusivity initiatives was undertaken in relation to the relative absence of young people from many inter-faith organizations and activities (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 2018, 2004a).

3. Old Issues, Challenges Renewed and Converging into Closure

3.1. Introduction

Having identified and made some initial review of the distinctive contributions that the Network made, especially during the earlier part of its over its nearly forty years of history, it is important also to identify and, in a preliminary way, to review what have been the key challenges faced by the Network. Across the Network’s history there have been at least three identifiable sets of ongoing issues and challenges which, in various ways (at times more explicitly and at others more implicitly) have been challenging for the Network. All of these have, albeit in different ways, been issues at the interface between the internal life of the Network and external circumstances and developments beyond its immediate control. And, it could be argued, each of these found some convergence within the eventual nexus of conditions that resulted in the closure of the Network. These have been, as follows: the nature and scope of the organizations affiliated to the Network; the role of public funding to the Network; and, finally, the expectations of, and issues involved in, the Network itself making public statements on controversial matters impacting on inter-faith relations, especially in so far as these have related to matters with their origins located primarily outside of the UK.

3.2. Who Should Be “In” or “Out” and Why?

As noted in Section 2.2.2, in terms of broad religious traditions, the Network was originally constituted around what, at the time, was understood and articulated in terms of “world religious traditions” with substantial communities in the UK. For most of its life this meant that organizations involved in the Network’s membership category of national faith community organizations were from the Bahá’í, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jain, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, and Zoroastrian traditions.

However, relatively soon after the Network’s creation, it began to receive enquiries about the possibility of affiliation from national organizations associated with religious groups from beyond these traditions. In many ways, this was a testament to how quickly the Network had created a respected role for itself because, generally speaking, individual organizations do not go out of their way to apply to join umbrella organizations which do not bring any added value. However, especially when seen in the context of the opening of the “religion policy window” (Dawson 2016, pp. 135–41) and the public funding associated with that (see Section 2.2.4), one unintended byproduct of this original construction of the Network was, arguably, that it contributed to the notion that these “nine” traditions were the “officially” recognized traditions. And this was reinforced because the directories produced by the Multi-Faith Directory Research project also focused primarily on these traditions (albeit also including some smaller entries concerning traditions, groups and organizations from beyond these nine). In turn, traditions that were not part of “the nine” felt relatively marginalized, at least in terms of public policy engagement and the possibility of securing public funding.

In connection with debate at Network Annual General Meetings, the perhaps most regularly and insistently raised challenge to the Network’s historically established pattern of national faith community organization membership was raised concerning organizations related to Pagan traditions. On one side of the debate were arguments that Pagan affiliation might be seen by some “mainstream” religious groups as problematic and thus put at risk the degree of religious inclusivity that the Network had so far achieved, and/or concerns that potentially negative government perceptions of Pagan traditions might undermine the Network’s hard-earned standing with government and other public bodies. Others, however, pointed out that given that the results of the 2001 Census had shown that there were more Pagans in the UK than there were Bahá’ís, Jains or Zoroastrians (and whose organizations were included in the membership category concerned) the exclusion of national Pagan organizations was beginning to seem increasingly untenable on the grounds of equity.

In addition, the 2010 Equality Act which, through the Human Rights Act, 1988 further consolidated the original introduction into British law of the European Convention on Human Rights, brought about a sharper framing of these issues. In a number of fora, Pagans (and others) had begun appealing to this law (which, in principle, also impinged on government funding decisions through the so-called Public Sector Equality Duty), in order to try to advance their case for inclusion in membership bodies which were in receipt of public funds, such as the Network. It was such a legal and policy context that van Eck Duymaer van Twist (2020, p. 207) was referring to when she argued that “…new equality legislation has made vulnerable some interfaith work in the UK, which had developed along a particular model—a model that was no longer appropriate in a diverse society” and that, specifically for the Network, “…the most difficult issue faced by the organization being a major challenge to its membership criteria from certain individuals and groups, including the Druid Network.”

This particular challenge arose in a context within which, following a four-year process, the Charity Commission for England and Wales had, in 2010, finally recognized the Druid Network as a being a charity with religious objectives. Being recognized under charitable law as having legitimate religious goals both paved the way for, and also encouraged, the Druid Network to apply for membership of the Network. However, a week after the application was made, it was rejected by reference to the Network’s historic approach in which a Network AGM resolution of 2007 had stated that the membership category of national faith community bodies was only open to the “nine” traditions noted at the beginning of this section. However, the Druid Network argued that the Network’s position on this matter was contrary to the Equality Act, 2010. In addition, at a November 2012 event held at the House of Lords organized by the All Faiths Network for the United Kingdom (AFN), the Druid Network expressed a concern that since the Network advised government and other organizations on policy relating to religion, given that the Network was not itself inclusive, any advice that it might give could also not be inclusive. It also claimed that another consequence of this was that, at least some local inter-faith groups had been explicitly appealing to the Network’s own policy on national faith community representative organizations as justification for their independent decision-making in relation their own membership criteria. At the same time, however, the Druid Network noted that Inter Faith Council for Wales/Cyngor Rhyng-greyfyddol Cymru, the Scottish Inter Faith Council and the Northern Ireland Inter-Faith Forum all accepted Druids as members.

In the light of all this, the Druid Network and some supporters commissioned legal advice from the law firm Bindmans (2026), in the context of which, on 12 November 2012, John Halford (2012) gave a written legal opinion that, in rejecting the Druid Network’s membership application, the Network had been discriminatory. However, the Network also took legal advice which pointed in a different direction, taking into account that the Equality Act did allow religious organizations to provide a rationale for having certain carefully defined exemptions to what would otherwise be seen as discriminatory.

Overall, in relation to the ultimate change that took place in Network policy, it is difficult to make a judgement about the precise weighting of the interrelationship between the arguments that were pressed by the Druid Network; the diverse views on this matter which already existed within the Network itself; the legal opinion given from Bindmans, and that commissioned by the Network; a public campaign that was conducted against the Network on this and related matters by the individual and organizational sources; and other factors, such as an overall Strategic Review of the Network that had been initiated by the Network itself.

The membership parameters reflected in the Network AGM’s 2007 resolution/decision not to admit the Druid Network had been qualified by the formulation of “at the present time”. And, in due course, a review of the Network’s own membership policy which had begun within the context of a Strategic Review (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 2016, p. 31) eventually resulted in the development of a new Membership Admission Policy. In the light of this, as summarized by Andrew Dawson (2016, p. 133), “The final phase of this process was initiated by an extraordinary general meeting of the IFN (20 May 2014), which voted to amend its admissions policy and thereby remove longstanding restrictions upon the kind of religious body eligible for full membership.” This was followed on 24 September 2014 when the Druid Network, the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints, the Pagan Federation, and the Spiritualists’ National Union were, in line with the Network’s rules, admitted for an initial two provisional years of provisional membership into the Network’s membership category of national faith community representative bodies, which was followed in 2016 by successful completion of the provisional membership period and the transition of these bodies into full membership.

In relation to these changes it seems that only the Warrington Council of Faiths (apparently in the light of objections raised by its Christian representatives) resigned from the Network over this issue (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 2016, p. 32) and that, therefore, as van Eck Duymaer van Twist put it, the Network appeared to have “…successfully dealt with this challenge” (van Eck Duymaer van Twist 2020, p. 207). The process leading up to this had been, Andrew Dawson put it, a “long and, at times, fractious” one (Dawson 2016, p. 133). However, the fact that it proved possible to resolve in an evolutionary way arguably ultimately came about through a convergence between, as John Halford noted, the fact that Druid Network had been clear that it did not want to have resort to legal action or complaints to the Equality and Human Rights or Charity Commissions to resolve matters and that it thought there were likely to be better ways to resolve the dispute, and the fact that the Network’s Director at the time, Dr. Harriet Crabtree, was in principle open to find ways forward for extending the Network’s membership.

However, the process of arriving at this evolutionary solution had earlier become complicated by the fact that it partially overlapped in time with a different constellation of Network membership-related issues in which, as van Eck Duymaer van Twist put it, “…more controversially, some of the member groups have been accused of promoting extremism by a small group of critics.” (van Eck Duymaer van Twist 2020, p. 207) In connection with this, in November 2013, a different event had been held in the House of Lords, organized by the now closed initiative Stand for Peace (Companies House 2026b), at which a report called The Interfaith Industry and authored by Samuel Westrop (2013) was discussed. Ths initiative articulated itself as seeking to “oppose taxpayers’ money going to organizations which promote or legitimize groups involved in violence or extremism” (quoted in van Eck Duymaer van Twist 2020, p. 217), and included a focus on issues relating Network member organizations.

Laster, in an article that was published following the closure of the Network office, in an interview with Dexter van Ziel (2024) which was published under the title “the UK Imam Who Took on the Interfaith Industry—And Won”, similar accusations were made by Muhammad Al-Hussaini In the article concerned, Al-Hussaini was quoted as claiming that the Network had a “…power-seeking, taxpayer money-seeking agenda” and that it was “… an empire run by a little coterie”. In this article, Al-Hussaini was also celebrated as being someone of whom “…the British government finally took notice” after what were described as “years of lobbying public officials and reporters” about the Network having “close links to Islamist and extremist Hindu nationalist groups”. Whether and/or to what degree the claims of Al-Hussaini’s influence on the government’s decision to withdraw funding from the Network made in the above article can be sustained will likely remain difficult to know with any certainty until the relevant government department papers are eventually made public. However, as himself the author of a book (Gove 2006) which, arguably, tended to conflate ideological Islamism and terrorism, it is arguable that Gove could have had at least a basic receptivity towards the kind of charges made by Al-Hussaini against the Network for having “… played an outsized role in legitimizing Islamism in the UK.” (Al-Hussaini, quoted in van Ziel 2024).

What is in any case clear is that when, on 21 February 2024, Michael Gove wrote to the Network confirming the withdrawal of government funding, he specifically referred to the Muslim Council of Britain’s (MCB) membership of the Network, as well as to the appointment of an MCB member as a Trustee of the Network, stating that:

Whilst I recognise that the MCB was already a member of the Inter Faith Network when the previous offer of funding was made, I find their membership regrettable and it is deeply concerning that an MCB member could be appointed into your core governance structure. This increases the proximity between government funding and an organisation (the MCB) with which the Government has a long-standing policy of non-engagement.

(quoted in Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 2024a, p. 86)

In the letter quoted from above, Gove was referring to a policy that had started under the previous Labour government, during all the period of which, as well as since then, the MCB had been a member organization of the Network. In responding to this, the Network’s officers acknowledged that it was for government to decide about with which organizations it wished to have a direct relationship or not. However, the officers also pointed out that in relation to the MCB’s membership of the Network, that:

There is no more Government engagement with MCB because of that membership than there is by it with the MCB because, for example, MCB’s Deputy General Secretary is a member of the Crown Prosecution Service London Scrutiny and Involvement Panel and the Police Islington Advisory Group.

(quoted in Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 2024a, p. 85)

3.3. Pressures to Take Public Positions

During the period shortly prior to the 19 January letter from Michael Gove stating that he was minded to withdraw the Network’s public funding, two articles about the Network were published in The Sunday Telegraph. The first was a piece by Hazell and Malnick (2023) and the second a piece by Will Hazell (2023) alone. Both referred to unattributed reports of concerns within the then Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities about what was described as the Network’s “failure” to make a statement condemning the October 7 attacks of Hamas on Israel, while the second piece also referred to the MCB’s membership of the Network in the context of noting that the government had cut ties with the MCB. Although on 3 January 2024, the Network’s Co-Chairs sent a letter to the editor of The Sunday Telegraph responding to the main points of these articles (see Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 2024b), their letter was never published by the newspaper and neither was a further letter from the Co-Chairs of 15 February 2024.

As already noted in Section 2.3.3, from the beginning of its existence onwards, the Network was often under pressure, either from its affiliated organizations and/or from others, to make statements in relation to matters of religious and/or inter-religious concern. Therefore, throughout its life, the question of when and how the Network should take up public positions in relation to matters of social and political concern had always been a challenging one. At the same time, because the tackling of issues of inter-religious conflict, controversy and relations lay at the heart of its own rationale, for the Network to have sought completely to avoid such matters would have brought its credibility into question. And this was not least because religious communities in the UK are part of global religious families and therefore what happens other parts of the world does, at least potentially, also impact upon inter-faith relations in the UK.

Nevertheless, as also in the past, the making of such statements was a far from simple matter, particularly so when religious conflicts overlapped with wider social and political issues, and especially so when the main issues concerned were located outside of the UK. This was in part because, within such a broad/based umbrella organization there can very rarely be complete unanimity of position and perspective, not least because the internal diversity of faith communities and inter-faith organizations in membership with the Network could sometimes be as great as the diversity that existed between them. In the light of this, the Network generally proceeded by consensus wherever possible, only making statements on behalf of member bodies after full consultation.

The early challenge presented by The Satanic Verses controversy has been noted in Section 2.3.3. But throughout its existence the Network frequently found itself in similarly challenging positions which involved the complex interplay between national and international contexts and the making of statements by the Network. This, for example, also included the 1990 annexation of Kuwait by Iraqi military forces and the ensuing Gulf War, not least because on this occasion UK military forces were directly involved in the conflict and many Muslims in the UK felt a sympathy for the Iraqi people in the face of massive Allied firepower and technological superiority. Related to this sympathy, numbers of Muslims in Britain faced accusations of disloyalty and, in reaction, a number of acts of violence were committed against mosques and other Islamic organizations. Once again, however, because the roots of this conflict and possible solutions to it lay largely outside of the UK, the statement made by the Network officers was able only to speak in more generalized terms of aspirations towards peace and justice. However, in relation to the pressures arising on the Muslim community in Britain at that time, the statement was more sharply specific in condemning associated acts of aggression against sections of the community.

In 1992, when the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya, India, was demolished, a number of Hindu places of worship in the UK were attacked in retaliation to that demolition, and the Network’s officers again issued a statement. (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 2007, p. 14) Then, following the 9/11 Al-Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon in the USA in 2011, the Network’s Executive Committee issued a document which sought to bring a measured assessment to bear at a time of great emotional tension that had, in some instances, again resulted in hostility being experienced by, and attacks being made on, Muslim individuals and property, as well as against some perceived to be Muslims. Nevertheless, more proactively, programmatically and inclusively, the Network sought out ways to address such overall issues that impacted on the safety and security of all places of worship and the communities associated with them. These included, for example, the development, publication and dissemination of guidelines on Looking After One Another: The Safety and Security of Our Faith Communities (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 2017) that was undertaken in association with the Commission for Racial Equality, the Crown Prosecution Service, the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Chief Fire Officers’ Association.

Across all these instances, as an organization the aims and objectives of which were focused on the UK, one can see how the Network’s general approach to such matters had developed in such a way that it had tried to delineate a position in which the Network would not directly comment on matters outside the UK and would only directly engage with such issues in terms of when and how they had a direct bearing on inter-faith relations in the UK. In addition, rather than making a direct statement on something at the immediate moment of crisis, the Network’s officers issued a later “reflection” on events and their implications, with an example of this being when the co-Chairs and Vice-Chairs of the Network issued a statement for reflection in the wake of the 7/7 London Transport bombings. (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 2005a, p. 9).

But in the context of the pressures arising from multiple instances, it eventually proved necessary for the Network carefully to formulate a substantively more explicit policy within which to delineate the ways in which its officers could act publicly and collectively in making statements. Following its initial formulation in April 2016; update in December 2017; reaffirmation in September 2019; and review and reaffirmation in September 2021, this can be found in its most recent form in the Network’s Policy on the Making of Network Statements (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 2021). Throughout its life, then, the matter of making statements was of ongoing contestation and challenge both within the Network and beyond it. It is therefore perhaps not surprising that this ongoing issue, when manifested in the context of the crisis in international and domestic inter-faith relations that arose around the Hamas action on 7 October 2024 which killed and took as hostages, hundreds of Israeli civilians and the wounding of over a thousand others, and the response of the Israeli military that resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza, did not result in the early making of a statement by the Network.

3.4. The Double-Edged Nature of Public Funding

The balance between different parts of the Network’s budget varied over different phases of its history. At its beginning, the Network’s funding nearly all came from the charitable trusts, individuals and member organizations which shared the founding vision of the Network and wanted to help it to succeed. It was only later, during the previously noted (see Section 2.2.4) opening of the religion and belief “policy window” (Dawson 2016, pp. 135–41), that public funding started to play a proportionately growing role in the Network’s budget. In part, this could be seen as a natural byproduct of government’s increasing readiness to engage with aspects of the Network’s own aims, objectives and program in so far as these also aligned with the emerging government priorities in this policy space. And this was especially so in the context of government awareness about the relative lack of relevant expertise held within its own personnel, out of which a mutually beneficial synergy emerged with regard to “the role the IFN has played in enabling this religion policy window, which in turn entrenched its established position as the UK’s dominant interfaith network.” (van Eck Duymaer van Twist 2020, p. 208).

From a relatively early point on in these developments, including during the New Labour governments of the late 1990s and early 2000s onwards, the nature of the funding provided by government started to take on a more project-oriented and target-driven character, the securing of which required ever-more detailed justification and became ever more closely monitored in relation to quantifiable indices. This historic trend of ever-tightening requirements for justification, monitoring and reporting, combined with repeated delays experienced in relation to departmental decision-making and then additional delays in relation to the actual release of in principle agreed funding, intensified and began to impact in a disproportionate way on the Network’s corporate bandwidth for medium and longer-term financial planning.

Indeed, this increasingly repeated pattern reached its peak in the year 2023, during the last three quarters of which the continued uncertainty about the continuation of government funding resulted in the Network’s Trustees, on a number of occasions having to put Network staff on notice of termination of employment. Such further delays and the associated necessary arising actions were profoundly destabilizing in relation to the Network’s future planning and also began to impact on the Network’s capacities to deliver on its main aims, objectives and work programme. Indeed, when the final negative decision came, it underlined the extent to which, notwithstanding the generosity of a number of individual donors; the special support given by some charitable Trusts; and the efforts that had been increasingly made by its staff and Trustees, the ability of the Network to function as a national organization had become significantly dependent on an annual almost “hamster-like” treadmill of reporting, applying, waiting for outcomes, and then waiting for the actual release of any in principle allocated government funding.

Issues relating to the interface between public funding and the broader voluntary and community sector are often complex in nature. This is not least because of the way in which such funding can be vulnerable to changes in relation to what can be relatively short-term political priorities. For example, with regard to the previously mentioned (see Section 2.2.3) emergence of regional inter-faith initiatives in the context of the development of the regional Fora of Faiths, both the provision of initial public funding and then the withdrawal of it from these fora in some ways prefigured the kind of dangers that were involved in such funding relationships. Thus, when the English Regional Development Agencies and Regional Assemblies were dismantled, the policy driver for regional inter-faith structures also disappeared as what turned out to have been the relatively instrumentalized nature of the funding originally given to support regional inter-faith work also became clear. This, in its turn, resulted in the disappearance of many of the regional structures since, beyond the Christian community, most of the faith communities did not have sufficient networks, infrastructure or resources of their own to deploy at regional levels.

Many local inter-faith groups which had also been receiving public funding were, however, not as immediately vulnerable as the regional organizations which had, in many ways, arguably been called into being through the provision of government funding, since many local groups had a pre-history of operating without such funding support. But, at a national level, from a position in the summer of 2023 where departmental signals were initially indicating the likely continuation of government funding to the Network, it became clear that at some point during the winter of 2023/24, Michael Gove’s political calculations and evaluations had begun to change.

4. Of Closure, Contestation and Lacunae

4.1. Closure

The closure of Network as a functioning body took place on 30 April 2024, when its Trustees closed its offices, while the last day of employment of its remaining staff was 15 May 2024 (see Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 2024a, p. 81). This sequence of events followed the Network’s receipt, on 19 January 2024, of a letter from the Minister of State for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Michael Gove, stating that he was minded to withdraw a funding offer that had previously, subject to a number of conditions, been provisionally made for 2023–2024. The following was explained by the Network:

On 7 July 2023, IFN received a letter from DLUHC saying that, following a review by ministers of funded programmes across the Department’s Communities and Integration portfolio, IFN was being offered up to £155,000 of new funding as well as access to a £45,000 underspend on its 2022–2023 grant, for use in the period July 2023—March 2024. This offer was subject to IFN’s submitting a suitable application, Work Plan and Budget, and various due diligence and other checks.

(Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 2024a, p. 85)

In relation to this, the Network also stated that it had “… submitted all requested information, including some requested by the Department as late as October. From October to December, in answer to enquiries from IFN, officials continued to refer to the Grant Funding Agreement (GFA) process continuing to be progressed.” (quoted in Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 2024a, p. 83). Without acceding to the request made by the Trustees (and also by other public and political figures supporting the Network) for a meeting with the relevant Secretary of State, the government pressed ahead to confirm its withdrawal of public funding in the light of which the Network’s Trustees were in the end left with little choice but to put in motion steps towards the Network’s closure in such a way that the Trustees could fulfil their fiduciary and governance responsibilities until the Network’s legal dissolution was completed, which eventually occurred on 21 January 2025 (see Companies House 2026a).

Prior to the July 2024 Westminster Parliament General Election, there were those who hoped that, with the potential coming to power of a Labour Government in the election of July 2024, a route might have opened up for reinstating the lost public funding and to reactivate the Network before the completion of its ultimate legal dissolution. However, when during the election campaign, Sir Stephen Timms (who had been the Chair of the All Parliamentary Group on Religion or Belief) was asked if an incoming Labour government would restore funding to the Network, he answered that such a commitment was not in the party’s Manifesto (Bowring 2024). And indeed, once one particular organizational form for something has come to an end (whether out of its own volition or not) there is at the very least always a question about whether any attempt should be made simply to restore it as it once was, even if such might in principle be possible. In the run-up to the 2024 General Election in a pre-General Election letter addressed to “Faith Leaders”, from the then Leader of the Labour Party (and now UK Prime Minister), Sir Keir Starmer, he stated that an incoming Labour Government would “ensure strong partnerships with faith communities” But while referring to “faith communities”; to “faith-based organizations”; and to “faith groups”, the letter made no explicit references to inter-faith organizations and/or initiatives (Starmer 2024).

4.2. Contesting the Inheritance

On 29 April 2025, an event took place at Goodenough College, London, to mark the end of the Network (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 2026b) and to celebrate its achievements over the years. At the same time, even prior to the Network’s formal dissolution, contestation had already emerged surrounding both the narrative by which it might be remembered, as well as the evaluation of its inheritance. On the one hand, nearly three and a half decades previously, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, had stated that:

There is no other organisation which provides such a trusted forum between all the main faith communities in the United Kingdom. We must do all we can to ensure its future, since the task of building bridges of understanding between these faith communities can only become increasingly important.

(Interfaith News 1991, p. 1)

And, in a personal reflection offered towards the end of the Network’s life, the Deputy General Secretary of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, Peter Colwell (2024) offered the overall evaluation that, “…the instrumental nature of IFN and its ability to broker relationships in the public square has been one of the most noticeable realities of the last 30 years or more.” By contrast, there have also been other much less positive evaluations. Thus, as well as the strong critiques from Muhammad Al-Hussaini noted in Section 3.2 above, at the beginning of January 2024, while acknowledging some of the Network’s activities as having been positive, Satish Sharm, a Chair of the Inter Faith Alliance (itself a member organization of the Network)had publicly posed the question of whether it might be “Time to Defund the InterFaith [sic] Network UK?” (Sharma 2024). And in the light of such critiques, it should be noted that, as reflected in the version of the Wikipedia (2026f) entry on the “The Inter Faith Network for the UK” current at the time of writing this article, in between the “striking off” and final “dissolution” notification in the Gazette relating to the historic Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom, as of 16 January a new company was incorporated using exactly the same name as that of the historic Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom (see Companies House 2026d), albeit now under the new company number 16188791.

Related to this, the current version of the Wikipedia entry reflects what are contestations over portrayals of the Network’s history and inheritance.4 While it is not unusual to find substantial debate around the content of Wikipedia entries, the entry on the Network appears to have been the subject of attempts to promote a very particular narrative in relation to the historic Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom. In connection with this, it should be noted that Wikipedia itself states that: “This page appears to be highly one-sided and contains inaccurate information” (Wikipedia 2026d), while having reviewed the scholarly sources cited in the current version of the entry the author of the present essay would suggest that current construction of the entry tends to give a disproportionate emphasis to the critiques of the Network made by the authors of these sources, without acknowledging that the same authors also expressed other more positive evaluations.

A full analysis of this would require more space than it is possible to give in this essay. But just as one example of selective citation, while van Eck Dudmaer van Twist’s work on the Network was indeed quite critical of it in a number of ways, nevertheless, in reflecting on what she called “the major challenges” that had been faced by the Network particularly in the context of the debates around its membership (and in the context of which it was noted that some of its critics were “demanding immediate and drastic change, sometimes in an antagonistic and divisive way”), her overall evaluation included the judgement that the Network had “proved adept at findings solutions to these challenges” and that had it had “evolved”. (van Eck Duymaer van Twist 2020, p. 218). At the same time, at the time of her writing, she also note that what she called the Network’s “recent rocky road” may not be completely finished “as continued challenges are brought forward from within”, and that “It remains to be seen whether it can continue to achieve effective interfaith development in the future, or whether ongoing internal disputes become all-encompassing.”

Perhaps ironically, having managed relatively successfully to negotiate these “challenges… from within”, in the end it was arguably the “challenges from without” which went beyond the Network’s capacity and capability to overcome, not least because of its relative funding dependency upon government, and especially so when that was combined with what was a sharpening government expectations about with whom the Network should and should not work and of how it should position itself in relation to public issues. And, finally, it is arguable that the impact of these developments were reinforced during a particularly ideologically driven phase that emerged towards the end of the last Conservative government, in which it appeared increasingly to be appealing to a “culture wars” agenda as a means through which to bolster its credibility with its core voters in anticipation of a coming General Election.

5. Through the Kaleidoscope

5.1. Past Constellations and Potential Future Reconfigurations

Within the space of contestation that has developed around the actual history of the original Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom, overall it is the provisional evaluative judgement of the present author that, whatever the Network’s limitations during its lifetime and, despite its ultimate fragility as revealed in its ending, over a sustained period of nearly four decades it made an important and enduring contribution in the context of the challenging and sometimes conflictual transition of the UK’s religious, social and political change towards a more religion and belief inclusive society than was the case at time of the Network’s foundation. Such a retrospective judgement brings into play also the prospective question of whether there are learnings from the Network’s inheritance which can and should be built on for the future and, if so, what credible and viable options may exist for doing this in either the short, medium and/or longer term.

Although perhaps more widely known as a childhood toy, the kaleidoscope was originally invented as a tool for scientific exploration of the refraction of light. As explained in a relevant Wikipedia entry, a kaleidoscope is:

…a tube of mirrors containing loose coloured beads or pebbles, or other small coloured objects. The viewer looks in one end and light enters the other end, reflecting off the mirrors. As the tube is rotated, the tumbling of the coloured objects presents the viewer with varying colours and patterns. Any arbitrary pattern of objects shows up as a beautiful symmetric pattern because of the reflections in the mirrors.

(see Wikipedia 2026b)

Reference to the kaleidoscope in the context of this article is, of course, intended to be neither to the toy nor to the scientific instrument. Rather, it is evoked as an image through which review the historic constellation of the component parts of the Network, together with the potential within this for a reconfiguration of these parts in a possible future or futures. In using this image, this essay could be seen as one of the “tubes” through which the original component parts of the Network and their relationship to one another can be examined. Also in this image, the “rotation” of the tube can be seen in terms of the crisis of the Network’s closure in its historic form. But as with the physical form of the kaleidoscope, the reader is invited to look again on the other side of the “tumbling” together of the component parts of the Network’s heritage, out of which it might become possible to see how at least some of these component parts might or might not re-emerge within a reconfigured future or futures.

As set out and discussed in Section 2.2, the original constellation of the Network was that of a very particular and, in many ways distinctive, organizational structure. In this, its four categories of organizational affiliation, namely that of national organizations from the faith communities; national and regional inter-faith organizations; local inter-faith groups; and educational and academic bodies were broadly maintained throughout the nearly four decades of its existence. Such a wide range of types of organization and the varied expectations of each meant that a degree of tension was already built into the very organizational structure of the Network. Indeed, it is arguable that a certain degree of such creative tension is necessary for organizational vitality and continued growth. While at times this tension became challenging to manage, this author would argue that, by and large, the diverse organizationally related perspectives of community representation, inter-religious enthusiasm and commitment, and academic study working together across local, regional and national levels resulted in outcomes that were often complementary, sometimes mutually corrective, and usually productive.

So, in considering any inheritance which can be carried forward on the other side of the closure of the Network, it can arguably be helpful to start such a discussion with reference to these four membership categories in order to identify what aspects of the Inter Faith Network for the UK’s inheritance might already show some of signs of having at least some degree of continuity; what might be missing; and whether and how far anything that is currently missing might be helpful or necessary for the future, if appropriate ways could be found for embodying this.

5.2. National/Regional Inter-Faith Organizations and Educational/Academic Bodies

In relation to the membership categories of both the national and regional inter-faith organizations, and the academic and educational bodies that were affiliated to the Network, with the exception of the continuation of the devolved nation inter-faith linking bodies (in relation to which, see Section 6.3 below), to this author’s knowledge at the time of writing, there do not seem to be any currently existing fora or initiatives under development for exploring the continuation of these aspects of the Network’s inheritance.

5.3. Local Inter-Faith Groups

In relation to the membership category of local inter-faith groups there was a significant danger that the closure of the Network would leave the large number of local inter-faith groups without a focal point for networking and sharing. However, already on 1 May 2004, in a self-organized initiative, people from a number of these groups created a private membership Facebook group called Local Inter Faith Link UK which is described on its Facebook page as being “A group for those involved with local inter faith organizations in the UK to network and share information, advice and good practice.” (quoted in Local Inter Faith Link UK 2026). While not comparable in either scope or resource to the professional support that the Network office had previously been able to provide for local inter-faith groups, and the regular regional meetings that it had facilitated, the emergence of this self-organized initiative has in some measure helped to address what would otherwise at the moment have been a significant gap for local inter-faith groups based in England, at least pending the potential development of any more formally developed networked umbrella structure for local inter-faith groups, at either an English or UK level. In the meantime, the continuing linking bodies in the other countries of the UK (see Section 5.4 and Section 6.3 below) continue to provide support in the countries concerned. Thus, Interfaith Scotland has around twenty Scottish local inter-faith groups, while the Interfaith Council for Wales and the Northern Ireland Inter-Faith Forum continue to be in touch with local inter-faith groups in Wales and Northern Ireland.

5.4. National Faith Community Organizations

Currently, the most obvious gap in inheritance from the previous structure and work of the Network is the lack, at both the level of the UK as a whole, and with regard to England, of ongoing, stable and broadly religiously inclusive fora covering inclusive relations between key representative of the faith communities, and their engagement with relevant government departments and policy initiatives. At the same time, it is arguable that insufficient attention has been and is being paid to the ongoing and now arguably even more important and significant life and work of the inter-faith linking bodies that continue to exist in the devolved governance contexts of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Indeed, in contemplating the potential closure of the Network, with reference to at least Scotland and Wales, Peter Colwell (2024, p. 2), the Deputy General Secretary of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland and who holds that body’s brief for inter-faith relations commented that, “there seems (as yet) no indication that [sic] the Parliaments in Cardiff and Edinburgh abandoning their support for inter faith work.”

Because of this, while not to be underestimated in its effects, the gap left by the closure of Network is not as big as it would have been had its closure happened earlier. This is because, in contrast to the UK at the time of the Network’s founding, in the UK of today many aspects of politics, policy and law operate at a devolved level in relation, in particular to Northern Ireland, and to Scotland, but increasingly also to Wales, while others operate only in England and still quite a number across both England and Wales. Therefore, the ongoing work of Interfaith Scotland, the Inter Faith Council for Wales/Cyngor Rhyng-greyfyddol Cymru, and the Northern Ireland Inter-Faith Forum—all of which were included in the Network’s national and regional inter-faith organizations category of membership—continues those aspects of the Network’s overall structural pattern. However, as in so many other areas of public life in the UK, a gap does exist pertaining to England, and also to those areas of public policy and law which are reserved to the level of the UK and so are outside the competence of the devolved governments.

6. Envisioning the Future

6.1. Missing the Network

It is certainly the case that the relatively abrupt end of the Network necessitated by the withdrawal of UK government funding brought with it a sense of crisis within the wider inter-religious landscape of the UK, along with an associated sense of mourning for what, for all its weaknesses and limitations, had been such a longstanding part of the UK’s inter-religious architecture.

This is not least because this crisis happened precisely at a time when significant parts of inter-faith relations in the UK were particularly strained following the impact on relations between (especially but not only) Muslims and Jews, of the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel and its associated killing and hostage-taking of hundreds of civilians, together with the subsequent destruction of the civil infrastructure and the loss of tens of thousands of civilian lives in Gaza through the Israeli military response, as well as an accompanying rise in domestic anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. While the fact that the Network did not make a statement on the events in the Middle East itself appears to be have been one of the key reasons for the previous government’s decision to withdraw public funding (as discussed in Section 3.3 above), it is precisely at times like this that the Network’s role as a channel of communication (see Section 2.3.3) had historically been so valuable.

Furthermore, in the summer following the Network’s closure of its operations, after the stabbing to death in Southport of three children and the injury of eight others in the wake of the rapid spread of social media disinformation exploiting popular anger by (falsely) identifying the perpetrator of the attack as an asylum-seeker and/or a Muslim, violence especially targeted at Muslims and asylum-seekers broke out across several towns and cities in England. This connected with right-wing populist tropes concerning Muslims and asylum-seekers, and it resulted in violent attacks being made on a number of mosques and accommodation for asylum-seekers. This especially left Muslim communities, places of worship, groups and organizations both feeling and being even more vulnerable than usual. In this case, despite the absence of the Network, it is important to note and to recognize that among other responses of solidarity with those under threat, there was nevertheless a local mobilization of inter-faith initiatives, while from within the specific faith groups which were particularly impacted there were clear examples of imaginatively proactive dialogical engagement with individuals who, under the influence of right-wing populist agitation, had gathered outside mosques and asylum-seeker hotels (Kelwick 2024).

6.2. Inter Faith Week

One other part of the Network’s inheritance that has been carried forward with a degree of continuity has been that of the Inter Faith Week and its associated activities in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Building upon the previous model of the Scottish Inter Faith Week (which started in 2004), from 2009 onwards the Network became centrally involved in the development and organization of what became an Inter Faith Week (2026a) for England and Wales, and which was later extended also to include Northern Ireland. This Week has taken place annually, beginning on the annual Remembrance Sunday and running through to the following Sunday. Within its framework, wider public educational initiatives have been undertaken in relation to religions, beliefs and relationships between them, including extensive activities in schools.

Indeed, as illustrated by the compendium of reports on Inter Faith Week activities that took place between 2009–2023 (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 2026c), support for, and promotion of, this Week became one of the Network’s central mechanisms for challenging, inspiring, inspiring and supporting the increased engagement in inter-faith dialogue and co-operation of individuals; faith community and inter-faith organizations; as well as sectoral organizations in the public, private and voluntary and community sectors. Even during 2023, when the Network’s productive capacities had inevitably become constrained by the extended uncertainty around its public funding, more than 1155 activities were nevertheless known to have occurred in that year. Indeed, at least when measured in terms of the number of activities associated with it of which the Network was aware, the 20% increase in activities compared with 2022 made 2023 the most successful Inter Faith Week ever (Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom 2024a, p. 62). In relation to the future of this part of the Network’s inheritance, the Inter Faith Week (2026a) website stated that:

Until 2023, the Week in England was led by the Inter Faith Network for the UK, working with its member bodies. IFN worked in consultation with the Northern Ireland Inter-Faith Forum and the Inter-faith Council for Wales/Cyngor Rhyngffydd Cymru in relation to the Week in those nations. Following the closure of The Inter Faith Network for the UK in April 2024, a dedicated coalition of national inter-faith organisations now organises Inter Faith Week.

Elsewhere within the Inter Faith Week website (Inter Faith Week 2026b) the following is stated:

This coalition includes NASACRE, United Religions Initiative UK, Faith and Belief Forum, Religions for Peace UK, the Council of Christians and Jews, Mitzvah Day, and the All Faiths Network. A few additional members have also joined, bringing valuable perspectives from local and regional interfaith bodies, youth groups, and expertise in communications.

Therefore, and also in the light of the report on Inter Faith Week authored by the Faith and Belief Forum (2025) and its recommendations for the establishment of a national Steering Group, it seems that at least for in the short-to-medium-term future, the importance to the religion or belief landscape of the UK of an ongoing profile and contribution of the Inter Faith Week has been recognized.

6.3. Addressing the English Gap

In terms of relationships between national faith community bodies and their engagement with the structures and processes of wider societal governance, in previously referring (as in Section 5.4) to the continuing work of inter-faith linking bodies in the devolved nations, Peter Colwell had argued: “The hope lies in the continuing support of inter faith work in the devolved nations” (Colwell 2024, p. 2). If this is indeed the case, then it could also be appropriate to see if something similar to the bodies in the three devolved nations could be developed for England. Indeed, Colwell also made the suggestion with regard to these bodies that, “Perhaps they can offer important models for future engagement.” In this and other ways, it could in the future turn out to be the case that just as, historically, in many ways the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish bodies learned from the prior existence and experience of the Network, that any future English-level development both could, and arguably now should, learn from these Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish bodies and their ways both of constituting themselves and of operating.

As reported on by the Religion Media Centre (Peacock 2025), in November 2025, and facilitated by Faith in Society (2026), more than forty leaders and representatives from diverse faith and belief organizations and interfaith bodies across England met to discuss establishing a new national structure for interfaith engagement. Chaired by Canon Hilary Barber, one of the outgoing co-Chairs of the Inter Faith Network for the UK, those in attendance discussed the need for an overarching structure or process similar to that of the Inter Faith Network. In relation to this, Canon Barber (in Peacock 2025) was reported as saying that, “Interfaith dialogue and multi-faith social action are at a vulnerable stage in this country, with the Inter Faith Network closed and conflicts abroad impacting seriously on community relations here. We need a new way forward urgently and the meeting was about starting on that journey.” At the time of writing this article, those involved in the meeting identified common ethical and spiritual ground across the traditions to strengthen collaboration; and they looked at practical ways to strengthen multi-faith social action. They agreed that doing nothing was not an option—but also that precisely what should happen remained open for much further discussion. It was agreed that, in taking this forward, a Working Party would be created which could oversee a programme of regional consultation events across England, and produce ideas about possible models, including in relation to finances.

It is planned that, in spring 2026, the above Working Party will report back on its findings to the wider group, which would then consider those findings. Whether and how far this particular initiative will be able to gain the broad base of support necessary to successfully inherit key aspects of the Network’s role with such bodies and at this level remains, at the time of writing, to be seen. Achieving something of this kind would, in itself, be a considerable achievement, but beyond this it would arguably also still be important to see if future ways can be identified to progress these aspects of the Network’s heritage through a truly shared development and ownership of a forum in which all four nations of the UK could contribute on an equal basis.

6.4. From Crisis and Loss to Potential Opportunity

One of the things that, arguably, the Inter Faith Network for the UK did not sufficiently engage with when both the structures and resources of the UK’s membership of the European Union might have helped to facilitate such, was the wider European inter-faith context.5 Nevertheless, when also looked at also in European terms, it is clear that because of both the longevity of its existence and the inclusivity of its composition, the Inter Faith Network for the UK was a unique body, the closure of which has left a hole not only in the religion and belief landscape of the UK, but also in the religion and belief landscape of the wider Europe. Furthermore, this is at a time when, across both the UK and the wider Europe, the rise of political, cultural and religious forces which seek to promote a “nativist” and/or “identitarian” vision of society pose an increasing challenge to the vision of a culturally and religiously inclusively society. In this context, for the future of the UK and of Europe as religion and belief inclusive societies, it is arguably now even more important than at the time of the Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom’s original founding, for ways to be found for learning from the strengths and weaknesses, achievements and failings of the Network’s nearly four decades of life and work.