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

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.