The Inter Faith Network

The Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom (also known as The Inter Faith Network or IFN) was a registered charity in the United Kingdom which had the objects "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 their common ground and to promote good relations between persons of different faiths". From its foundation, the Inter Faith Network was funded in several millions of pounds by the British government.

The Inter Faith Network every year listed on its website under the banner of "Inter Faith Week" various inter-religious events which were in actuality organised, financed and run mainly by other institutions and groups unconnected to the IFN; and IFN officials participated in meetings hosted by the Church of England and Lambeth Palace with members of the British royal family and government officials.

Peer-reviewed academic publications and newspaper articles record that over its history the Inter Faith Network was the subject of legal challenges and complaints to government regulatory bodies for alleged religious discrimination, as well as allegations of bullying and harassment by the IFN Executive Director and other IFN officials of whistleblowers of malfeasance within the organisation. On 19 January 2024, Michael Gove, Secretary of State of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities announced the termination of taxpayer funding to the Inter Faith Network citing the UK government's "serious concerns" with the IFN and the "reputational risk" to the state.

Against the background of these controversies, including the expressed "anger" of officials at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities with the Inter Faith Network and its officers, the termination of government funding, as well as complaints by former IFN Trustees to the Charity Commission for England and Wales, on 7 February 2024 the IFN Board of Trustees announced its decision to move for closure of the organisation.

Membership

The Inter Faith Network was a political-religious group which was founded in 1987 by Director and Deputy Director, Brian Pearce and Harriet Crabtree, the latter then continuing and remaining in post as sole Executive Director throughout the whole four decade history of the organisation. For the entirety of the history of the organisation, the Inter Faith Network was led by a Co-Chair who was a Church of England bishop or clergyman together with a more frequently rotating non-Christian Co-Chair.

The IFN was funded in several millions of pounds by the British taxpayer, and had prominently among its affiliate organisations in membership the Muslim Council of Britain and The Islamic Foundation whose parent body is the South Asian Islamist political movement Jamaat-e-Islami, and Vishva Hindu Parishad, a far-right Hindu Nationalist group which is part of the Sangh Parivar network led by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Sam Westrop, Senior Fellow of the Gatestone Institute, writes, "By championing these Islamists as the 'voice' of British Islam, the Inter Faith Network falsely legitimizes these extremist groups, such as the Muslim Council of Britain, to be sincerely representative of British Muslims. A 2007 survey revealed, however, that 94% of British Muslims do not believe that the Muslim Council of Britain represents their views"..

Political Lobbying

Andrew Dawson, Professor of Modern Religion at Lancaster University, presents a critique of the Inter Faith Network's patronage and promotion of "faith community representatives", and the corrupting effect of money and power. He writes: "The politics and practice of religious diversity in the UK are best understood as closely associated with two other state orchestrated agendas: social order and service provision". Dawson charts how, since both 9/11 and cuts in public spending, Tony Blair’s New Labour opened a "policy window" for faith organisations which were skilful at navigating access to political opportunity structures both to lobby for their interests, and acquire material benefits for themselves, such as tendering for government contracts to deliver public services on the cheap. He states with specific reference to the IFN:

"Whereas the most obvious of these organisational benefits come in the form of state-sponsored commissions, grants and subventions, the resources accrued through accessing political opportunity structures comprise a varied range of material goods and immaterial means (e.g. budget, personnel, plant, premises, reputation, influence, and status)".

Amanda van Eck Duymaer van Twist, Deputy Director of INFORM writes from her academic study and qualitative research interviews with members of the Inter Faith Network that:

"IFN has encouraged a structure of self-appointed leaders within communities where that traditionally would not have been appropriate. Moreover, these leaders did not necessarily have credibility within their communities...IFN represents the politicization of faith communities".

Duymaer van Twist continues and reports "resentment that the IFN had become such an established institution, with strong government and Church of England support, that some began to see it as a 'gatekeeper' that could grant or withhold 'legitimacy' to religious groups by way of membership".

Legal Challenge

Dawson details the successful legal challenge to the Inter Faith Network by human rights law firm Bindmans LLP arising from the IFN's refusal in 2012 to admit to membership The Druid Network, which story was broken nationally by The Times newspaper. A multi-signature letter published on the case by clergy of different faiths in the Church Times states:

"The rejection by the IFNUK of the lawfully recognised faith charity the Druid Network raises serious concerns about possible religious discrimination under the Equality Act 2010, which have been discussed in an expert legal statement published by the leading human-rights law firm Bindmans LLP (see www.religiousfreedom.org.uk/legal)...In particular, this activates questions related to Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 concerning the Public Sector Equality Duty of government and public bodies to consider issues of religious discrimination and exclusion that may arise when they decide to give the money of British taxpayers as public funding to interfaith and other groups".

The lawyer for the Inter Faith Network, Philip Kirkpatrick of Bates Wells and Braithwaite LLP, unsuccessfully attempted to argue in his Advice Note that "the purpose of the organisation...namely to 'foster or maintain good relations between persons of different religions or beliefs'" justified the refusal by the Inter Faith Network of the Druid Network membership application. Kirkpatrick tried to claim a religious exemption for the IFN from equalities and human rights legislation under Schedule 23 of the Equality Act 2010: "An example of this might be a decision by an interfaith organisation not to accept a membership application from a particular faith organisation if the admission to membership of the organisation could have the effect of leading to represents the bodies of major faith communities withdrawing from membership of that inter faith organisation". In response, John Halford of Bindmans LLP responded, "This argument is imaginative, but fundamentally bad...it conflates two very different things: an organisation's purpose and the ease with which it can be fulfilled...the IFN does not need to discriminate against Druids 'because of' its purposes or at all. Those purposes are not concerned with the relationship or position of any particular set of faiths. They are simply concerned with 'different faiths' in Britain".

Peter Colwell, Deputy General Secretary of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (CTBI) writes of the tendency of interfaith bodies "to compete with each other and to make inflated claims of their own impact", while the CTBI Inter Faith Theological Advisory Group also addresses the politics of interfaith “gatekeepers” and blocking of admission to membership of the Inter Faith Network: "An argument that gives power over inclusion or exclusion to what can now be seen as the vested interests of existing dialogues where those dialogues have a political significance seems dangerous".

Governance

Muhammad Al-Hussaini, Senior Lecturer in Islamic Studies at the Oxford Centre for Religion and Public Life, writes, "Throughout its history, the IFN has been chaired by a largely static Church of England bishop or senior Anglican cleric, and a more frequently rotating non-Christian co-chair". He asserts that "Since its creation by its lifetime salaried Directors, Harriet Crabtree and Brian Pearce, the IFN has embodied the vested interests of a monetised Interfaith Industry and the project of the Church of England hierarchy to reinvent itself as a primus inter pares 'head boy of Eton' for all UK faiths, just as England's bishops chase continued political relevance in the face of the C of E's own terminal decline in congregational numbers".

Termination of Government Funding

In December 2023, The Sunday Telegraph published two articles which cited a statement from a spokesman of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities that the British government had "serious concerns" about the Inter Faith Network, and that IFN member bodies had written to the Department urging that "the Government should stop funding the network 'until serious and longstanding issues' are addressed'". The newspaper reported on the Inter Faith Network that "Michael Gove's department is concerned about the failure of a taxpayer-funded interfaith group to explicitly condemn Hamas's attack on Israel".

In January 2024, the Sunday Telegraph published an article which stated that Secretary of State, Michael Gove, "intends to stop funding" the Inter Faith Network and that he wrote to the IFN on 19 January 2024 stating "that he planned to withdraw taxpayer funding because of the 'reputational risk'" to the government. Gove wrote:

"I am writing to inform you that I am minded to withdraw the offer of new funding to the Inter Faith Network for the UK for the financial year 2023/24. Since my officials wrote to Dr Harriet Crabtree on 7 July 2023 to inform her that this department would make this offer subject to robust financial and due diligence checks, it has come to my attention that a member of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) has been appointed as a trustee of the Inter Faith Network".

Amanda van Eck Duymaer van Twist cites a report "The Interfaith Industry" on the Inter Faith Network and other groups, which was published by Sam Westrop of "Stand for Peace" in November 2013, and launched in the House of Lords. She writes that the report "attacked some of its former members, notably one of its Co-Chairs, Dr Manazir Ahsan [of the Islamic Foundation], and other Executive Committee members for their links with organizations that it perceived to be extremist...and condemned the IFN's Director for not challenging this".

Charity Commission Complaint

Satish Sharma, General Secretary of the National Council of Hindu Temples and Former IFN Trustee alleges that the Inter Faith Network has been, "From the outset a colonialist project to enforce and reinforce the ascendancy of the established Church of England over non-Christian faith communities in engagement with the British state. And in this, Crabtree and Pearce have acted as ruthless controlling agents and self-appointed gatekeepers". Sharma goes on to claim, "The IFN Executive Director and other IFN officials have at times set themselves up as 'self-appointed gatekeepers' for interfaith work...The abuses of power have exponentiated over the four IFN decades of this coercive control, gaslighting and bullying of critics". Sharma asserts:

"Over a number of years, my organisation along with a large number of faith leaders of different churches and religions, university academics and government officials, whom I have met, have raised strong concerns about the Inter Faith Network...These concerns range from issues of power, governance and accountability in the IFN, to very serious concerns of alleged bullying, discrimination and safeguarding matters, where some colleagues have suffered varying degrees of severe harassment to their professional and personal lives outside the IFN as a result of our having raised complaints and concerns about the behaviour of IFN officials".

Member of Parliament, Bob Blackman, stated during a debate in the House of Commons on 10 January 2024 that there had been "criticisms of the Inter Faith Network – not necessarily about its aims, but about the way it has been run" and he stated, "I have also heard criticism of the way it is being run". In January 2024, another Former IFN Trustee filed an official complaint against the Inter Faith Network, its Executive Director and other officials to the Charity Commission for England and Wales under Commission-protected conditions of anonymity.

Closure

On 7 February 2024, the Board of Trustees of the Inter Faith Network announced "an in principle decision to move towards closure of the organisation". An article in The Sunday Telegraph "revealed that officials at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities had also been angered" with the Inter Faith Network, and that in an IFN email sent to member groups "IFN's co-chairs, Canon Hilary Barber and Narendra Waghela, referenced the controversy, saying that 'funding is not the only issue'...noting there was 'some indication of anger on the part of some that IFN has not aligned itself with particular positions or stood in support of them'".

External links

•   The Inter Faith Network for the United Kingdom