Delegation to Northern Ireland – Debrief and Next Steps, November 2022-May 2023

From 4-6 October 2022, the UK programme team took a delegation of key Muslim community representatives, current and former MPs and other relevant experts to Northern Ireland.The purpose of the visit was to examine the Northern Irish experience of how addressing issues relating to paramilitarism are developed and implemented at a community level, and how state and community relationships operate to explore whether any relevant learning could be taken for the English context with relation to Prevent.Following this delegation, we held an online meeting in November 2022 with delegates to discuss the learning from the visit. Participants shared that the delegation emphasised the absolute importance of community ownership to develop sustainable policies and practices to address issues relating to extremism. It was underlined that policies implemented on a ‘top down’ basis would be ineffective. Participants felt that in Northern Ireland the police and other authorities have worked hard to convince the community of their purpose and to build trust. In contrast such efforts are perceived to be lacking in England. We also held bilateral meetings with the group to further unpack their reflections on the visit.Delegates underlined the value of the visit and expressed a desire to build on the learning and to explore future work to consider the relevance of the Northern Irish context to the UK experience.Insights from the delegation were incorporated into a briefing paper for parliamentarians circulated ahead of the release of the Independent Review of Prevent to inform their perspectives.