In the UK, debate and policy on countering extremism is shifting towards a societal focus and DARE’s team members have been actively involved in moving that debate forward. Hilary Pilkington’s role as an independent Commissioner on the Greater Manchester (GMCA) Commission on Preventing Hateful Extremism and Promoting Social Cohesion – established after the MEN Arena attack in Manchester on 22 May 2017 – culminated with the delivery of the Commission’s final report at the end of July.

The report, entitled A Shared Future, called for a strategic commitment to developing a community-led response to challenging hateful extremism’ as part of what Greater Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham, calls a whole-society approach’ to tackling extremism.

Hilary has now taken up a role on the Expert Group of the UK Government’s national Commission for Countering Extremism.

On 20 June Ajmal was invited to speak at the EU Parliament at an event organised by UK MEPs entitled Promoting Peace Preventing Youth Radicalisation and Fostering a Welcoming Europe. This event was attended by the Commissioner for Security Union, as well as a range of NGOs, MEPs and policy makers.

On 5 October Ajmal also participated in a workshop on Ethics in researching radicalisation held at the University of Mainz, Germany. The workshop yielded considerable discussion from researchers working in this area from across Europe. As a follow-up, Ajmal has been invited to speak about the DARE research at a future workshop on Dark Ethnography’ to be held in Mainz in 2019.

The UK team has also been working closely with the creative community to develop nuanced and sensitive understandings and portrayals of issues around youth radicalisation. Ajmal will be an invited respondent at the Aberystwyth Arts Centre in November on the topic of Engaging young people in politics through art’. This will follow a theatre performance entitled #JeSuis. Hilary has been advising on a film commissioned by the BBC exploring pathways to right wing extremism, filming for which starts shortly.

Finally, the UK team has received financial support to hold a one day ‘mediated dialogue’ which will bring together a small group of young people participating already in the DARE research to talk through some of the issues that concern them. The ‘Talking our way out of conflict’ event will take place in November facilitated by collaborators from the Tim Parry Jonathan Ball Peace Foundation and we hope it will provide a model that can be used by practitioners across Europe.

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