Green Party co-leader talks Quakerism
‘Quakers have often been at the heart of peacebuilding work all over the world and I really value that about Quakerism.’
Carla Denyer, the co-leader of the Green Party, has spoken about her links with Quakerism on BBC radio.
The Quakers she met through campaigning were ‘particularly driven and principled’, she said on Political Thinking with Nick Robinson. This ‘piqued her interest’ and led her to get involved with Quakers, where she was a key campaigner for the decision by Britain Yearly Meeting in 2012 to divest from fossil fuels.
In a far-reaching interview, the Bristol City councillor who kickstarted the first climate-emergency declaration in Europe, in 2018, spoke about campaigning as a sixth-former and how she was drawn to Quakerism. Wearing both a white and red poppy, she said she wears a red one to ‘remember service people but I wear the white poppy to say never again and that we must work towards peace’.
‘Peace is not just the absence of war,’ she told Nick Robinson. ‘It is a proactive movement and it’s hard work that takes decades. Quakers have often been at the heart of peacebuilding work all over the world and I really value that about Quakerism.’
The former engineer was also asked: ‘Have you been tempted to glue yourself to an old mast?’
‘The way I’m pursuing change is through party politics,’ she said, adding that she had attended demos. ‘I do think there is a really important role for protest.’
She also calls for the government to invest more in renewable energies and to insulate homes. ‘Renewable energy is around nine times cheaper than gas in the UK at the moment so it is a much wiser investment.’
The show can be heard on www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001f4lb.
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