Meeting for Sufferings: Political engagement
Jessica Metheringham outlined her work in her first few months as parliamentary engagement officer
Jessica Metheringham outlined her work in her first few months as parliamentary engagement officer for Britain Yearly Meeting and talked about the importance of political engagement. She described her role as ‘Speaking Truth to Power’ and said her work was ‘forty per cent parliamentary and political engagement; forty per cent speaking to Friends and twenty per cent speaking to other churches.’
Jessica has been actively working on the Lobbying Bill and Trident and has been looking at focussed political action on these subjects. She mentioned her work with the, now-withdrawn, Private Members’ Bill to reinstate the death penalty.
She is running workshops at the end of March for Friends who are in their twenties and thirties. The workshops will be concerned with political engagement. Jessica said that she wants to engage with Friends across the country. She invited Quakers to contact her if they have queries on the best time or best approach to take in order to be most effective when approaching their MP.
