Norwich Friends hold Quaker Question Time
‘Participants asked ‘what could be learned from conflict resolution in South Africa and Northern Ireland’, as well as questions about food security and soil, and mental health.'
Norwich Quakers invited local parliamentary candidates to a ‘Question Time’ last month, focusing on peace and the environment.
Clive Lewis, Labour MP, and Jamie Osborn, Green Party candidate, both for Norwich South, attended the event at Norwich Meeting House. Sean Bennett, the Liberal Democrat candidate, also took part.
Lesley Grahame, one of the organisers and a former Green Party councillor, told the Friend: ‘Norwich Quakers wanted to hear how their parliamentary candidates planned to prevent world war three and get us to net zero in their party’s timeframe. We understand the limits to their power, but asked them to present their plans anyway.’
Five days before the 28 March event, only the Green and Lib Dem candidates had confirmed their attendance. ‘We decided to go ahead anyway, and copied the party offices into the press release, expressing the hope that all parties would enjoy presenting their case in an atmosphere of respectful listening,’ said Lesley Grahame. ‘By lunchtime the next day, we had a full slate, although the Conservatives were sending a councillor to represent them, and the councillor pulled out because it clashed with a council meeting. They were represented by an empty chair.’
Participants asked ‘what could be learned from conflict resolution in South Africa and Northern Ireland’, as well as questions about food security and soil, and mental health. ‘Disagreements were about the “how to”, with Lib Dem and Labour showing a touching faith in technologies that don’t exist at scale, and the Green seeing an entrenched establishment preventing the upscaling of existing working technology,’ said Lesley. ‘There was general agreement that diplomacy is preferable to war; that selling arms to countries engaged in war crimes was bad news; that the EU was a valuable peace initiative; and that our democracy was under threat from this government, and the far right here and abroad.’
Liz Hoffbauer, district ecumenical officer for Norfolk and Waveney, told the Friend that the meeting was held ‘in a Quakerly fashion, as a sharing of views, rather than as a debate’.
The evening ‘was a real joy’, she added, with several audience members congratulating the speakers on ‘how refreshing it had been to hear politicians working together to solve problems’.
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