Quakers host election hustings
‘It is up to everyone in the political space to step away from this hostile environment.’ Jennifer Nadel of Compassion in Politics.
Quakers are taking a collaborative approach this general election with Meeting houses hosting local hustings for other organisations. So far this includes Bournemouth, Boscombe, Brighton, Cardiff and Stevenage.
The Brighton event was booked by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN). ‘The RCN has used the building before and we know that the event will be run in a fair and balanced way,’ Terry Byrne, warden of the Meeting, told the Friend.
Meanwhile the hustings at Stevenage was ‘specific and organised apart from Friends’ by the Bus Users Group in Stevenage (BUGS). ‘We had to stand apart because a member of our meeting is the Green Party candidate, Paul Dawson,’ said Nick Needham, clerk of Stevenage Meeting.
Elsewhere, Billy Vaughan, public affairs officer with BYM, has analysed what the party manifestos say about democracy, human rights and migration on the Quakers in Britain website.
Quakers also doubled down on calls for respect in politics after attacks on Nigel Farage earlier this month. Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) backed pleas from Compassion in Politics, of which it is a member, when Jennifer Nadel, co-director, said: ‘It is really up to everyone who is in the political space to step away from this hostile environment.’ The organisation celebrated the news that its proposal for an ethics commission was included in the Labour Party manifesto.
BYM said that it was asking all candidates to sign the Jo Cox Foundation civility pledge. The call on 13 June was ahead of the eighth anniversary of Jo Cox’s murder, close to what would have been her fiftieth birthday.
Jo Cox’s husband said the former Labour MP would ‘be gutted to see some people willing to use it to denigrate minorities and spread division’.
The Batley and Spen MP was stabbed and shot by a far-right extremist in Birstall, West Yorkshire, on 16 June 2016.
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