Jeremy Corbyn (right) at the Salter Lecture. Photo: Courtesy of QSS.
‘War and peace’: Joe Jones watches the Salter Lecture 2024
‘We need to know when to move on.’
There was an impish mood among the Friends who gathered to watch this year’s Salter Lecture. The Quaker Socialist Society (QSS), which hosts the lecture, had been asked to move the event away from Friends House, because of what Yearly Meeting Agenda Committe (YMAC) had decided was a repututional risk. In 2020 an Equality and Human Rights Commission report had found the Labour Party responsible for ‘unlawful’ harassment and antisemitic discrimination during Jeremy Corbyn’s term as leader; this persuaded YMAC to distance itself from his appearance. Many Friends in the room – in Hamilton House, a few hundred yards from Friends House – were obviously not in unity with the decision: Corbyn received a rapturous welcome as he walked onstage, before Sheila Taylor of QSS was able to remind Friends that applause was not the traditional Quaker response. She didn’t seem too upset.
