X marks the spot – Quakers prepare for general election

Symon Hill reports on Quaker involvement ahead of an expected election

Quakers across Britain look set to play an active role in the general election, with several Local Meetings involved in running hustings events while a number of national Quaker bodies lobby candidates on issues of particular concern.  In Cambridge, Jesus Lane Meeting has taken the initiative in bringing together local community groups to put their own concerns to the constituency’s would-be MPs. They asked over forty organisations to submit possible questions to candidates. The resulting list covers subjects as varied as national identity cards, the inequality of wealth, housing, learning disabilities, sex trafficking, the armed forces and reform of the House of Commons.  Jesus Lane Meeting will now identify five or six questions that seem most representative and important. They will put these to each candidate and hope that a local paper will publish the answers.  Emphasising that it is important ‘to have an electorate as accurately informed and as participative as possible’, Cambridge Friends are encouraging Quakers in other areas to become just as actively engaged.

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