First they came for the Quakers, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Quaker.
Except I am a Quaker, and I share this, issued by the Quakers in Britain, of which I am indirectly a member:
Quakers in Britain strongly condemned the violation of their place of worship which they say is a direct result of stricter protest laws removing virtually all routes to challenge the status quo.
Just before 7.15pm on 27 March more than 20 uniformed police, some equipped with tasers, forced their way into Westminster Meeting House.
They broke open the front door without warning or ringing the bell first, searching the whole building and arresting six women attending the meeting in a hired room.
The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023 have criminalised many forms of protest and allow police to halt actions deemed too disruptive.
Meanwhile, changes in judicial procedures limit protesters' ability to defend their actions in court. All this means that there are fewer and fewer ways to speak truth to power.
Quakers support the right to nonviolent public protest, acting themselves from a deep moral imperative to stand up against injustice and for our planet.
Many have taken nonviolent direct action over the centuries from the abolition of slavery to women's suffrage and prison reform.
Paul Parker, recording clerk for Quakers in Britain, said: “No-one has been arrested in a Quaker meeting house in living memory.
“This aggressive violation of our place of worship and the forceful removal of young people holding a protest group meeting clearly shows what happens when a society criminalises protest.
“Freedom of speech, assembly, and fair trials are an essential part of free public debate which underpins democracy."
A Labour government permitted this.
It allowed those committed to peace to be forcibly arrested and detained, all because they opposed the use of violence in this world.
They did so to support the genocide that is being pursued in Gaza.
They did so by entering the premises of an organisation that has a Nobel Peace Prize.
They got that prize for trying to find pathways through conflict.
The arrests were made because a peaceful protest was being discussed, with such protest being an essential element in a functioning democracy.
It is easy to spot the demise of democracy in the USA right now. But is there much of a democracy left in the UK right now?
Is the aim to create a deliberate climate of fear?
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Though without faith or belief, except in my capacity to be wrong, I stand with the Quakers.
I am shocked by the entry of police into the Westminster Meeting House and the arrests made.
We must protect and extend our civil liberties.
We must reject the foolhardiness of authoritarian-minded governance.
I invite all readers of this column to stand with me.
I do
I stand with you too.
I saw this yesterday evening and have posted so people can see.
We now have laws (and leaders) that brook NO dissent.
I am not shocked but I am disgusted.
I will try and raise awareness of this within my (Baptist) network and wider church links.
Because it relates to Israel/Palestine, it will be very hard to get effective publicity.
We are now in a situation where protest (or even talking about protest) about genocide and war crimes can be dealt with as “terrorism” by the legal manouevre of saying that support for Palestine (or Lebanon) or even support for their children, or criticism of Israel, is deemed to be support for Hezbollah or Hamas (which are proscribed organisations), so the rapidly disappearing civil liberties we thought we had, evaporate completely and places of worship can be raided with violence.
If anyone was in any doubt that we live under authoritarian anti-democratic rule, in thrall to foreign interests and the ultra-wealthy, then wake up quickly. We don’t need to wait for Fa***e and 2029. We have Starmer’s Labour government, right now.
The poor, the disabled, the young, those with special needs, Muslims, immigrants, and anyone who objects to their demonisation, are (UN)fair game.
Quakers have a long history of productive peacemaking and non-violence. They have an equally long history of dissent (which as someone with Anabaptist leanings, I respect). George Fox’s followers refused to even use man-made titles or doff their hats – all people were equal in status, it even affected their speech, they refused to use the “respectful” 2nd person plural, everyone was thee or thou, not ye. That’s a tradition to be proud of.
Checking duckduckgo.com I see that the MSM are avoiding this story. The first page of hits is from alternative media and other Christian denominations notably Catholics.
I will only use the title Prof professionally
I never have otherwise
Perhaps we could take a moment for a smile?
The Merry Monarch, Charles II, had a sense of humour and was less bothered about his ego compared with King Donald.
( In the Ladybird book histories I had as a boy in the 50s he was described as a ‘gay monarch’ ! )
There is a story the Quaker William Penn joined a group of King Charles and his courtiers.
The King took his hat off. One of his courtiers asked why he had done that.
‘The custom is, when the king is present, for only one person to be hatted.’
He put humanity, in this case, above the letter of the law. That’s what is being forgotten by our state.
🙂
Pennsylvania is, of course, named after the Penn in question.
Much to agree with.
How did the plods know? Why did they decide that 6 people meeting in a Quaker house were……..a threat to the UK state – such that the door had to be booted in & it needed 20 officers. There have been previous comments on how ordinary people facilitate fascism. Looks like the UK plods are fascisms handmaidens.
The Met Plod have a +/- 50 year history (or more – remember Robert Mark?) of corruption, misogeny, racism, violence, rape (the under cover plods who had affairs with women that did not know their were undercover plods – gov has legalised that now = legalised rape in certain circumstances) etc etc. Now it would seem that Londons finest can now fairly be labelled as fascist-enablers. Which only leaves the question: who ordered this? Which mental titan decided that 6 people meeting in a Quaker house were breaking the law? Where was their sense of proportion?
A wide range of commentators (Mr Warren, Col Smithers, PSR to name but three) have through their posts shown that there is a cosy group @ the top of society who are very happy with the way things are and the way things are pointing (fascism). This leaves the open question: what to do? It is clear that the UK police are quite out of control. Perhaps a shit storm of letters to MPs is a good start.
So,
* did a senior police officer think this a better use of scarce police time than anything else?
* or did a government minister direct the Met to do this?
What were they scared of?
Questions need to be asked in Parliament.
A relative of mine and a colleague both refused higher ranking jobs transferring to the Met over a decade ago on the grounds the Met was corrupt, racist and homophobic.
The people arrested were not Quakers . They part of Youth Demand but their resistance to genocide and the effects of the oil companies is in line with Quaker values.
I looked for a report in the mainstream media. Found nothing. It was in media like the Canary and Morning Star. Do we see the influence of a lobby powerful enough to conceal what they see as unhelpful to their cause?
CNN have a report, though.
Staggering it has not been reported
Terrible things can happen if the main stream press remain silent.
I have an Argentinian acquaintance who lived through the troubled times of enforced disappearances etc. in the 70s/80s.
He tells me that most Argentinians knew nothing about was going on. He only knew because he had a friend who ‘disappeared’.
A silent press and an abusive police force is a scary situation.
Very
Now in the Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/mar/29/met-raids-quaker-meeting-house-and-arrests-six-women-at-youth-demand-talk
Thanks
I told a friend about this. Her reaction? “They must have been criminals”. Ordinary people simply cannot believe how close to fascism our country is becoming. It’s going to be hard to change their views.
Agreed
The Quakers were collecting a fee on a non-worship night for a room hire to Youth Demand, but if I can be permitted to share the statement from the Youth Demand spokesperson:
“It’s clear that the government sees Youth Demand as a threat. They know that we are right. There are thousands of young people who are horrified by what the government is doing to facilitate genocide and who know that they have been betrayed as their future is fucked. We will not be silenced. Young people all over the country are coming together to shut London down day after day throughout April.
We refuse to be ruled by liars, war criminals and arsonists. We will not let them get away with this. We refuse to be ignored. It’s time for young people to take to the streets day after day and shut London down.“
And your problem is?
They are only pointing out, and also explaining, what the government is saying – that they are being alienated by a violent society that does nit care about them.
They are right to do so.
I’d never heard of Youth Demand. I like the sound of them.
For those not aware, the Act referred to does not apply in Scotland. The Scottish Government declined to extend the powers here. The Scottish Government had this to say on the Act:
“Scotland has a proud tradition of activism and of peaceful protest. The right to public assembly is an important human right that the Scottish Government is committed to uphold.”
I doesn’t appear to apply in Northern Ireland either.
Unfortunately, for Scots joining protests in London against policies decided in London affecting Scotland, you’ll may find yourself detained in an English jail under terms of the Act.
Some bystanders have been swept up by it and detained for hours in jail, subjected to physical searches and interrogation until Police decided, in fact, they weren’t part of the protests.
Thanks
Might there be, and have been, a submerged policy of detaching thé police from regular people and daily life in order to make them into a (more) detached agency to serve central government/elite group policies and purposes?
Maybe….
My best friend from school joined the police aged 19 in 1975. She was told on her first day at the police training college, to sever all ties with past friends as those friends would want nothing to do with them and their friends were their fellow officers.
See also “30+ Met police smash down Quaker meeting house doors to raid anti-genocide gathering” (28 Mar 2025)
https://skwawkbox.org/2025/03/28/30-met-police-smash-down-quaker-meeting-house-doors-to-raid-anti-genocide-gathering/
The video is well worth watching – the young lady speaking is a credit to her generation (& her parents). She & others like her are the future – Starmer and his Met-Plod mates are the past. More power to them (the young lady & her friends).
“If liberty means anything, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”—is alarmingly relevant. Dissent in Britain is being criminalised through “neutral” laws targeting ideological and passive resistance.
History repeats: The 1662 Quaker Act punished refusal to swear oaths, framing faith as treason. Today, the 2017 Lobbying Act and HMRC’s charity audits weaponise “transparency” to silence critics, echoing authoritarian “foreign agent” laws.
As Prof Murphy rightly highlights, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and Public Order Act 2023 empower police to ban protests deemed “disruptive”—a term left dangerously vague. Who defines “disruption”? Is it a blocked road, a raised voice, or a whistle at a march? The laws’ ambiguity grants the state limitless discretion. Just Stop Oil activists jailed for peaceful demonstrations and the heavy-handed policing of the Sarah Everard vigil reveal the consequences: dissent is no longer a right but a risk.
“Freedom is the freedom to say two plus two make four.” But when “disruption” is criminalised, dissent becomes arithmetic the state can erase—like Martini: anytime, anyplace, anywhere. The article’s link between Quaker persecution and modern suppression is exact: both weaponise law to pathologise and stigmatise resistance.
Britain isn’t Putin’s Russia or Trump’s America, but the logic is identical. First, Quakers’, now, protesters. Soon, anyone defying power in Labour UK. Dissent is fast becoming a crime—ignore this, and Orwell’s defiant truth dies.
My most immediate action, after reading about this yesterday, was to contact my Labour MP to demand that this outrage is raised in parliament. I will be sending at least one more follow-up email to her, to include all the links posted here. I suggest that other readers of this blog do exactly the same, with a deluge of emails demanding that all MPs hold the Labour leadership’s feet to the fire regarding this disgraceful abuse of power.
Laura Kuenssberg delivered a glancing exposure of the Quaker Incident in a glancing question to Yvette Cooper about this earlier today. She accepted a very brief distractive comment and promptly moved on without resorting to her usual repeated barrage of interrogation style questioning that is so often employed in Sunday Morning Politics interviews. This is just not good enough; we must put a phenomenal level of pressure on all our MPs, to make absolutely certain that this atrocity never happens again in the UK.
In the US, where I lived for over 20 years, the bogus charge of ‘Disruptive’ has become code for ‘outspoken employee fired in order to silence them’. After five years of exemplary service, I was fired from Johns Hopkins for ‘Disruptive behavior in the OR’. Not throwing a grenade down the sterile core, but the unforgivable crime of daring to report negligence! It appears that a similar warped stretch of the definition is being used by UK police to arrest protesters, and even those daring to plan a protest in the future! In defiance, I decided to add the word ‘Disruptive’ to my business cards; “Disruptive Concept and Design Innovation”: a genuine positive spin on disruptive.
I am a Unitarian, not a Quaker, but we share a lot of their values on equality, tolerance, non-violence and peaceful protest, so I fully appreciate their work on these issues. My brother-in-law and his family in the US are all Quakers so I’m both familiar and totally supportive of their strong principals. It was a Quaker group in America that provided funding for our team of medical volunteers in Meulaboh, Indonesia after the Boxing Day tsunami.
I have also attended more than one meeting held at the main Quaker Meeting House in London. While we were not directly planning a protest, the whole theme of our meeting would have been considered Far-Left, anti-Neoliberal and vehemently anti-war. Will I risk joining such a meeting in future? Absolutely and without the slightest hesitation, despite fear of police aggression and potential arrest. We cannot be cowered by state authoritarianism.
Thanks Kim. Appreciated.
Thanks Richard for bringing this outrageous injustice to the attention of your readers. Steam is coming from my ears. I highly suspect this event is not isolated – and that most arrests of this nature occur below the radar of the MSM which therefore demonstrates complicity.
I am nearly 67. I have never been so angry in my life with everything going on right now. We are all on a very slippery slope. I desperately want left of centre political options because I still believe that social democracy can pull us back from the brink. I ask myself frequently if I am too naive, and if the powers-that-be rely on naivity until it’s too late?
I don’t post comments very frequently however I read a lot of what you write; you help me make sense of what’s going on. Thanks. I can imagine there are a lot like me … just because you don’t hear from us very often doesn’t mean your work isn’t having an impact. Please remember that.
Thanks
https://www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-events/news/quakers-condemn-police-raid-on-westminster-meeting-house
https://www.indcatholicnews.com/news/52036
https://www.indcatholicnews.com/news/52036
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/six-youth-demand-campaigners-arrested-while-attending-meeting-in-london
https://braveneweurope.com/quakers-in-britain-quakers-condemn-police-raid-on-westminster-meeting-house
It’s an interesting alliance!
Indeed
You can now add The Guardian (I’m amazed). https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/mar/29/met-raids-quaker-meeting-house-and-arrests-six-women-at-youth-demand-talk
It occurred to me this morning that this may be Starmer’s revenge for the demonstration outside his house some months ago, when the young protesters placed pairs of children’s shoes from the gate to the front door. Starmer and his wife were appropriately outraged, but not enough to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.
“Police arrest parents who complained in school WhatsApp group” (29 March 2025)
https://freespeechunion.org/police-arrest-parents-who-complained-in-school-whatsapp-group/
Wow…
This is madness
I posted two G’ articles on a previous blog. One was about police going after (black) people who were using the n-word to each other on social media (plus other instances) of course the cases were droped by the CPS. The other article was about police whining about “not enough resources”. Another example of imbecile plods clumping after people that have a civil disagreement with a school. Apparently now – one is not allowed to question process. Again: who was the imbecile in the plods that made the decision. Should be sacked.
& I refuse to call them (the police) anything but “plods” – it summarises their mind-set perfectly – plodding imbeciles – many/most of them.
Thank you for sharing this.
So, it’s not just the Muslims then?
In a way I am relieved. It seems clear that any patriot exercising their rights in a country they love is at risk. Fair enough.
Creating fear of protest is a correct diagnosis.
It is part of Austerity continuum Richard.
By banging up people in prison and besmirching their good names you are undermining their economic viability.
Crude but effective.
Agreed
Any thoughts as to why those people were arrested or is that not relevant?
Supposedly for planning protest. Planning, note.
I too stand with Neil Anderson. I am not a Quaker, or a believer, but I respect their stance on protest and condemn utterly the current government’s transformation into what is now a police state. The level of violence of this attack on the Meeting House – they broke down the door, instead of ringing the bell like civilised people, shows the level of intimidation the police are now using in defence of the government’s full-on support of genocide.
We’ve all seen enough police procedural dramas to visualise what this attack was like. This to arrest 6 young women in a meeting! I am an oldie, but I support wholeheartedly the movement of young people to take back this country from the barbarism to which it has descended.
Thanks
What frustrated me is the hypocrisy. A university fined for not protecting free speech, but protesters arrested. Then there is the likely silence from those associated with the Southport riots. They complained of two tier policing, if being political prisoners, but had no regard or solidarity with those in prison for climate protests. There will be nothing from them regarding this either.
And someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m sure I read somewhere that many of these anti protest laws came about due to the government being sued by powerful business groups for not protecting them from disruption to their operations.
So young people can be violently arrested for merely discussing in private the possibility of a peaceful protest. Meanwhile, farmers can completely block a large part of central London using tens of millions of pounds worth of tractors with impunity.
Who is it the “Labour” party says they represent?
Excellent point
Leaders of both main parties have been trying to get the Gaza demos banned – calling them hate marches and pretending they would disrupt Remembrance Sunday etc. That Starmer would not repeal the draconian anti- protest laws enacted in the last two years is entirely in keeping with his ‘non ideological’ stance or should we call it the ‘pro Faragian’ stance – on social and economic issues.
Fascism is indeed nibbling away at our social fabric – police can destroy people’s lives by confiscating phones or laptops for ‘investigation’, while not even charging them.
But we should guard against branding all police as enemies of the people – Until recently the London Gaza marches have been policed in a very relaxed manner – and speaking to police on the ground they were few in number and broadly unworried – despite the passions on display they could see the demos were obviously peaceful.
Its the institution of the Met – that is racist and corrupt – as concluded in several official reports – but not all individual police. And it is the institution itself that seems to have changed to a more confrontational and provocative stance on the Gaza demos – changing long-agreed arrangements at the last minute, and now raiding people at the Quaker meeting house – for merely discussing possible protests.
Divide and rule is the strategy – but dont we want individual police officers on our side or at least neutral, – and we should not fall into the trap clearly being laid by the politicisation of the police institutions.
“In 1670 persecution of Quakers by the Puritan government was in full flood. Meeting Houses were being closed, or totally destroyed, and Quakers imprisoned. Yet Quakers did not falter but insisted on freedom of speech and freedom of assembly . Unlike most at the time, they not only insisted on free speech for Protestant sects but asked that Catholics , Jews and Muslims be allowed freedom of speech as well. Their reward after the Revolution of 1688 was the Toleration Act which, although it granted freedoms only to Protestants, nonetheless is still one of the foundation-stones for the civil liberties we enjoy today.”
Source: https://quakersocialists.org.uk/2024/04/15/qss-at-three-demonstrations-for-jury-rights-and-for-freedom-of-speech-and-assembly/
This was the foundation of Quaker marriage. Quakers refused to marry in church, as did Jews. They were the first to be allowed to marry as they wished. We had a Quaker wedding – and it was very memorable. You have no idea what will happen.
The Quakers and Jews had to have separate burial grounds too and Parliament passed laws to give them some protection. I think Unitarians might have too as they didn’t believe in the Divinity of Christ.
Quakers did not believe they had to be buried in consecrated ground.
True
Our wedding reception was in the old Quaker burial ground behind the Meeting House. Most people didn’t notice. A few went next door, to the pub.
“If liberty means anything, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”—is alarmingly relevant. Dissent in Britain is being criminalised through “neutral” laws targeting ideological resistance.
History repeats: The 1662 Quaker Act punished refusal to swear oaths, framing faith as treason. Today, the 2017 Lobbying Act and HMRC’s charity audits weaponise “transparency” to silence critics, echoing authoritarian “foreign agent” laws.
The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and Public Order Act 2023 empower police to ban protests deemed “disruptive”—a term left dangerously vague. Who defines “disruption”? Is it a blocked road, a raised voice, or a whistle at a march? The laws’ ambiguity grants the state limitless discretion. Just Stop Oil activists jailed for peaceful demonstrations and the heavy-handed policing of the Sarah Everard vigil reveal the consequences: dissent is no longer a right but a risk.
“Freedom is the freedom to say two plus two make four.” But when “disruption” is criminalised, dissent becomes arithmetic the state can erase—like Martini: anytime, anyplace, anywhere.
Britain isn’t Putin’s Russia or Trump’s America yet, but the logic is identical. First, those using Quaker premises’. Then, those using whistles, drums or megaphones at demonstrations, protesters against disability benefits possibly? Where does the interpretation of “disruptive” stop? Soon, anyone defying power will be criminalised—ignore this, and Orwell’s defiant truth dies.
Thanks
Peter Oborne raised the alarm on exactly this issue well before the 2024 GE here in these two articles, highlighting Starmer’s untrustworthiness, and his authoritarian instincts .
On Starmer’s untrustworthiness
https://www.doubledown.news/watch/2023/september/25/exposed-keir-starmer-liar-murdochs-man-candidate-mi5-peter-oborne
On his authoritarian instincts, this:
https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/uk-labour-starmer-authoritarianism-alarm-bells-ringing
Starmer’s government is turning out to be the worst in living memory – and after the last 50 years that takes some doing – because of its lincompetence, but also for its hostility to democracy.
He’s a bought and sold apparatchik of two lethal tendencies, that of the corporate State and the 1%, and that of Zionism.
The first he is pursuing as a loyal member of the Trilateral Commission, that believe democracy has gone too far,
He is selling out our democracy to a Balkanised system of Special Enterprise Zones – Tory in origin, but espoused by Starmer’s Faux-Labour Party – which will be corporately managed (owned?) Bantustans, with all rights and democratic involvement under the oversight and control of corporations = Neofeudalism, in other words, with citizens reduced to the status of serfs.
The second he is pursuing by a slavish adherence to the needs and interests of Israel – a Neo-Fascist genocidal entity, widely condemned across the majority of the world for its genocidal actions in Gaza and now the West Bank- with never a word of criticism for those actions.
Indeed, he is on record as saying those interests come first in his eyes, apparently ahead of those of the people whose country he governs.
The criminal attack on the people arrested in the Westminster Quaker Meeting House runs these two tendencies together, as crushing dissent against Israel’s genocidal activity could just as easily have been- had been – directed at Just Stop Oil activists seeking to limit corporate overreach, and often corporate malfeasance – the illiberal laws passed by the Tories having seemingly been gleefully accepted by Starmer Faux-Labour Party.
On top of all this, I hold him to be an illegitimate PM – he lied his way into the Leadership, and started plotting to oust Corbyn 6 months before the 2019 GE (See https://novaramedia.com/2023/11/14/the-corruption-behind-starmers-rise-has-finally-been-exposed/)
I have seen a meme describing Starmer and his eminence grise, Mandelson, as two of the most dangerous men in UK politics. I would have to agree.
Anyone who was sentient & observing the sabotage of Corbyn’s 2019 GE campaign (which started immediately after he destroyed the Conservative’s majority in 2017, and took place mainly from within the Labour Party) saw at first hand Starmer’s ruthlessness, his dishonesty and lack of principle, his lack of transparency over his donors and backers, his authoritarian refusal to brook dissent within the Labour Party or the PLP, and his cynical willingness to make multiple dishonest pledges that he openly resiled from as soon as he didn’t need them anymore (in the 2020 leadership election and then in the 2024 GE).
I rate him WORSE than Alexander B de Pfeffel Johnson in that respect, mainly on the grounds of hypocrisy. He pretends to be honest and pretends to have principles. Johnson didn’t.
This was all known in July 2024 but he got elected anyway. Those of us who pointed it out were labelled-
Putin sympathisers
Tory enablers
Trots
Hard left Extremists
Corbyn cultists
Antisemites
Terrorist sympathisers
Now here we are. We got exactly what I expected we would get. The only thing that surprises me is how supine and spineless over 400 Labour MPs have proved to be with their silent cowardice.
I didn’t vote Labour in 2024. My conscience is clear, but that doesn’t butter any parsnips.
We have to stop being polite about this.
Trump, a convicted fraudster, misogynist, sex pest and failed businessman is a destructive aggressive fascist making offensive threats to our allies and Commonwealth friends – what does it take to realise that the USA is not an ally?
Netanyahu is on trial in his own country for fraud, he is also a fascist. Israel is not an ally, and is continually breaking international law, and Netanyahu is currently indicted for war crimes and the subject of an international arrest warrant.
Both Israel and USA grossly interfere with our internal affairs and subvert our democratic processes by a variety of unlawful means. Assisting them as they do that is treason IMHO.
Supporting fascist foreign governments whose actions are contrary to the interests of ordinary citizens of the UK, is treason. The police are arresting the wrong people.
I’m not prepared to be polite about this.
My parents taught me the difference between right and wrong.
Our government and the institutions that support its illegal behaviour are WRONG. Innocent vulnerable people are suffering and dying because of what my government are doing.
I think we are now, where Germany was in the 1930’s.
For me, as a follower of Jesus the choice is stark, and I borrow a German 1930’s metaphor – I am either a member of the Confessing Church (like 2 German martyred pastors Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the less well known Paul Schneider), or I am DeutscheKristen, and on the side of Hitler and part of the comfortable complicit crowd.
It really is that stark. If you are a disappointed or anxious Starmer supporter, a Labour member, councillor or MP, or peer, it is time to jump ship. Unless you really are an authoritarian fascist with the excuse that you were only “obeying orders”. The longer you leave it, the more painful and dangerous it will be to change sides.
Consult your conscience if you have one, and act NOW.
Thanks Robert. My perspective is very very similar on all points.
As far as I know there were no arrests of farmers when they were practicing their tractor go slow movements on public roads. That surely was a ‘public nuisance’?
It most definitely was
Ah, but farmers are mostly rich. Unlike the poor, the sick, the disabled (and that final descriptor includes me). Those people aren’t rich or famous, so who cares about them? Certainly not Starmer and Reeves. They show that by their actions. Weeps.
Agreed
Coming from a quaker family, when alerted to this by social media my first thought was that such a thing hasn’t happened since about the 17th century, but that of course was wrong. Quakers in recent times have been imprisoned in our country for pacifist direct action. My late sister was a quaker prison chaplain and supported some personally.
That was a role I was asked to consider once
It took 24hrs but finally MSM noticed.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/mar/29/met-raids-quaker-meeting-house-and-arrests-six-women-at-youth-demand-talk
Met police quotes:
“Conspiracy to cause a public nuisance”
“Serious disruption and other criminality”
“Swarming & road blocks”
SWARMING???
(like honey bees?)
There were other raids on Friday too, presumably there was a co-ordinated “conspiracy to intimidate peaceful protesters” and shut down Youth Demand before they even start.
And yet we can’t “Prevent” the real murderers from killing children in Southport, even when their violent radicalisation and knife-carrying murderous intentions are on public display alongside their criminal records?
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/mar/28/prevent-chief-departs-after-damning-inquiry-over-southport-attack
What it is to have a Dear Leader who was a human rights lawyer once, and now lives in 10 Downing Street.
WTF ?? This has left me Totally speechless. I told my husband just now and he did not believe me. It is reported in the Guardian, it’s true , and I have shared it to many friends. THIS IS FASCISM . Of all the crazy geopolitical stuff of recent times this sums it up. Who /what next ??
I wish I could answer that.
Absolutely absurd! I was stunned when I heard the news—arresting Quakers, of all people. If this had been an alleged plot against the king, nothing would’ve happened. Yet, when it involves Gaza and Palestine, those in power seem ready to do anything to push the Israeli agenda. How have we reached a point where a foreign nation has so much influence over our actions?
Even more shocked I didn’t see anything in the media. They are complicit.
Standing in solitary with the Quakers.
To be cautious – I have not seen any evidence that those arrested were Quakers, but the venue that was violently raided was a Quaker meeting house.
There’s nothing unusual about Quakers being arrested. They have a very honourable track record in that respect. But there IS something very worrying (but not unprecedented) about the forcible violent intimidatory nature of the raid on a Quaker place of worship.
It strikes me that as the object of the government exercise is to cause fear and to intimidate (surely illegal in itself) any religious organisation wishing to resist, could call for a united but distributed day of “protest planning” at every single one of its venues, such protest planning to consist of a time of prayer for “the overthrow of tyranny” (not yet illegal?), before the normal weekly time of worship.
That would require an awful lot of police raids and the creation of hundreds of thousands of “Nightingale Cell Blocks” where the prayers could continue in a monastic “cell” or anchorite form, with extended times of silent prayer ( to coincide with police interviews).
Incidentally the man who recently won his case against Thames Valley Police for protesting at the proclamation of Charles III, was a trainee Baptist minister.
https://bylinetimes.com/2025/03/11/republican-activist-wins-police-settlement-after-unlawful-arrest-for-shouting-at-king-charles-proclamation/
Thanks
It’s not clear how many, if any, of those arrested were Quakers, or whether it was just that Youth Demand hired the hall. But it seems clear that the police burst in to a place of worship, without warning. I wonder if they had a warrant to do that?
Forgive me for making a second reply to your post, but I’ve been walking the dog and mulling over this issue of police used as a weapon of the state. I live in Scotland, and Operation Branchform springs to mind as an example of the police being used performatively to discredit the SNP – 20 police in a raid, forensic tent on the former First Minister’s lawn, press well-informed and the whole issue dragged on for years until, finally, Peter Murrell was charged for embezzlement, of a sum a fraction of what was spent on the police operation, and Nicola Sturgeon was cleared of any suspicion, after she had declared she was not going to stand as an MSP again.
This contrasts with the violent raid on the Quaker Meeting House, which has had so little attention in the press that I wonder if some sort of D notice is in operation?
Starmer’s private army of thugs, well-known for their misogynistic predilection, will not be wanting wide publicity for their bullying of some young women – tasers ffs! – but they are well aware of the coverage this will get in alternative media and the intention is to intimidate the young people who might consider joining Youth Demand. The level of surveillance of UK citizens, which enables the police to go round making arrests before any of the now rather broadly defined “crimes” have occurred gives me the creeps. You can bet we’re all being watched.
According to Marshall McLuhan, an important part of a message is how it is delivered.
Might an unstated, but major, message from the intimidating behaviours and equipment of the disproportionally large number of the police be that, if you dare to disagree with the currently ruling group/clique you will be intimidated?
Front page of the Sunday Times – got there eventually. https://www.thetimes.com/uk/society/article/met-smash-down-door-of-quaker-meeting-house-to-arrest-activists-jhhchrtlt
“The Met police said it had arrested six people at the meeting on SUSPICION of CONSPIRACY to cause a public NUISANCE”. Or, to put it another way – “maybe, perhaps, might be annoying”. This is nothing short of intimidating “wrong-think”.
Also (I’m quoting from the Guardian) “Youth Demand have stated an intention to ‘shut down’ London over the month of April using tactics including ‘swarming’ and road blocks”. I’ve alluded to it before, but what does a “swarm” of large tractors blocking roads comprise? Oh, sorry, they’re all gentleman farmers, salt of the earth etc. Not these rebellious youngsters, got to put them in their place.
This has made me angrier than just about any of the other sh*t that’s been flying around this past few months, I think because it’s an attack on the values of my own country, which I thought we were still trying to maintain.
The comparison with the farmners is what makes this so anger-making
Maybe youth demand need to buy some tractors…
Can we any longer pretend that the police are “us in uniform”? They behave now as an arm of the State, not of society.
Robert Peel’s 7th principle of policing:
“To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles
Thatcher’s aim was always to destroy the concept of society: “There is no such thing as society”. She did it through economics: “There is only taxpayers’ money”, but her legacy continues.
For as long as there is no political party able to win the arguments for (democratic) socialism, the right will continue winning.
The social contract was implict in what Peel had to say.
Is it implicit in midern policing?
Seriously? 50 years on and you’re still deliberately mis-quoting Thatcher’s comment about ‘society’? What is it about the ‘left’ and being so desperate to score points that they have to lie about what other people said?
Truly desperate. What’s also interesting is how Richard Murphy doesn’t deem it appropriate to point out this inaccuracy, thereby directly condoning the comments.
There was no inaccuracy.
The falsehoods are all of your creation, and Thatcher’s, of course.
Oh dear, not another one!
@Karen Bloxham
https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106689
Was that what you were looking for?
It’s quite strange that you claim to be a Quaker, given that the vast majority of your behaviour is pretty much the opposite to Christian teaching.
No doubt you believe you know than Jesus himself as far as Christian values are concerned? (Based on how often you criticise experts in other areas).
Might you tell me what I propose that opposes Christian teaching?
@CardinalWolsey…goodness, have you risen from the dead… or a reincarnation of the cardinal?
I read most of Richard Murphy’s blog posts. I can’t claim to be as well versed as you in Catholic doctrine, if you are Thomas Wolsey, but Richard doesn’t seem to say anything that counters Christian principles.
I don’t, I know.
And I am pretty familar with what the NT, most especially, has to say.
I’ve even read it – which is more than most Chinos (Christians in name only) have.
@Cardinal Wolsey
Your Eminence would be blessing all of us if you were able to elucidate the specific Quaker teaching you had mind, and also the areas of Jesus’ life and ministry that you are concerned about. I’m happy to embark on a lengthy Biblical discussion, after all it IS Sunday. I’m sure everyone else would be fascinated.
Are you familiar with Jesus’ dialogues with the Pharisees (“you hypocrites, you whited sepulchres, God desires mercy not sacrifice…”) or his message to the King (Herod) “Go tell that fox…!”?
I hope you didn’t think Jesus was polite, respectful and deferential? He was after all such a nuisance to those in power that was subjected to conspiracy to murder, unlawful arrest, an illegal judicial process, and brutal execution by an occupying military colonial imperial power.
Was that the Jesus you were thinking about? (I’m a follower by the way, so maybe we have lots in common?)
I strongly suspect ‘The Cardinal’ will not be back.
What got me was the “vast majority of your behaviour” but. Be worried, Richard, I think that’s a claim to some kind of creepy big brother surveillance focused on you! However, I rather suspect that it would not verify that inflated claim of the cardinal.
-Who is probably one of those Christians who majors on “Christian” values that Jesus actually threw into question (like reverence for marriage and the nuclear family, a number of expressions of patriotism, automatic deference, respect for property …).
I have been monitored before now. That’s life…..