{"id":81199,"date":"2025-03-29T07:28:48","date_gmt":"2025-03-29T07:28:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=81199"},"modified":"2025-03-29T07:28:48","modified_gmt":"2025-03-29T07:28:48","slug":"first-they-came-for-the-quakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/03\/29\/first-they-came-for-the-quakers\/","title":{"rendered":"First they came for the Quakers"},"content":{"rendered":"

To slightly misquote a poem<\/a>:<\/p>\n

First\u00a0they came for the Quakers, and I did not speak out\u2014
\nBecause I was not a Quaker.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Except I am a Quaker, and I share this, issued by the Quakers in Britain<\/a>, of which I am indirectly a member:<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Just before 7.15pm on 27 March more than 20 uniformed police, some equipped with tasers, forced their way into Westminster Meeting House.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Quakers support the right to nonviolent public protest, acting themselves from a deep moral imperative to stand up against injustice and for our planet.<\/p>\n

Many have taken nonviolent direct action over the centuries from the abolition of slavery to women's suffrage and prison reform.<\/p>\n

Paul Parker, recording clerk for Quakers in Britain, said: \u201cNo-one has been arrested in a Quaker meeting house in living memory.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cFreedom of speech, assembly, and fair trials are an essential part of free public debate which underpins democracy.\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A Labour government permitted\u00a0this.<\/p>\n

It allowed those committed to peace to be forcibly arrested and detained, all because they opposed the use of violence in this world.<\/p>\n

They did so to support the genocide that is being pursued in Gaza.<\/p>\n

They did so by entering the premises of an organisation that has a Nobel Peace Prize<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They got that prize for trying to find pathways through conflict.<\/p>\n

The arrests were made because a peaceful protest was being discussed, with such protest being an essential element in a functioning democracy.<\/p>\n

It is easy to spot the demise of democracy in the USA right now.\u00a0 But is there much of a democracy left in the UK right now?<\/p>\n

Is the aim to create a deliberate climate of fear?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To slightly misquote a poem: First\u00a0they came for the Quakers, and I did not speak out\u2014 Because I was not a Quaker. Except I am
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[215,14,203,118,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-age-of-aggression","category-corruption","category-fascism","category-labour","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81199"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81200,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81199\/revisions\/81200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}