by Ruth Kettle-Frisby.
In a landmark event, Quaker management at Friends House in London has acted decisively in banning prominent socialist Jeremy Corbyn from delivering the Salter Lecture on ‘War and Peace’ at this year’s Britain Yearly Meeting in July. Although not a Quaker himself, Jeremy would have jointly presented the lecture with the Quaker mediator, Paul Ingram.
Many of us in the Quaker Socialist Society (QSS), and outside, are perplexed by the decision; feelings of confusion, and sadness, continue to radiate outwards as more people catch wind of it. It sets a disturbing precedent that has troubled friends so deeply that it has set our very consciences off-kilter and put our integrity as a Society of Friends into serious question.
Growing up in the 90s, my sharply felt social conscience was entirely divorced from any political motivation whatsoever. In the wake of Thatcher’s ruthless and divisive neoliberal policies, Blair found the rhetoric to unite Right and Left by redefining the Left at a Centre-Right position, calling this ‘New Labour’.
Several popular TV appearances later, Blair dashed hopes for systemic changes in education (“education, education”), and assisted US forces to invade Iraq based on weak intelligence of non-existent weapons of mass destruction in what is deemed to be an unjust war in Iraq, with ongoing devastating consequences for 4.4 million displaced people. The Tories didn’t take long to take the reins, via an embarrassingly ineffective coalition with the Liberal Democrats, and British people like me who were living in privately rented shared houses – and finding it impossible to mobilise ourselves – deserved better.
Sometimes, when you have no capital, you have the closest contact with those at the sharpest ends of injustice; those who are most in need of equitable socialist policies. I worked in a run-down mental health ward, and then with learning disabled young people, all of whom had little in terms of rights and power. Politicians – so distant from us with their privileged backgrounds, education and connections – didn’t speak for us, so we switched off and muddled on.
Enter Jeremy Corbyn in 2015. His resurgence gained rapid momentum on social networking sites like Facebook: swathes of us awoke from apathetic slumbers and got behind this older white man who nevertheless spoke up for us – ‘for the many, not the few!’ What was being denigrated as ‘radical’, Jeremy Corbyn – after the Diggers, or ‘True Levellers’ before him – just called ‘fair’.
Jeremy Corbyn ignited political hope, but his credibility was systematically crushed by the British Establishment, which repeatedly called this democratically elected leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party ‘unelectable’, and subjected him to a sustained smear campaign led by unregulated billionaire-owned British tabloids. After the ‘unelectable’ Corbyn did so well in the 2017 General Election he began to be smeared as an ‘anti-semite’ because he was critical of Israel.
Jeremy Corbyn is not an antisemite; on the contrary, he continuously stands for nuclear disarmament, antifascism, and antiracism, and is at the forefront of our shared campaign for an immediate permanent ceasefire in Gaza. He founded the Peace and Justice Project, and spoke at Friends House itself at the War on Want conference.
QSS invited Jeremy Corbyn as our Salter Lecturer in good faith, for the sake of what we might learn in our shared commitment to peace. It is in this spirit that I write: not to persuade friends to deviate from the calling of your own consciences, but to invite you to be part of this important conversation.
What does this decision mean for the Society of Friends, with its radical roots based in a fearless upholding of truth?
What is to become of a Society of Friends that kowtows to the self-perpetuating capitalist priorities of the New/Blue Labour-cum-Conservative Establishment that sustains social – including climate, economic and migrant – injustice?
Whether or not Friends agree with Jeremy Corbyn, should we not welcome him in acknowledgement of the Light within him?
—————————————————————————————————————————–
2 https://www.ucl.ac.uk/nahrein/news/2023/apr/we-are-still-displaced-20-years-after-iraq-war
Quaker Socialist Society 
Thanks, Jo. The Quaker Socialist Society agrees with your analysis. We chose Jeremy Corbyn (non-Quaker) and Paul Ingram (Quaker) to share this year’s Salter lecture on War and Peace but he was banned by the management team and trustees at Friends House in London. We have now arranged alternative premises for the lecture and Jeremy will be speaking with Paul next Monday, July 29, at 7 pm. You will be able to watch it in Australia when it appears on You-tube at the end of next week.
LikeLike
Thanks, Richard, and thanks for your excellent letter in the Friend. The delay in replying was an oversight. Our Comment boxes have a tendency to show posts as ‘Anonymous” and we failed at first to spot those who added their name at the end. We have the documents you ask for and can post them on this site, or send them to you. But the problem is deeper than the documents. Quakers are declining in membership and financial resources and management has a ‘marketing choice’ (to use secular language) between getting closer to the liberal establishment or emphasising the highly distinctive ‘niche’ values of Quakers. They have chosen the former, but QSS believes Quakers have grown in the past whenever they have been ethically distinctive.
LikeLike
Thanks, Jeremy. No need to apologise. Your reaction is in tune with our own reaction when the Quaker management team at Friends House decided to ban Jeremy from delivering our Salter Lecture. The Quaker Socialist Society is a ‘recognised group’ within British Quakers but is autonomous. We’ve been putting on a lecture at the time of Quaker Yearly Meeting since 1899 but occasionally Quaker management has bridled, as in this case. Jeremy of course speaks regularly in London, at venues such as Conway Hall and Westminster Hall, and has never brought disrepute or trouble to any of these venues. We have contested the decision of Friends House management but they offer no satisfactory explanation so we assume their ban on Jeremy is political. As you rightly say, it’s disappointing because hitherto Quakers have been critics of the establishment, not its enforcers..!
LikeLike
I wish you luck in your quest for a transparent reply regarding the trustees decision. None will be forthcoming.
I have read through the article and comments and was sad to discover that the very same attitudes from trustees that led to my resignation from Quakers in 2021 still hold sway. It was my experience, then that meetings, even of trustees at a local level of organisation, work, but rubberstamping is of decisions already made, and that such debate as was allowed was in effect, null and void.
at the best, Quakers can be a great force for good, and I have recently rekindled visits to my local centre as an at tender on an occasional basis. But the general direction of travel, and in particular its ill-considered attitudes towards Israel, is a continuing source of sadness for me.
LikeLike
I am commenting as a non member of the Quakers. I therefore have no direct experience of the issue’s and am basing my comments and those I made above on my reading of the situation. Neither am I a member of QSS.
It would seem to me that in not allowing Jeremy Corbyn to speak at Friends House you have in effect banned him. My understanding is that QSS is only a small part of the organisation as a whole.
Do you have evidence that the safety of the EAPPI volunteers would be compromised by having JC speak at Friends House? Do you think that the reputation of Friends House would also be compromised by allowing JC to speak there? Certainly the mainstream media and the rest of the establishment would probably say yes to both those questions but I thought the Quakers were supposed to speak truth to power?
I agree that you wouldn’t invite every body to speak at Friends House but Jeremy Corbyn isn’t exactly ‘everybody’. Whatever your views are about him he is a major British parliamentarian, an advocate for peace, a co-founder of the Stop the War Coalition, a past recipient of Ghandi peace prize, founder of Peace and Justice etc. Even right wing commentators such as Peter Oborne, Rory Stewart and Peter Hitchens agree that he is a major figure in UK politics and has been treated badly. It would seem to me therefore that just as the article says you have-however unwittingly -kowtowed to the establishment agenda. And that to me is very disappointing as somebody who was thinking about joining.
Finally if George Fox and the other early Quakers were alive today what would they say? Like Jeremy Corbyn they did speak truth to power and challenge the establishment.
All the best for the Salter Lecture-I hope it goes well. I apologise for my long comments and being an interloper on this site!
Jeremy Lax
LikeLike
In the interests of transparency I would be interested to know the substance of staff’s concerns about Jeremy Corbyn’s involvement in the Salter Lecture had it been held at Friends House during YM. I would also be interested to see the risk assessment which was undertaken regarding Jeremy Corbyn’s involvement and the minutes of the meeting between trustees and Yearly Meeting Agenda Committee when trustee’s recommendation was discussed. Perhaps the minutes of YMAC meeting when the decision was made regarding the Salter Lecture should also be made available. Could the Quaker Socialist Society ask the Recording Clerks Office to arrange for these documents to be posted on the Quakers in Britain Website?
Richard Pashley Bull St Meeting
LikeLike
There are several disturbing inaccuracies in the above article and comments. The article says, “Quaker management at Friends House in London has acted decisively in banning prominent socialist Jeremy Corbyn from delivering the Salter Lecture”. This is just plainly false.
Trustees of the Yearly Meeting, in listening to staff at Friends House, offered a recommendation to the Yearly Meeting’s Agenda Committee. That Committee then discerned, in some agreement and some disagreement with Trustees, and with much painful exercise, that they could not offer Friends House for Jeremy Corbyn to speak in during the Yearly Meeting (Agenda Committee has long discerned the right use of the building during Yearly Meeting sessions – this is nothing new). They certainly did not “ban” Jeremy Corbyn from giving the Salter Lecture: only QSS has the authority to do that. They just said that Friends House, during the Yearly Meeting, couldn’t be used for this purpose, due to numerous considerations including the safety of EAPPI volunteers and the threat of increased stress for staff who have to deal with reputational issues.
There may be lots of room to debate whether Trustees made the right recommendation and whether Agenda Committee discerned the right way forward; but sweeping inaccuracies like those in the above article do us no favours in having this conversation. If we are going to hold up our ‘fearless testimony of truth’ and say this is why we Friends should offer space to hear Jeremy Corbyn, surely we should tell the truth about what has happened.
I’m also disturbed by the comment that “Whether or not Friends agree with Jeremy Corbyn, should we not welcome him in acknowledgement of the Light within him?” We recognise the Light in all people. That doesn’t mean we would invite all people to address us, does it?
LikeLike
hi Jo, The Quaker Socialist Society didn’t ban Corbyn from Britain Yearly Meeting Gathering – the Meeting’s arrangements committee did. The Quaker Socialist Society is, as far as I know, intending to go ahead with the Salter lecture (absent of their usual support from BYM) in another location.
LikeLike
I am extremely disappointed, distraught that a Quaker organisation would ban Jeremy Corbyn. I can hardly believe it! I am a West Australian Quaker of over fifty years, and I want to let you know that from far away, there are many of us distressed by your cutting Jeremy Corbyn from addressing Friends in the Salter lecture.
Jeremy has been a beacon for truth and justice for many years. He came to Western asutralia years ago, as a freshly minted Member for Islingtoon, to visit his brother Andrew (deceased) who ran a left wing bookshop in Kalgoorlie, in the heart of our mining goldfields. I was actively involved with People for Nuclear Disarmament, modelled on CND, and we asked Jeremy to address our members. He was inspiring. I have no reason to think that he has deviated from his courageous stand for peace over the intervening years.
That he was dubbed an anti-semite, was disgraceful. He was speaking some truth about the Israeli government, not about Jewish people in general. the Murdoch media did an effective beat-up job on him. And the Labour party treated him very badly.
We must not conflate being anti the killings being carried out by the Israeli government with being anti-semetic. It’s a favourite smearing being used by the very powerful international Zionist lobby. Neither should we condone the dreadful actions of Hamas, which led to t his ghastly killing spree. It’s hardly a war, when there is such an imbalance of forces.
I hope that the quaker Socialist Society will re-think its action, reverse the decision, apologise to Jeremy Corbyn, and re-instate him as a speaker. From him, after so many years of public campaigning, we all have much to learn.
With best wishes, towards peace and inter-generational climate justice,
Jo Vallentine
LikeLike
One of my more favourite aphorisms is:
Be sorry for those who do not understand instead of resenting them.
Pleased to hear you now feel more sorrow than anger. That aphorism always helps me as it feels more compassionate to feel sorrow for others than resentment.
LikeLike
I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiments expressed in this article. Like the comment above I too felt aghast when I first heard of the decision to ban Jeremy Corbyn. I am an occasional attender at my local Quaker meeting and had been thinking about becoming a full member. However, I am now having second thoughts about this.
I too am an older white man but I know that Jeremy Corbyn as the former leader of the labour party gave hope to many young people as well as those who have been left behind by the establishment agenda. Hope that we would move on from status quo/establishment politics, that economically we could have a more equal, democratic socialist society, ditching both austerity politics and the neoliberal agenda. More than anything else I think young people wanted action on the climate crisis along with hope that they would not be in private rented housing for the rest of their adult lives. Those who are the victims of austerity, the unemployed, the disabled and those with insecure jobs also found hope that their lives could be better and that under Jeremy Corbyn their voice would be heard. However the establishment made sure that didn’t happen and they did this in a very brazen but underhand way: Jeremy Corbyn-the great truth teller- has been demonised essentially.
In a recent interview Francesca Albanese-the UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine said that she felt that global society was currently stuck between ‘hope and the abyss’. Like Jeremy Corbyn Francesca Albanese is also one of the great truth tellers. I find hope when I see the brave students demonstrating against the genocide we are seeing in Gaza. They are saying enough is enough, they have seen through the lies and duplicity of this same establishment along with the failure of the so called Western backed rules based order. Shame on the establishment including Mr Starmer and the current labour party for not supporting them. I also get hope from many of the same young people who are protesting against the establishments utter failure to deal with the climate crisis: they realise that we haven’t got long left before the earths tipping points kick in. Shame on the establishment for only paying lip service to their concerns and trying to offer greenwashing solutions. However, if the establishment continues not to listen then the far right will fill fill the political void (they have started to do this already) and then we really are in the abyss.
I am sorry that this has moved away from being a comment on this very good article. However I feel very strongly that we need to start listening to the truth tellers, who are willing to stick their heads above the parapet by speaking truth to power. I had thought that this was also a Quaker value. By banning Jeremy Corbyn the leadership of the Religious Society of Friends has-in my opinion- effectively started to speak the language of the establishment, which I find very sad as by doing so they are moving away from the societies radical history. I think that by trying to genuinely listen to all views, including those of the establishment they have unwittingly become complicit in the same establishments failure to deal with all the issues I have noted above by banning Jeremy Corbyn. If they had really wanted to listen to all sides of the debate then surely they should not have banned him?
Thank You
Jeremy Lax (I am sorry I am another Jeremy!)
Occasional attender at the Inverness meeting
LikeLike
On learning of the decision not to allow space at Friends House for the annual Salter Lecture during Yearly Meeting I have to admit I was aghast. Now I feel more sorrow than anger. When the lecture was also to have Paul Ingram as a joint speaker, I thought how there could be an opportunity for real understanding of the real difficulties we found ourselves in.
.
.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I thought that Jeremy was not in fact available on that day and we could have avoided this disharmony if this had been checked first. I hope Jeremy will still give his lecture and I will again follow online. We need Peacemakers more than ever. We need harmony within the RsF to bring about the Republic of Heaven.
.
LikeLike