by Ruth Kettle-Frisby.

This was my contribution to  ‘What Does Socialism Mean to Me?’ – a discussion evening organised by the Quaker Socialist Society (QSS) on 14th October 2025.

What Does Socialism Mean to Me? Truthfully? Is it a ‘love of hopeless causes’; the pipe dream that political centrists would have us believe? The desperate hope that the Left will stop atomising into various factions; embrace social equity without being distracted and divided by identity politics, and organise to build a cohesive progressive movement that’s collectively worth fighting for?

My political exhaustion aside, here’s a very current analysis of what socialism means to me: Eco-socialism is the current iteration that is making waves for a variety of important issues, including a free Palestine. I do think socialist policies should aim for our Quaker values of peace and justice, which must entail climate justice. Such policies should include:

• fair redistribution of wealth and resources, and degrowth, in an acknowledged symbiosis between happier, healthier people and a thriving, sustainable planet.

• renewable energy over further neo-colonial fossil fuel extraction.

• a wealth tax, debt cancellation for global south countries, reparations and loss and damage funding.

• Equitable access to clean air, land, water, food, social housing, health care, a decent education, support and opportunities.

Could the prefix ‘eco’ bring a much-needed collective focal point, or is it misleading to supplement socialism with its own properties? Could it compromise socialism? Further, it seems that given the decidedly right wing red/blue UK political landscape that concerns itself with destruction and injustice for endless economic growth, while scapegoating vulnerable people who are trapped into poverty via oppressive structures and inequitable austerity policies – we are hardly at the point of finely tuning socialism.

On the other hand, with so many left politically homeless after Jeremy Corbyn brought temporary hope via a Labour Party that strove to serve the many – not the few – a gaping hole lay in wait for a new socialist narrative. Eco-socialism is well- positioned to deliver progressive policies in a timely and effective rebranding.

Let’s face it, socialism per se is a problematic, heavily loaded term. This repackaging is already delineating it from authoritarian associations and capturing its capacity to accommodate the progressive modern zeitgeist.

Is ‘eco’ the right property to extract, isolate and combine with the term socialism? Instinctively, there is an – often distinctly capitalist – privilege that is associated with the prefix ‘eco’: from fancy solid toiletries to the ability to afford and maintain an electric vehicle, thriving garden or allotment; even to becoming vegan, or an eco-warrior. While these things can be beneficial up to a point, when people have nothing or very little, individual actions and behaviour changes can be nearly impossible. In fact some of these make life even harder for disabled people, for example paper straws.

And given that we won’t recycle our way out of the climate crisis, is this prefix appropriate? Worse still, does eco-privilege threaten swinging the political pendulum further away from active socialist solutions to poverty and injustice? While climate justice is deliverable through socialist policies, my concern is that the hyphenation between eco and socialism may become a chasm. It might back the continuation of neo-colonialist offsetting, greenwashing, carbon-capturing and a continued focus on ‘net zero’, as opposed to, say, divestment, a 1% progressive levy on consumption of fossil fuels, Global South debt cancellation and investment in fast, independently triggered climate breakdown grants.

Ethical socialism is another flavour of socialism that you can read about in the writing of our Friend Graham Taylor and the Quaker Socialist Society. Edward Bennots said that “If it is possible to have a moral society without socialism, we would promote the moral society. But we do not think it is possible.” So, Bennot thinks socialism follows from a moral imperative. In practical terms, could ethical socialism reinvigorate socialism it to give it broader political momentum?

The media demonise socialism on modern historic grounds, and consequently, people are understandably terrified or dismissive of it as idealistic, unviable and undesirable. Ethical socialism injects desirability in universally basic moral terms such as humanitarianism. But how stable are ethics as a universal standard?

I am tempted to think that when push comes to shove, if we all understand the fairly unsubtle meaning behind children’s books and films like Paddington, surely we can resist over-complicating this? However, a quick glance at the red crosses graffitied on Hornchurch infrastructure suggest that making the leap from a cute, well-spoken Peruvian bear, to a variety of people experiencing persecution and hardship – is less straightforward than storytellers would have us believe.

There are many competing ethical theories and ideologies that may further clash with ecological interpretations. To give a local example of a possible or perceived disconnect between environmental and ethical socialist concerns, when it came to plans to build a monstrous eyesore of a data centre on Greenbelt land not far from where I live in North Ockendon, I have nevertheless decided not to join Upminster friends and residents in condemning this development. This is because to me the ethical imperative to take some responsibility for our data storage trumps the ecological imperative favoured by some so-called NIMBYs (a somewhat contentious acronym for Not In My Back Yard). Similarly, I think basic needs like shelter should be top of any socialist agenda because currently a child in every classroom is homeless.

As we’ve seen, both logically and in practical terms, there is potential for tension or even a decoupling of any prefix that modifies socialism. If morality, ecology, democracy and feminism…are tenets of socialism…what are the long-term impacts of one aspect being definitively prioritised over others?

My sincere hope it that eco-socialism as a political movement – in conjunction and alliance with democratic or other framings of socialism – functions collaboratively and in good faith to contribute positively to turbo-boosting concrete solutions to poverty, injustice and inequality.

Ultimately, being any kind of socialist is about having the will to be part of a transformative paradigm shift that de-commodifies basic needs to uphold universal human rights.

A good and wise activist friend of mine, Fer’ha Syed invokes the term ‘good’ in a way that broadly aligns with both eco and ethical socialism. She recently said to me: “I don’t think you can be pro-environment without being a socialist; I don’t think you can be a good Muslim without being socialist.

Personally, this rings true, and being a good Quaker entails being socialist. For the sake of the inmost Light that resides in all of us; peace, justice, equity, truth and simplicity can be politically configured into socialist policies through the lens of humility and care, whether or not you conceive of our values in the personified form of Jesus of Nazareth.

For me, socialism and my faith are separated only superficially; arbitrarily, even. My eldest little girl’s crushing neurodevelopmental diagnosis; the 1946 horror film, Bedlam; and the post-punk goth rock band, New Model Army brought me to Quakerism. A perfect storm of disillusionment, music, patterns of oppression, and matters of conscience led me to seek out radical Quakers rooted in the agrarian socialist ideology of the Diggers or True Levellers.

As a child I asked my dad, ‘If everybody is needed to make the word go round, why aren’t bus drivers paid the same as politicians?’ How would the politician get to work to run the country if it weren’t for the bus driver? How little I knew (or anticipated in terms of the primacy of modern car culture – complete with its urban SUV monstrosities, no less!) – but the principle had legs, as does the prospect of a universal basic income combined with access to universal public services.

Currently, we are valued in terms of economic productivity and rewarded at the expense of the majority of workers, disabled survivors, carers – who hold society together – and refugees. For many of the above, power and agency are limited by lack of access to social, economic and even cultural mobility in the capitalist race to extinction.

Too many people spend their whole lives grafting – often in multiple jobs, with little in the way of career prospects, and very little pay-off economically; but also psychologically, in terms of the confidence and self-esteem afforded to swathes of manifestly average, white, privileged men in suits.

In Georg Büchner’s play, the eponymous character Woyzeck retorts to his casually provocative boss and apparent ‘better’ that being poor means that you can’t afford morals. This incapsulates a big part of what socialism means to me. There are newborn babies with their lives laid out in front of them in narrow hospital corridors with prisons at the end of them.

Alongside latent or activated genetic predispositions, ethics, social sensibilities, manners, emotional regulation, and the conscience…are all conventionally nurtured; socially constructed.

For me, socialism is not straightforwardly about class either as it’s understood in the UK today. Blue-collar jobs can be extremely lucrative – especially with good social and economic support that is so strongly – although not exclusively – associated with privilege.

Socialism is not about charity, and it is not even about compassion. Rather, it is solidarity borne out of deep-seated awareness of historically embedded injustice in terms of the ongoing systemic abuse, exploitation and oppression of so many of us for profit.

The alcoholic in the alcove – he is me. The pregnant young drug addict on the streets – she is me. The family of refugees, fleeing war and persecution – they are us. The economic migrant determined to build a better life…name one person who hasn’t at least tried to lead a decent quality of life.

The couple who inherited money to buy a house and lose the will to tell the truth about the privileged nature of the successes that followed – perhaps they would be me too.The investment banker, completely divorced from so many of life’s basic struggles – is he me? Would I do any differently in his position? I hope so.

Does The Light within go out for some of the most powerful and destructive figures in history?Sometimes it flickers and fades, then roars back into fullest fire when fuelled with sadness and rage upon witnessing the extinction of the Light in our friends who experience the horrors of politically sanctioned dehumanisation.

The Light requires oxygen; the space away from fear, anxiety and hardship to wait and listen. But at the bottom of the capitalist chain, spirits can break and the Light – most visible in children, I think – is choked.

Further up the capitalist chain, the spirit of socialism is the conscious clipping of our wings in open and active rejection of our Icarian impulses towards entitlement and greed, as we meaningfully embrace our testimony to simplicity. Socialism entails dignity for everyone, but requires honesty and humility because it rejects the lie of hierarchical meritocracy that divides us, actively serving those with power and privilege.

Socialism – whatever the brand or flavour, if mobilised in good enough faith – is an effort of the will, spurred by the truth of deep, deep inequality, and the understanding – not only that this is categorically wrong in every sense – but that we are complicit in neo-liberal structural injustice unless we find meaningful, practical ways to join together and fight it.

by Priscilla Alderson.

At a recent Quaker Socialist Society (QSS) meeting, three members responded to this question, followed by a general discussion. Socialism is widely attacked and wrongly linked to repressive communism although it promotes democracy, peace and justice. How relevant is socialism to Friends today?

Ian Martin, co-clerk of QSS, welcomed 39 people online.

Christine Green began: Quaker testimonies, the gospel message, socialism – one and the same? Jesus would have been a socialist!

Christine has been an active environmental and peace campaigner for 50 years and she was recently vice chair of the Movement for the Abolition of War. She is a former Labour member, currently a Green member, and was an Anglican until she became a Quaker in November 2018.

Christine cannot imagine a Quaker belonging to any other political system than socialism, which once guided the Labour Party, and is now adopted more by the Green Party. ‘As a Quaker, I would only ever be a socialist.’ The Oxford English Dictionary defines socialism as ‘a set of political and economic theories based on the belief that everyone has an equal right to a share of a country’s wealth and that the government should own and control the main industries’. Quaker testimonies of truth, simplicity, equality and peace express socialist values. Socialism is not perfect, but it is a means of organising society that is most likely to result in our testimonies being lived out in all of society.

Capitalism is most directly opposed to socialism and to our testimonies. Long before the term ‘socialism’ was introduced, and according to liberation theology, Jesus was a socialist in his ethics and his communal way of living. He would not have joined a political party, being nonpartisan and open to all, but he had the heart and intent of a socialist.

Ruth Kettle-Frisby: Socialism is an Effort of the Will, Spurred by the Truth.

Ruth is an unpaid carer to her eldest of two young daughters, who has a severe neurodevelopmental condition, CDKL5. Ruth is a trustee for the charity CDKL5 UK. She is a writer with a background in philosophy, and also a disability and carers rights activist, a clean air campaigner, and co-founder of Clear the Air in Havering and CND Essex. A full copy of Ruth’s talk is on this QSS website.

Is socialism a ‘love of hopeless causes’, a pipe dream, the desperate hope that the Left will at last unite and work for social equity in a cohesive progressive movement? Eco-socialism should aim for our Quaker values of peace and justice and include:

• fair redistribution of wealth and resources, and degrowth for happier, healthier people and a thriving, sustainable planet

• renewable energy ending neocolonial fossil fuel extraction

• a wealth tax, reparations, and cancelling of global south countries’ debt

• Equal access to clean air, land, water, food, social housing, health care, a decent education, support and opportunities

Instead, we have destruction and injustice for endless economic growth, scapegoating of vulnerable people trapped in poverty, and austerity.

Ruth asked if ethical socialism could help to reinvigorate political socialism, making it more publicly acceptable and, for example, increasing public support for refugees. She sees morality, ecology, democracy and feminism as tenets of socialism. Eco-socialism is a political movement, working with other framings of socialism to turbo-boost concrete solutions to poverty, injustice and inequality, and to uphold universal human rights.

Ruth’s wise friend, Fer’ha Syed, said, ‘I don’t think you can be pro-environment without being a socialist; I don’t think you can be a good Muslim without being socialist.’ Ruth believes being a good Quaker entails being socialist. For the sake of the inmost Light that resides in all of us; peace, justice, equity, truth and simplicity can work through socialist politics through humility and care, whether or not you formally follow Jesus of Nazareth. ‘For me, socialism and my faith are separated only superficially; arbitrarily, even.’

Ruth’s eldest little girl’s crushing neurodevelopmental diagnosis and other troubles in ‘a perfect storm of disillusionment, music, patterns of oppression, and matters of conscience’ led her to seek out the first radical Quakers, who chimed with her life-long socialist beliefs. Socialism is not about charity or even compassion, but it is solidarity that opposes injustice and identifies with the oppressed. It may enlarge our understanding of the privileged too. Would we do any differently in their position? We can hope so. Ruth reflected on how the Light ‘sometimes flickers and fades, then roars back into fullest fire when fuelled with sadness and rage upon witnessing atrocities. ‘The Light requires oxygen; the space away from fear, anxiety and hardship to wait and listen.’ Capitalism can break spirits ‘when ‘the Light – most visible in children, I think – is choked’. We need to reject entitlement and greed and instead embrace simplicity, which entails dignity for everyone, honesty, humility and real equality.

‘Socialism is an effort of the will, spurred by the truth. We are complicit in neoliberal structural injustice unless we find meaningfully, practical ways to join together and fight it.’ Ruth discussed other vital questions, shown in the full copy of her talk.

Chris Newsam: Creatively Is There a Vision for Our Time in Quaker Socialism?

Chris has been a ‘convinced’ Quaker of more than 25 years. He is an Eco-Socialist, Interfaith Minister, Pacifist and Human Rights Campaigner. Here is Chris’s record of his talk:

As Quakers we are different, often holding quite diverse views from one another. I contend we need vision and hope. Today, sadly, politicians and other leaders often appear to be rather hope-less, lacking in vision for a positive future. We Quakers, corporately and individually, are at our best when we hold to a positive vision. Quoting the Bible: ‘Where there is no vision the people perish’.

Much of the news is very negative especially the appalling and disturbing reports from Gaza and many other places. These can leave us disheartened and largely hopeless. The concept of combining Quakerism with Socialism might make many Friends uncomfortable especially when socialism is often, mistakenly in my view, conflated with the repressive regimes of the former Soviet Union under Stalin or with Marx’s seemingly negative view of religion as the ‘opiate of the masses’. Socialism is a broad-ranging way of looking at the world and one which often seeks a fairer and more peaceful world. Socialism has been likened to ideas taught by Jesus.

I recognise that holding a vision can be dangerous, but also hopeful in helping us to find a meaning in life. George Fox’s vision of that of God in everyone means we are all essentially of one kind, whatever our background or skin colour. At Malton, in North Yorkshire, where I live, George Fox preached at the parish church in 1651 and had such an effect that soon a group of several hundreds calling themselves Quakers gathered in worship for several days on end and soon after decided to burn in the marketplace their items of expensive garments to protest at what they saw as the inequalities between rich and poor.

Quakers, I would contend, were practising what we would now call socialist principles from their beginning. Our Testimonies to Peace, Simplicity, Equality and Truth for me are those integral to Ethical Socialism. Quakerism offers to Socialism the way of peace as the way. Robert Owen, who first used the word ‘socialism’ in the 1820’s, is often credited with founding what has subsequently been termed ‘Utopian Socialism’. He said, ‘There is but one mode by which man can possess in perpetuity all the happiness which his nature is capable of enjoying, and that is by the union and cooperation of all for the benefit of each.’* Owen became known as the father of the Cooperative movement – that led to the formation of the Independent Labour Party and much of the trades union movement.

So I would contend that Socialism is much misunderstood and often deliberately maligned. I think that as a philosophy and practice it dovetails nicely with Jesus’s teaching ‘the first shall be last and the last first’, and points to a time when society is more equal and peaceful. The small Quaker Socialist Society has something to share creatively within Quakers and beyond. Echoing John Lennon, ‘You may say I’m a dreamer – but I’m not the only one’. Thank you’.

Discussion

The discussion began with Friends emphasising economic aspects of socialism as a cooperative movement where everyone equally owns the means of production and any profits from their work. Similarly, George Fox, guided by the inner Light, rejected hierarchies and embraced justice, honesty, anti-violence and pacifism. He also rejected ‘frivolities’ such as maypole dancing and theatres, but he did want compassionate conduct in all.

Socialism is rooted in Jesus’s teaching, all based on love as are the Quaker testimonies. We are all brothers and sisters. Quakers do not say enough about inequality. We should end percentage pay rises that constantly increase great and growing salary inequities, and instead have flat rate pay rises. If we called people stakeholders instead of shareholders that might make people more equal. We should replace the highly regressive tax system with a progressive one when the rich pay more, and we should use tax to recirculate national wealth.

An Attender who is a Marxist pacifist said we do not need either Quakerism or socialism. How can we not have both? Why do we need QSS? We all want peace, equality and love. How can we achieve them without socialism or Marxism? Quakers and socialism run hand in hand.

A Labour councillor spoke about massive changes in social housing. There used to be local pride in everyone’s right to a good home, welfare, and good health, before Thatcher destroyed that. Socialist Tony Benn thought that the properly run NHS was pure socialism, free for everyone with no discrimination. The councillor had a ‘run-in’ during a church sermon with a Vicar who said, ‘Communism will never work’, and he replied, ‘It’s never been tried!’ He believes more people should challenge the clergy.

One Friend regretted that the beautiful village she had enjoyed as a child 70 years ago is now an awful mess with neglected houses and gardens and closed-down shops. She had many years of school and university education, all free thanks to socialism even though it is a dirty word to many people. Another Friend enjoyed social housing in the 1960s and believes Christianity equals socialism, though he knows many disagree. A third Friend said the Quaker testimonies speak against capitalism. Austerity continues, he said, because ‘we tinker with the symptoms but don’t change the problems’ of the national economy. Marx’s edict, ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’ was seen by one Friend as a religious avowal, valuing the communal over the individual with hope for everyone. Although he thinks some Christian conservatives feel they are ‘isolated beacons of righteousness in a world of Sodom and Gomorrah’, they forget to prioritise community.

We were reminded that William Morris, the Victorian socialist (whose inspiring lectures can be read online), said it is not so much about ‘the what’ as about ‘the how’. We had heard about visions, but how can we achieve them, move the little grains of sand, even risk getting arrested for our work? How can we undermine the current greedy system and change things when there are so few Quakers and even fewer socialist Quakers in Britain? Ideas are great but we need people to act. What can we older people leave behind that is of lasting change and value – doing it more than talking about it? 

A second Labour councillor recalled helping to create a large council estate in a very poor part of England, with games areas, a youth club, a Sure Start centre and other amenities to draw communities and generations together. Though he said his views on war and peace are not very socialist or Quakerly, his practical socialism was about getting elected and spending money to make positive changes.

An older Quaker said that though she was no longer active, ‘I’m with the protest marchers in spirit’. Like other speakers, she was less interested in theoretical faith than in being a Quaker ‘as a way of life. I live as a socialist.’ Quakers differ over whether to join loud marches or defend Quakerly silence, which the brave Friends who are being arrested for Palestine protests do.

One Friend thought the solemn, peaceful, powerful, loving, solidarity of the protest marches, everyone united in moving forward, though they are noisy, can feel like a gathered Meeting. Others said that socialism works through talking with people who have different views and don’t all have to agree. One said, ‘I try to have a Quakerish kind of life and a socialist kind of life. Neither of these groups I belong to knows I am a member of the other, and I laugh with each of them’.

by Priscilla Alderson.

[Advert from the Friend of 26.09. 2025. The Friend is the Quaker weekly. Published since 1843, it remains essential reading for all Quakers.]

All are welcome, please bring your ideas.

Chair:  Ian Martin: Welcome.

Priscilla Alderson: Brief introduction.

Christine Green: Quaker testimonies, the gospel message, socialism – one and the same? Jesus would have been a socialist!

Ruth Kettle-Frisby: Socialism is an effort of the will spurred by the truth.

Chris Newsam: Creatively, is there a vision for our time in Quaker Socialism?

Discussion: Everyone is warmly invited to share their views.

Speakers’ comments on the discussion, and then close. 

Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84106406871?pwd=2DJaJj9OHyaqcutQHF6qqsdGlwGhXD.1

by Graham Taylor

Review of Slating Silence by David Morris, published by Journeymen Theatre Press 2025. [A version of this review appeared previously in the Friend of 01 August 2025.]

Quakers around the country know David Morris as one half of the Journeymen Theatre. Since 2012, he and Lynn Morris have been performing plays at Quaker Meeting-Houses, and no one who has witnessed Lover of Souls, or Red Flag over Bermondsey, will fail to remember the power of Lynn’s Elizabeth Hooton or her heart-rending, and triumphant, portrait of Ada Salter. Though Lynn and Dave have now announced their retirement from performance on the stage, the plays are still available as texts [see the panel on the left, Journeymen Theatre: Our Legacy Project], and in some cases as videos, for a future generation to rediscover and acclaim.

Less well known is David’s poetry – rugged, punchy and dark. An expert wordsmith, his lines are as tight-packed as Latin, and his sounds as alliterative as Anglo-Saxon. Some will find him too allusive. He does not write for the uninformed, and the notes at the end of Slating Silence make reference, amongst others, to Bertolt Brecht, Bishop Bell, the Christadelphians, T.S. Eliot, Hugh MacDiarmid, John Milton, Michael Rosen, and William Shakespeare. Yet the density of his poetry is always spiced by tart humour, and by the passion of his Quaker spirituality.

David says Slating Silence is “a Quaker’s wrestle with hatred” and the opening sentence states his plangent theme:

“I was a Quaker once who

Relished the sublime simplicity

Of uninstructed faith

That there is That of God In everyone.”

But now, as he watches every day the massacre of women and children, thousand after thousand, he has felt his sublime simplicity slip away. It once was easy to believe there was that of God in everyone: “But now? Not so.” When an Israeli minister says, “Israel should find ways more painful than death for the Palestinians”, and when an Israeli MP says, “none in Gaza is innocent”, his faith falters. If there is God in them, it is not the God of love.

He knows Palestine well, he and Lynn visiting year after year. Before the raid in October 2023 (which was as understandable, he feels, as a Jewish attempt to break out of the Warsaw Ghetto) there were many similar massacres of Palestinians, though on a smaller scale. He himself had written as long ago as 2014, in a tone of exhaustion, bordering on boredom: “The harvest in Gaza again – the seed crop of child-life – all is safely gathered in plastic bags in bloody bits of children’s bodies.” What he wrote in 2014 could have been written yesterday.

But Slating Silence is chiefly “a Quaker’s wrestle with silence”. Not only has the presence of God in everyone become discredited but silence, that Quaker virtue, has become discredited too.

David is angered by the atrocities but even more so by the silence for over a year from the politicians, the mass media, the academics, and the bishops. He howls: “What’s this, a Quaker slating silence?! A Quaker hating?” In anguish he is driven to confess: “Yes, I hate their silence of nothing speak./ The silence of their nothing saids.”

The poem returns in the end to ‘something of God’, where it started. His Quakerism has been tested to breaking point – how can he believe there is something of God in everyone in the face of that 18-month silence by the powers-that-be?

He concludes he is “Quaker still” but fears, “the That of God in Everyone now but a postulate”. He is in despair: We live now in “a night of reason… The best that we can do is stay awake/ And learn to live with hate.” I disagree. All violence and evil have consequences and will rebound on the perpetrators in the future. Already there is the success of Zohran Mamdani, elected Mayor in New York. The old tactic of equating criticism of Israel with anti-semitism was deployed against him in America, as previously against Corbyn in Britain, but this time it did not work. Those children without arms and legs will grow up. And history will deliver its verdict in their favour.

[Note by David and Lynn Morris: If people would like a copy of Dave’s poetry book, they should contact us directly by email: lynnmorris32@yahoo.co.uk. We will send copies out postage and packing free. There is no charge for the book, but we would like recipients to donate £5 either to Medical Aid for Palestinians or to Oxfam’s Gaza Appeal. See their websites. ]

by Abimbola Johnson.

Below is the transcript of the 2025 Salter Lecture. Those who wish to watch the Lecture can view it on: https://youtube.com/live/3P-1XNpRPhQ?feature=share

This year the Lecture was delivered in the Large Meeting Room at Friends House, Euston, London, on Sunday evening, May 25. The Lecturer, Abimbola Johnson, was introduced by Sheila Taylor, who has been organising the Lecture in recent years.

SHEILA TAYLOR:  Good evening, everybody. I would like to welcome everybody and thank you very much for attending this evening, whether in person or online. I’m Sheila Taylor, a Committee Member of the Quaker Socialist Society, which has been organising this lecture at the time of Yearly Meeting since 1996. 

The lecture is a tribute to Ada and Alfred Salter – an inspirational Quaker couple who lived in Bermondsey at the beginning of 20th century and transformed some of the worst slums in London with their visionary housing, public health and beautification policies.  

The Salters were perfect examples of Quaker faith in action. Ada was surrounded by the magnificence and wealth of London, but she saw below the surface the underlying, as she said, vast morass of sorrow and misery, of poverty and struggle. Alfred described socialism not in party political terms, but as “A great faith, prompted by a great religious motive, and inspired by a great humanitarian spirit”. 

When I moved to Bermondsey myself in 1999, I was astounded to discover the Salters. Few people seem to have heard of them. Quaker Faith and Practice contains no quotations from either of them. We hope each year that this event will make the Salters and their ethical socialism more widely known. 

This evening I’m delighted to introduce our 2025 lecturer, Abimbola Johnson. Abi is an award-winning human rights barrister who practices from Doughty Street Chambers. She read law at Oxford and was called to the Bar in 2011. She works in criminal defence inquests, public inquiries and actions against the state. In 2021 she was appointed to chair the Independent Scrutiny and Oversight Board, tasked with monitoring the implementation by the police of a National Action Plan to tackle racism in policing. 

I met Abi last October at a police Black History Month event in Southwark. She was there speaking about her role of scrutinising the police, about the handling of public protest, and about the management of the Metropolitan Police in London. She mentioned that her work was informed by her faith as a Quaker. 

When Abi accepted our invitation to deliver the 2025 Salter lecture, she chose the title ‘Pausing the Police’. By an extraordinary coincidence this topic hit the headlines in March when 20 police officers broke into Westminster Meeting House armed with tasers and arrested 6 young women planning protests against the climate crisis and the war in Gaza.

We would like to welcome Abi very warmly to give us her insights into policing. The evening will be run in the Quaker tradition with no applause, but there will be some time for questions and it will end when the people on the platform shake hands. 

So, we will now begin with a short silence and Abi will start to speak when she is ready. {SILENCE}. 

ABIMBOLA JOHNSON:  Hello everyone. It is probably a shorter pause than you usually have before a lecture – I have been having thoughts about this lecture for a few months and am quite eager to get started!  

I wanted to begin by just acknowledging the honour of delivering this lecture in the name of the Salters: Alfred, a Quaker, MP, a doctor, and a pacifist whose vision for justice transcended punishment itself; and Ada, a fantastically inspirational woman who embodied the principles of putting her faith into practice. Living with conviction, championing women’s rights, fighting against the squalid conditions of slums and going on to become the first female Mayor in London. It was quite clear after reading through Graham’s book about Ada Salter that her vision and motivation in turn pushed Alfred to achieve what he did. 

As you have heard, Sheila asked me to deliver this talk last year, after we met at a Black History Month community event. I was very hesitant. Although I subjectively do identify as a Quaker, I don’t attend a regular Quaker meeting, and so my journey into Quakerism is very much in infancy. However, after meeting a few times, she persuaded me to do the lecture this year, so I hope that my talk today honours the legacy not just of the Salters but also the amazing speakers who have delivered this lecture in previous years. 

I was joined to Quakerism at a point in my life where I felt increasingly distant from the church. I was disheartened by what I felt was a disconnect between the things that my faith motivated me to try to take action against, versus the messages that were actually being emphasised  in the sermons of the churches I had grown up in and – increasingly sporadically – attended. 

In my legal practice I was also becoming disheartened. I started in criminal defence. Although I felt my work had a positive impact in the specific cases that I was instructed on, I still felt as though I was a cog in the wheel of a system that was ultimately quite unfair. 

On top of that, I developed anxiety from the news, predominantly from the American news. The names of unarmed Black people being shot by the police would sit in the back of my mind: Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, Philando Castile, Alton Sterling, Tamir Rice, Tanisha Anderson – all names I had heard, deaths I had witnessed, before that of George Floyd. 

I would go to court and I would represent a disproportionate number of Black clients who often would tell me stories of how the police had man-handled them when placing them under arrest. Frequently the lower-level cases that I dealt with at the start of my career involved defendants being charged with assaulting a police officer. In pretty much all of those cases my client would be acquitted after putting forward a credible defence that the officer that they were accused of assaulting had acted unlawfully, normally by using unreasonable force, which sometimes would even have been captured on CCTV or body worn video. 

So the start of my career at the Bar involved cross-examining police officers who I knew to be lying under oath. If their lies had been believed, it would have resulted in my clients receiving a criminal conviction and potentially ending up in prison. I wanted to be part of a church that was clued into the injustice that I saw and took it seriously. One that was committed to improving the world. 

So I did what any millennial does when they are looking for spiritual counsel. I turned to Google!  {Laughter} I literally typed in “What church cares about racism, poverty and climate change”. And it told me about the Quakers whom I was vaguely familiar with, both because of the image of a Quaker on my porridge oats in the mornings, but also when learning about slavery at school, one aspect of Quakerism I had been familiar with is the role of Quakerism in its abolition. 

Since exploring Quakerism, my understanding of both my faith and justice has shifted and made me ask much better questions, not just as a lawyer but also as a citizen and as someone who cares deeply about what kind of society we are building. 

Sheila asked me to talk today about something relating to an aspect of my work over the last 4 years. This involves scrutinising the police’s implementation of a National Race Action Plan, the aim of which is to push policing to become anti-racist. After some conversation with her and with her husband Graham, we settled on a title ‘Pausing the Police’. This is a title that resonates with me, because I hope it reflects how a lot of the tenets of Quakerism align with the work of anti-racism. 

So what do I mean when I say ‘Pausing the Police’?  Now, this is not necessarily a call to the police for abolition nor is it a defence of the status quo. It is a call to pause; to stop; to reflect; to breathe; before power is exercised. Because we often ask: ‘What should the police do?’  But we rarely ask: ‘Should the police be doing this at all?’  

So, a paused institution listens before it acts. It considers before using force or coercion. It is slow to violence. It is quick to being held accountable. Pausing the Police does not necessarily mean abolishing them, but it also means you don’t ignore the risks and harms in our society that maybe caused directly by them. It is a challenge to the idea that speed, force and control should come first. It asks what happens when power moves too quickly. 

Quakerism has traditions of silence, of spiritual reflection, of listening, and discernment. Of finding clarity not in noise, but in stillness. As Isaac Penington is quoted in Quaker Faith and Practice: ‘Give over thine own willing, give over thine own running, give over thine own desire to know or be anything, and sink down to the seed which God sows in the heart’. 

Now imagine if our public institutions operated with that spirit. Imagine if our police forces learned to listen before they acted. If they did not ask only: ‘Is this lawful?’, but further: ‘Is it just?’  

What I have seen through my Board is policing in a crisis mode. This is not a public safety agency but a harm management system. Something that enters conversations when things have gone wrong. You call and they come. But even that does not happen as frequently or as well as it should. In 2022 to 2023 in burglary matters some forces took 28 hours to respond to the average call of burglary. 

The charity ‘Missing People’ produced a report that detailed parents sharing stories of being completely dismissed by police forces when they reported their young and vulnerable children as being missing. So the idea there may be a disturbance, disappearance or disaster and they respond, may not even reflect what policing does at the moment. 

But even then, that approach may still have serious consequences. Being led by crisis means that police leave very little time for reflection, very little room for strategy.  There is hardly any space within policing for truly thoughtful, anti-racist ethical leadership. 

The best that I have seen in policing is when it has worked collaboratively. When it speaks to the public consistently, not just when people are going through their worst life experiences. The stakeholders who I know that have very positive impressions of the police have similar things in common: They are able to name a specific officer with whom they have a solid interpersonal relationship. They can identify that someone has taken the time to sit down with them and to discuss the remits of police powers, to discuss their concerns, to talk about the factors and the context of behaviour that they think leads to criminality, to see what their local priorities are. When those individuals then see the police doing something that they feel is harmful, they are re-assured by the fact that at the very least they have a specific point of contact they can raise this with. 

However, although I see these pockets of positive relationships with local neighbourhood officers, what I’m yet to see is an institutional backing of that effort. These are relationships that tend to be driven by individual officers or by small teams. Officers who find time to put that work in – frequently on top of what is viewed as being their normal duties. 

When I’m looking at dynamic situations – this year I have been asked to be part of the judging panel for the police bravery awards, consisting of each local force submitting through their Federation examples of what they view to be the very best of policing. Reviewing and taking part in that judging panel was eye-opening. 

I saw body-worn videos of incidents from officers who managed to slow down a high-octane adrenaline-fuelled situation using non-violent de-escalation techniques. They read the room. They considered the context of the situation that they were dealing with. They were able to diffuse it. They paused before reacting. Sometimes that pause was as small as a fraction of a second. But by giving themselves the space to react more calmly, that had an immeasurably significant impact on the outcome of situations. 

Now in our work on my Board, we find year after year that policing as an institution unfortunately falls into the habit of acting prior to thinking. We have seen it roll out initiatives, plans, pilots, strategies, that commonly lack clear metrics, or national coordination of best and worst practice, or meaningful engagement with those who are affected by police action. 

For example, I will talk about a database which is run by the police, I will talk about an initiative that we have seen from the Police Race Action Plan and I will talk about a common police power which is used by them. 

So first the database: The College of Policing is the learning arm of the police, and they host a National Practice Bank, where all local forces can share examples of work that they have undertaken. The forces are meant to evaluate the impact or the efficacy of the work. They upload a short report about it to that publicly available database. The idea is that other forces or agencies with an interest in criminal justice can then learn from what their colleagues or other forces have done. 

Now for this to work well, you should see examples being shared of initiatives which have worked, but you should also see sharing of initiatives that have failed or have had limited effect. So, we check that database regularly. We filter it for initiatives, which are meant to impact police delivery against race and ethnicity. And of the 256 examples that are on the website, does anyone want to guess how many show an example of work that has not achieved the desired outcome?  None….  

The second example is from a community event that I attended. The Met recently ran a precision Stop&Search pilot in London. This specifically was run in the areas of Lambeth and also in Barking & Dagenham. I attended its first community meeting in Lambeth. Despite the Met having promised to run the pilot with communities, it transpired, when we attended that very first meeting, that the 6-week pilot was already 3 weeks into delivery. 

They promised they would share the results of the pilot and they promised to evaluate it independently. That was in July 2023 – that pilot was promoted by their Chief Scientific Officer, who did a series of media interviews in which he made huge promises about the impressive impacts that he anticipated the pilot would have. It also saw the Metropolitan Police’s lead on Stop&Search go to massive media platforms such as the BBC to give very positive, very optimistic interviews about where he thought this pilot would go. We are now in May 2025 and those results have not been published. 

In the immediate work that we have done in interactions with the police Race Action Plan Central Team, they have started to develop a tool measuring the maturity of force-level delivery of anti-racism outcomes – that sounds like a lot of word salad, but just in normal speak: effectively if it were to work, this would be the first of its kind. It would be an interactive database that you could put in the name of a police force, put in a desired agreed outcome for antiracism, and you would be able to see how far along on the journey that police force has come in terms of delivery. 

It’s novel because normally what you see in policing is them saying they are going to do or deliver a specific action, and then simply telling you whether or not that action is complete. There’s rarely an outcome aligned with the action. It is a principled approach to delivering anti-racism, but it’s really, really, complicated. The information that sits behind it, the level of detail, the research, the knowledge that you need to have to even engage with it…  is all quite complicated. 

And what we witnessed was civil society – organisations, representatives, community members – attending workshops with the Central Team and being asked to answer very detailed questions about these very detailed documents that they had been sent, that had very limited resource or infrastructure to engage with meaningfully. So that’s an example of policing wanting to do something which ultimately we view as being very positive, but not thinking about the resource and the infrastructure that is needed to be able to engage meaningfully around it. 

Lastly, I want to deal with a particular use of force that we see, a use of power that we see from the police quite frequently, which no doubt you will have heard of –  Stop&Search. We are frequently told that Stop&Search is an effective and essential tool in policing. This is despite the negative impact that even polite and considerate searches can have on community relationships – especially – this is the case – in stops which are conducted lawfully but don’t need any reasonable suspicion by a police officer.

So there is a section of law which allows police officers to search without suspicion if there is a particular public interest and they have the right authority to do so. With those types of searches there is huge racial disparity, and there are very low figures for them actually arresting anyone as a result of a search, or finding anything suspicious on a person. 

Now dealing with Stop&Search generally – in the year ending March 2024, does anyone want to guess what percentage of those stops actually resulted in a police officer finding something on someone?  

FRIENDS:  1%. 

Abimbola: It is higher than 1%, we will give them that. Higher – guys, you are being… Higher, but it is still really bad…Come on!  OK. 28%. So in other words, if I put it the other way round: in about 3 out of 4 times that an officer stops someone and searches them, they find nothing. 

Can you think of any other initiative – if you were at work and someone said to you: “I have got this amazing tool, ha, really good, like…  in about 3 out of 4 times it does not work but… …  {laughter} in the one in 4 time, you might find this really low level of criminality?” Because the majority of stops which do result in finding something are small bags of cannabis which end with a warning, no further action, no arrest. Only in 3% of stops do police officers find a weapon. Yet we are told that it is a necessary tool for the police to use to tackle knife crime.

Now nationally Black people remain 4 times more likely to be stopped and searched than their white counterparts. This is even though the find rate is roughly the same for Black people as it is for white people. So in other words: They are not finding more weapons or drugs on Black people than they are on white people, but you are stopping them four times more than you are their white counterparts. 

When I have asked the average police officer: What would they consider to be an alternative to Stop&Search, to deal with the issues that they say Stop&Search is meant to, they are rarely able to suggest any. When I ask why they view it as an effective tool, rather than for example a tool that has some effect, and I highlight the data that shows how often they find nothing, the impact it has on community relationships. Rarely are they able to say anything beyond the fact that, in the cases they do find a weapon, it means another weapon is taken off the streets. 

Now I should also highlight at this point that in law something could be classified as a weapon, even if it is not a weapon per se. So for example, this glass. If you thought I was about to hit Sheila over the head with it, (I’m not, Sheila, don’t worry! I would never do something like that to you!), it could then become a weapon. Right. So finding a weapon in 3% of stops does not necessarily mean that they are finding knives or guns or things that you would traditionally put into that category when you think of the word weapon. 

I often walk away from those conversations wondering how differently Stop&Search may be viewed if the police paused and gave themselves space – or were given space – to think about real alternatives, to look at policing more holistically and adopt a more joined-up and considered approach when dealing with matters such as weapons and drugs. 

And it’s not for lack of resource. Policing is a multi-billion pounds industry. Yet it is not innovative, it is not thoughtful, and it is actually not very strategic. So this has often led towards conversations that look at reforming the police, transforming the police, restructuring the police… and sometimes defunding the police. 

The most radical form of safety is stability. For some that means not more police on the streets but rather – fewer reasons to need them. So I want to address that phrase head on: defunding the police. It can be a really powerful thought provocation. It captures a wide range of beliefs.  For me, I like to use it to pose a question: ‘What should the police be doing?’  The question that I opened with. 

Let me give you a very short history about defunding the police – where it has come from. In his book ‘Black Reconstruction in America’ (first published in 1935), W.E.B. Du Bois wrote about abolition democracy, which advocated for the removal of institutions that were rooted in racist and repressive practices. In that, he included prisons, convict leasing and white police forces. And in the 60s activists such as Angela Davies advocated for defunding or abolition of police departments. In 2017 in his book ‘The End of Policing’, by Alex S. Vitale, he described a guide effectively for the defunding movement. 

There are 4 factors really that tend to be common to those thinkers. They highlight the over-policing of marginalised communities, the limitations of police reform, the fact that there is an actual need for alternatives to policing which are consistently undervalued in society, and yet rarely do you see a proportionate undervaluing of policing. And they go as far as saying: why not imagine it being possible to have a safe society without policing and try to steer society towards that? 

So although there are multiple interpretations of defunding the police, the basic definition is to move funding from police departments and into community resources: such as mental health, housing, social work, early legal advice. Some advocates would reallocate some police funding, while keeping police departments. Others would combine defunding with other police reforms, such as better accountability structures, bias training and so on. While others still see defunding as a small step towards ultimately abolishing police departments and the prison system entirely. 

In truth, we ask police officers in England and Wales to do everything. They are called out when there is a mental health crisis. They are called out in scenarios where you are probably better having a very advanced and well-trained social worker attend. They are called out to deal with issues in private relationships. They are often called out to deal with the fall-out of addiction. The problem is that they struggle in those roles, and when the police struggles with something, unfortunately people can get hurt and quite seriously so. 

Defunding or perhaps more precisely re-imagining can simply mean investing in what actually makes communities safe. It means moving money from punishment towards prevention. Because we cannot rely on 19th century models for 21st century problems. We need innovation, humanity and above all, we need institutions that have the courage to stop and ask: Is this working?  Should it be me?  Is somebody else better suited to respond to this situation?  

Again that reminds me of Quaker socialist traditions. The idea that the ethical means must always match the ethical ends. If policing looked at the inherent harms of what it was doing and not just figures, outcomes, statistics, find rates… …  would it have a different view about how it communicates when it says it is going to do a pilot? About how it uses powers such as Stop&Search? About how it provides infrastructure and resourcing when it wants to engage with civil society or communities around a very complex tool that it wants to develop for their benefit?  

Now very recently, as Sheila referenced in her introduction, Quakers have seen a direct impact of policing when it comes into its own home. Earlier this month the police raided a Quaker Meeting House in Westminster. We saw there 30 police officers descend upon a peaceful meeting of 6 young women in a Quaker Meeting House. 

I thought the statement that was released by the police in relation to this was quite interesting. They said the following: “We absolutely recognise the importance of the right to protest, but we have a responsibility to intervene, to prevent activity that crosses the line from protest into serious disruption and other criminality. This was action against those from Youth Demand conspiring to shut down London, including by blocking roads with all the disruption that would cause to the general public just trying to go about their day-to-day business”. 

Now people may wonder why that meant a raid was necessary. The intelligence which appeared to inform the Met’s decision was publicly available. The meeting had been publicly advertised. The stated purpose referred to in the statement by the Met had also been publicly stated on Youth Demand’s website. And in fact, it still is there in May. It says: In April Youth Demand will shut London down with swarming road blocks day after day after day. The same website also explained that they intended to do so through non-violent means.

Now the very least, you may feel this reflects the idea of action by the police that may technically have been legal, but was it just?  Was it right?  Was it proportionate?  Did they think about the impact on those 6 women being handcuffed, being pushed against a wall, with their arms behind them, being taken into cells into custody, languishing for hours before being able to tell anyone they had been arrested or before being given any legal access to help?  Did they think of the impact on the Quaker church to have a place of worship violated like that?  Was that where they needed to arrest those women – right then, right there, like that?  Was it thoughtful policing that recognises that the means should also be just and not just the outcome?  

So I always try, when I speak about the police and the concerns that I have, to both highlight some of the positives that I see in policing, but also the pathway towards change. I wanted to highlight the recommendations that my Board made in our report last year. These deal specifically with the Race Action Plan, but I think they translate into wider policing as well.

 So first of all, we highlighted a concern with the way that the programme team was structured on the Race Action Plan. It was a pyramid. At the bottom of the pyramid, you had the rank and file officers and members of staff. These were the people who were involved in delivery of the Race Action Plan day in, day out. They knew their roles inside out. They knew what they were doing, not necessarily why they were doing it, but they knew what their priorities were and what they were focusing on. They were the ones who would attend meetings and they would be the ones who would speak to community members.  But none of those were decision makers. 

Those decision makers would sit higher and higher up in the pyramid. The pyramid that got whiter and whiter. I know. But the issue was not just the colour of the pyramid. It was the fact that there would therefore be a disconnect between the people who were in the room and having direct conversations, and those who were making the decisions. 

That was frustrating not just for the officers, but also the community members who had attended meetings, who had put forward solutions, and who would share concerns and leave meetings with a lack of certainty about whether a decision was going to go the way that they felt the meeting had gone or be taken out of their hands and be dealt with in a different way entirely, because a decision maker had other priorities. 

It also meant that the structure was not really meritocratic. It reflected the ranking structuring in policing. You were seen as a leader in the Race Action Plan not because of your history of delivery against anti-racism goals, but because you occupied a certain rank and maybe had attended a requisite equality and diversity course. 

We asked them to change that, to be more thoughtful about who should be speaking to the community, and who should be making decisions. To contemplate what values they really needed their officers to have, to deliver against the Race Action Plan. What they meant by qualifications. Recognising that they are dealing with an institution which has been found time and time again to be institutionally racist, and therefore those who have risen to the top of the profession were not necessarily those best equipped to deal with antiracism. 

Our second recommendation was that they should create tangible metrics, because what you can’t change, you don’t measure. And what you measure, you change. A relatively straightforward task you might think, but as I have stated, it is not until this year that they are finally devising a tool that measures the maturity of delivery by local forces. 

We said they should identify clear priorities: Not everything is urgent, but some things are important. Some things are easier to deliver on than others. And showing actual delivery can mean that those who lack trust and confidence in policing can be assured it is being taken seriously. 

We told them that they should increase stakeholder engagement, particularly with the Black communities that the Race Action Plan is aimed at improving experiences for. And that meant speaking to them not just in times of crisis, but consistently. That sometimes it would mean attending a meeting and saying they did not have any updates, because this work takes a really long time, but maybe they were there just to listen and understand. 

We said they needed to develop a National Communications Strategy. To improve transparency, so that people got into the habit of speaking directly to them. We said that they should improve the information flow to oversight bodies. That accountability depends on honesty. 

I don’t know how many of you have had to have regular contact with the police, but sometimes your energy can be expended just on trying to find the right person to speak to. Or trying to get the document that you were assured at a public meeting would be made publicly available. So by the time you get what you asked for, it is hard to stay motivated enough to engage with it in the way you had wanted. 

We also say to them: That work needs to be properly resourced. They can’t just rely on people’s goodwill. That community members will take time out of their day or arrange childcare, take time off work, will go to meetings that have been announced only days or even sometimes hours before, or change their timetable to attend things.  

Now our report stated, I will quote from it, that anti-racism work requires specific expertise; and for institutions to change, radical intervention is required with meaningful accountability behind it. 

When I looked back at those recommendations while writing this lecture, it struck me that something that links every single one of those recommendations is that it requires pausing. They all require time, they all require thought, they all require humility: accepting that you may be a senior leader, but you are not the best person for this particular role. 

That is not something that is intuitive for police officers. Policing is not built for that. It is built for immediacy. It’s built for releasing a statement and saying in the statement: they have the solution and have already devised an action plan to deal with it, and don’t worry, they know best. 

One of the best responses I saw from policing when I have been in this role came from the former National Chair of the Police Federation of England and Wale. His name is Steve Hartshorn, in response to the Casey Review. That’s the report – very recent – from Baroness Casey, looking at the culture of the Metropolitan Police, in which she concluded the Metropolitan Police is institutionally racist, sexist and homophobic. 

And he went against his Federation to declare that he was satisfied that policing, not just in the Met but nationally, is institutionally racist. He was asked why he had come to that conclusion, in a Guardian article. And he said, it is because he sat down, he read every page of Baroness Casey’s report, and then he listened to people such as Mina Smallman, whose murdered daughters were photographed by police officers as they guarded her dead daughters’ bodies. 

He listened to the views of his Black and Brown colleagues, and he came to the conclusion that he had no choice but to accept that policing was institutionally racist. He said, for me it is about leadership. It is about being true to who I am and what I believe. He paused. He reflected. He listened. And then he spoke. 

So, what would Quakeresque policing look like?  So let us imagine, let us be bold. What would it look like if it embraced Quaker values?  

First of all, it would be much quieter! It would centre on listening. Officers would be trained not just in law but in empathy. It would value discernment. Instead of charging in, it would ask: Is this a matter for the police at all?  It would record those incidents in which they respond, but also note that there may be others better suited to deal with those issues, and it would work with decision makers to ensure those agencies are adequately resourced to respond accordingly. 

It would practice equality, and equity. Not just in the abstract, but through action that would be reflected in its outcomes. Racism, for example, would be named and then dismantled. It would adopt an attitude, or at least the spirit, of nonviolence. Force would be the absolute last resort. And a wider definition of force or violence would be adopted. One that recognises the inherent harm of police interventions. That a lawful search can still be harmful, humiliating, and ultimately is more likely to prove unnecessary than necessary. 

Finally, it would move at the speed of trust. Not headlines, not orders, but trust. 

But the reality is that to make that happen, so much would need to change. We would need to see legislative reform that would limit excessive police power. For example, the Criminal Justice Alliance has been pushing for abolition of suspicion-less Stop&Search. You would see the creation of Local Accountability Boards that had actual real teeth, backing from the Home Office, able to use political power. Centralised Government to push for proper resourcing, for the sharing of evidence, so that they can call local police forces to account in a meaningful way. 

You would see proper funding being put into community alternatives, to police-led interventions, rather than a Labour Government that asserts that treating low level antisocial behaviour is a serious form of criminality. You would see transparent data on all aspects of police use of force, whether that is traffic stops, arrests, anything. And you would have an institutional culture that valued reflection over bravado and defensiveness.

Now, as the Advices and Queries of Britain Yearly Meeting say, think it possible that you may be mistaken. If the police took this level of humility to heart as an institution – because I do have to say, I do see that reflected in some of the attitudes and behaviours of individual police officers – but then we would be living in a very different society. 

So none of this is easy. Structural change never is. But I just want to re-emphasise that pausing is not a weakness, it is wisdom. It is an act of courage to stop mid-sprint and ask if you are running in the right direction. 

I want us to be brave enough to build institutions that pause. I want us to be clear enough to name harm, to be kind enough to believe that justice can look like stillness. 

I thank you for your time, and I hope that together we can strive towards a society that includes a police service that has learnt to pause. Not because it is unsure, but because it is serious. Thank you.

by Abimbola Johnson.

Abi studied law at Oxford University and is currently a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers in London. She has worked on a number of high-profile public inquiries and reviews:

• She is currently instructed as counsel to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry
• Between 2019 and 2021 Abimbola was part of the Dame Linda Dobbs Review Team
• Between 2018 and 2019, Abimbola was part of the Aftermath Team in the Grenfell Public Inquiry
• In 2012, Abimbola was instructed as part of the team on the Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry. Instructed by the Department of Health.

Abimbola also chairs the Independent Scrutiny & Oversight Board which is tasked with scrutinising the National Police Chiefs’ Council and College of Policing’s Race Action Plan, devised to stamp out racism across policing in England and Wales.¹

Abi said in an interview in 2022²:

“I went to Haberdashers’ Aske’s School for Girls, a private school in Elstree. We were really encouraged to set our sights high academically, so applying to Oxford was very much seen as ‘the normal thing to do.’ My Nigerian heritage reinforced that: every adult in my family had gone to university and the expectation was always to be a high achiever. The majority of them had a law degree, even if they didn’t go on to practice! Gina Yashere makes a joke that if you’re Nigerian you have four options in life: being a doctor, lawyer, engineer or a disappointment! My family were always extremely supportive and continue to be but certainly the expectations were always to enter a solid, traditional and stable career. I’ve always been quite precocious and assertive. I loved reading, debating and standing up for others. With my family’s background in law, I grew up with people pointing out that my attributes and interests lined up with becoming a lawyer, specifically an advocate. I therefore felt really drawn to the Bar. However, really, I’d wanted to read history. It had been my favourite subject at school and I think I’d have found studying it really fulfilling.”

“I went to St Peter’s College between 2006 and 2009. I sang with the Oxford Belles which meant I got to attend a lot of college balls for free. I regularly attended African-Caribbean Society events. I ended up with a core group of friends whom I remain close to even now. To be honest, I didn’t actually enjoy my degree! I wasn’t in love with the law at the time. I wanted to be a lawyer more than I’d wanted to study it. I found it quite hard to motivate myself to study, to read through cases, and write essays for tutorials. In my third year, however, we got to choose modules. I chose public international law and moral and political philosophy. Looking at the law through an international and philosophical lens brought it to life and as stressful as I found studying for finals, being able to look at all of the modules together made it click for me.”

“I’ve been a barrister for eleven years now and have developed a ‘portfolio’ practice, I work in criminal defence but I’m also involved in public inquiry work, and I chair a board that scrutinises all 43 police forces across England and Wales in relation to their implementation of a race action plan that aims to make the police ‘anti-racist’.”

“One of the key areas of friction that the race action plan is working on is how the police can work more transparently and with more accountability. If they want to win the trust and confidence of people from Black communities, they need to show a willingness to listen, change and hold themselves to account. Sometimes that can be as simple as clearer data collection, making minutes of meetings more readily available, bringing community members into decision making processes, looking at the language they use when doing all of the above.” 

Abi has also pointed out: “My blackness means that often I’m the only person in court that shares skin colour with my clients and there are times when I’ve understood a cultural context to their instructions that has not been picked up by others.”³

1. Doughty Street Chambers website. ↩︎
2. Oxford University, Faculty of Law, website. ↩︎
3. Elle website. ↩︎

by Nicola Grove.

Quakers are the centre of media attention after the  shocking police raid on Westminster Meeting House on 27/3/25. A room in this beautiful Meeting House had been let to Youth Demand for a welcome talk to discuss issues such as climate change and Gaza, and the women present were arrested for conspiracy to commit a public nuisance. There is widespread outrage at this abuse of police powers. I pray that this event will mark a turning point in Quaker solidarity with those taking action to oppose genocide in Palestine. I fear it will result in a cautious retrenchment that increases restrictions on the letting of Meeting Houses. This article explains why.

 In the autumn of 2024, I proposed to Quakers in Britain that they should run an Action Hour for Palestine, a UK version of the American Friends Service Committee weekly event, AFSC Action Hour   which has been running since the beginning of the conflict. They declined. So I went ahead and did it myself. See below for details. 

Every month, on a Saturday, around 200,000 people march peacefully in London to demonstrate their support for a free Palestine. So far, 24 marches have taken place, and I have attended several. And when I talk to the people there – young, old, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, all ethnicities – and say “I am a Quaker”,  the most frequent response is “Where are they? What are they doing? Why are they so silent?”. On the Quaker website you will find formal statements that express regret and demand action from our government,  but  they don’t cut through to people on the street. And this appears to be the most that is on offer.

So many words.  So little action. 

Searching “Gaza” on quaker.org.uk is instructive: 41 “news” items, 15 “blogs” , 7 “documents”, 23 “pages” ..and… 0 “events”.  Quakers in Britain,  with Plum Village, facilitated a multifaith walk for peace twice – in January and June 2024 (against wars in general, although Palestine was mentioned). Nothing since.

Quakers are known for worshipping in silence. Silence can be healing, can be powerful, can be a space to safely hold discord and doubt. But sometimes silence is complicit, an avoidance.  There are in fact a few vociferous Quakers supportive of the Israeli stance, who are not slow to write to the weekly magazine, The Friend, (the main source for discovering views of Quakers).  They write in favour of maintaining trade with Israel, against any talk of war crimes, against any historical contextualising of the Hamas attacks on October 7. The latter inveighs against the release of Palestinians convicted of terrorist offences and claims that the official Quaker statement  welcoming the ceasefire shows a lack of evenhandedness. Was there any Quaker beside myself who wanted to respond to this? To make the points that a) release of jailed terrorists (or freedom fighters from a different perspective) has been a feature of the resolution of many bitter internecine wars, in South Africa and Northern Ireland to name but two b) that the alternative is continuation of the status quo which, by implication, the writer would prefer c) that those released included women and children rounded up for administrative detention (ie with no charge) d) that Israel tries Palestinians in military, not civil courts, with limited access to lawyers, and a lower burden of proof: one in 5 Palestinians have been arrested and charged at some point in their lives.

The main decision making body of the Society of Friends (Quakers) comprises representatives from all over the country and meets quarterly.  In autumn 2023, the dates (October 6-8) coincided with the Hamas incursion and  subsequent initiation of Israel’s bombing campaign. Not a single mention was made in the minutes. This should be compared to the outpouring of support amongst the same group for Ukraine after the Russian invasion (minute 220323).  Since then, reports from these important meetings cite scarcely any correspondence from Quakers on the topic of Gaza, Palestine and Israel. 

When we ask, why no action, why such sidelining? one reason given is the potential threat to a programme in Palestine administered by British Quakers. This is the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme (EAPPI) which involves sending volunteers to stand alongside Palestinians facing daily attacks from Israeli settlers, police and military. The argument is that open protest against Israeli conduct of the war could jeopardise the programme. However, although Quakers are the administrators for the UK and Eire, the programme is actually run through the World Council of Churches.  Government opposition, and Quaker protests from Spain, Norway and Ireland (who are member churches) have not resulted in cancelled visas, so maybe peaceful action is worth the risk. 

For over a year, the official Quaker view was that genocide should not be mentioned, because the language was deemed too challenging and offensive.  Quakers cling to the concept of “principled impartiality” which has served them well as mediators in past conflicts. But Quakers have not been asked to mediate here. Many Quakers, like myself,  breathed  sighs of relief when the situation changed last year  after much debate –  to acceptance that the International Court of Justice ruling should be respected,  and that the descriptions “apartheid “ and “plausible risk of genocide” applied to Palestine. But nothing has changed.  No support was forthcoming for a silent vigil walk organised by Campaign Against the Arms Trade protesting against arms manufacturers, because the word “genocide” was used in its promotion. Likewise, use of the word genocide prohibits any publicity for the AFSC Action Hour, despite it coming from fellow Quakers. No mention of Gaza and “plausible risk of “ genocide at the Quaker official marking of Holocaust Day,

This really is clinging to the letter of the law which kills, rather than the spirit that gives life. Since then, the situation has worsened beyond our deepest fears. The Israeli government openly states their wish to rid Gaza of its inhabitants, and to bring the same conditions to the West Bank.

The administration at Friends House, the London headquarters of Quakers in Britain,  is protective of Quaker reputation. The advice on attending protests reminds us that using the word Quaker on a banner “will be seen by others as representative of all Quakers”. I need to say that the absence of the word Quaker on a banner is also seen as representative of all Quakers. I believe that this absence has made it far easier to portray these protests as “hate marches” by Government and the media. A silent Quaker vigil at one of the stations along the route could have made a huge difference. On Saturdays, there is a Women in Black  silent vigil outside Friends House in Euston. Have Quakers working in, or visiting the building acknowledged them? Have they joined them? Is there any publicity for them? 

Years ago, Quakers marched alongside protestors against the invasion of Iraq. Yet then, as now, there were two views on the war, one being that an invasion was needed to free the country from the abusive terror of Saddam Hussein. Quakers took a side then. I don’t recall any discussion at that point of the need for “principled impartiality” in the face of warmongering.

When Quakers discern the need for action, it often begins as personal – to be tested through the Local and Area Meetings where people come together for worship, reflection and action.  A good analogy is climate change. This concern began with individuals, was tested locally, spread and grew till discerned as an official priority. Now, events, articles, letters, and support for campaigners feature every week in The Friend, and in newsletters. Climate change is prominent in the latest papers from the decision making body, and in Trustee reports. There is nothing at all on Palestine.  

I have had great support from my own Local Meeting for raising the question time and again. But this is not a matter of individual discernment, it is about the Society of Friends staring into the abyss of extermination of an entire nation, in which we are complicit through the actions of our Government.  To me, there seems to be a gaping disconnect between what individual Quakers are doing in support of Palestine, and the official line. This amounts to a cognitive dissonance that bodes ill for the future of Quakers in Britain. Quakers have other preoccupations, not least reorganisation in response to falling membership and dwindling resources. Agendas at business meetings are so squeezed that there may be “no time” to talk about genocide. I understand this. Truly I do. But it’s not a place that accords with my own experience and interpretation of Quaker values. 

Faced with a 21^st C Holocaust perpetuated by some of the descendants of Holocaust survivors,  “What would you have done then?” becomes “What are you doing – now?”

After the refusal by Quakers in Britain to support an action hour for Palestine, I approached CAMPAIN, an organisation that works to counter misinformation in the media.  To find out more about our work, please visit the website. We now run JUST…. 

• Meet on Mondays at 7.30 pm… for up to one hour
• Witness… a minute of silence remembering ONE event or person
• Learn… what’s going on – UPDATE
• Act….  at least ONE simple action that might lead to change
• Share…what is happening in your area that counts as a small WIN

Reports are sent after each meeting, so whether or not you are online with us, you can still take part. Many Quakers are involved – please join us. You can sign up here.

Nicola Grove (31 March, 2025)

The Meet on the Ledge reference is at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avX5VlU7MXM

Reminder from Quaker Socialist Society: Articles on this website do not necessarily reflect the views of the QSS but are the responsibility of the author.

by Priscilla Alderson.

Review: Jesus in His Time (2024) by Elizabeth Coleman and Beyond the Spirit of the Age (Swarthmore Lecture 1996) by Jonathan Dale.

In Elizabeth Coleman’s very clear, readable book, Jesus’s friends and family, and a few critics, vividly describe his life and teaching through personal accounts. Jesus in His Time relies on early records of his actual words and actions and death, which many historians consider are reliable. The final section criticises Pauline Christianity, which invented mysteries about Jesus’s life: the incarnation, miracles, divine sacrifice, the Trinity. These myths attracted numerous followers for centuries, but today they tend to deter and confuse would-be followers of Jesus. A book review in The Friend 21^st February mainly considers religious aspects of Jesus in His Time.

This is also a political book, drawing on Hyam Maccoby’s (1973/1980) Revolution in Judea: Jesus and the Jewish Resistance, which sees Jesus as a leader of the Jewish resistance against the Roman Occupation. Maccoby contends that St Paul’s partly misleading, anti-Jewish, pro-Roman Christianity sowed the seeds of anti-Semitism.

To be clear, Jesus in His Time does not refer to the following ideas on Jesus’s relevance to later times. Yet this beautiful, resonant book with the fresh direct look at Jesus led me to think about early Quakers and Quakers today.

Elizabeth Coleman makes very clear Jesus’s dedication to real justice and equality, forgiveness and peace, his generous giving away of possessions, and care for sick people and anyone oppressed or in need. There are his friendships with all kinds of people including social outcasts, and the solidarity (today’s gender-free term for fraternity, brotherly love) among his friends (those who ‘do as I command’, John, 15:14). There is the passionate truth and integrity he inspired to the extent that, like him, many suffered imprisonment and death for their belief in the promised Kingdom.  

The first Friends in the 1650s and 1660s followed this example with a quaking intensity we can hardly imagine. With the Levellers and others, they hoped and worked for revolutionary political change towards God’s kingdom on earth, promoting values that were later associated with socialism. Yet soon, the prosperous merchant class took over the Quakers, with different lifestyles and values from those of Jesus, of his followers, and of the early Friends. 

Jonathan Dale wrote his 1996 Swarthmore lecture the year before the Blairite Labour government was elected, when there was still hope that Labour might promote socialism. Dale traces the decline, over centuries, of Quaker social concern and active witness originally powered by the values of the Kingdom of God on earth. He highlights our choice: further decline, or renewal through expressing our faith more fully in our daily lives and in politics and dissent. We could work internationally for ‘much more radical equality, a community of people equal in dignity and much more equal in wealth and…power’. Instead, today we are further away from that dream, and far more endangered by the poly-crises Dale wanted real action on: climate crisis, loss of species, erosion of democracy and public services, rising rates of illness and of police violence, greed and corruption, betrayal of public trust, with ever growing anger and violence in oppressed areas. Quakers cannot stay silent and ‘hole up in the comfortable world of a spirituality of moods and relationships’ and ‘personal growth’, because opting out means supporting all this injustice and distress. ‘We should seek ways of bringing our vision of the good society much more actively into the political arena.’ 

Dale identifies three main growing barriers that underlie our loss of faith in progress towards the kingdom of God on earth.

Relativism blurs our insight into right or wrong, justice or injustice, crucial or trivial. ‘It weakens commitment to anything’ and is ‘death to the prophetic and to any powerful leading testimonies’. ‘Relativism fragments our understanding of what we are for and what we can do.’ 

Secularism swamps hard moral and sacred challenges with easy greedy materialism. It ‘saps our spiritual power and undermines our testimony to the sacramental nature of the whole of life’.

Individualism increases selfish indifference to others and limits spiritual growth through respectful and compassionate interactions with others. Spiritual and political dimensions in daily decisions are then forgotten – what we eat, to use a car or a bus or a bike, for instance.

The main political parties oppose the Quaker testimonies in promoting austerity, war, injustice, massive inequality and hostility to immigrants. Dale considers that Friends who want to be respectable and ‘not ruffle any feathers’ need to see that active testimonies involve dissent, joining demonstrations, and working with militant non-violent political organisations, such as the Socialist Workers Party. These have more knowledge, members and resources than we have. ‘Respectability is not next to godliness’ and inaction makes the testimonies ‘a sham’ and hypocrisy. ‘Unless we struggle against the world’s kingdom of self-interest our spirituality risks being irrelevant…Dissent therefore becomes a necessity in lifestyle, in politics and in testimony.’ ‘Where are the agents of change?’, he asks. How can today’s Friends rediscover the radical testimony, spiritual vision and courage of early Friends and Jesus’s first followers?

Beyond the Spirit of the Age is even more powerfully relevant to read and discuss today than it was in 1996. It gives contemporary political and practical frameworks to help us to apply the values and actions celebrated in Jesus in His Time.

Priscilla Alderson, March 2025. 

by Joe Jones (editor).

The Friend is the weekly magazine of British Quakers, founded in 1843. It is autonomous from Quakers in Britain, and so can inspire independent debate, but on the whole it reflects the concerns of British Quakers. Shown below are the contents of the latest issue (14 March 2025). Although the majority of the articles are specific to Quakers, there are always other articles that reflect on world affairs, questions of general humanity, and topical issues. Here Alastair McIntosh reflects on Leonard Cohen, the singer-songwriter, in his role as prophet, and Rebecca Hardy reports the condemnation of Israel for their blockade of humanitarian aid going into Gaza. Visit their website at http://www.thefriend.org.

On song: Alastair McIntosh’s Thought for the Week

‘A prophet [Leonard Cohen] sees and names the doom and gloom, but also points beyond it.’

by Alastair McIntosh

Now we are six: Mary Woodward on the Book of Discipline Revision Committee

by Mary Woodward

For all the world: Adrian Glamorgan reflects on Britain and the global family of Friends

by Adrian Glamorgan

Rest easy? Kate Mackrell witnesses two deaths

by Kate Mackrell

Community building: Jennifer Kavanagh recounts her time at Pendle Hill Quaker Center for Study and Contemplation

by Jennifer Kavanagh

US aid freeze hits Quaker school and hospital

by Rebecca Hardy

Meeting for Sufferings: March 2025 afternoon session

by Rebecca Hardy

Representation at ‘continuing’ Yearly Meeting The afternoon began with Siobhán Haire, deputy recording clerk for Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM), introducing Sarah Donaldson, who…

Cathedrals divest from fossil fuels

by Rebecca Hardy

Friends have joined a campaign to urge cathedrals to ditch banks that support fossil fuels.

BYM slams Israel aid blockade

by Rebecca Hardy

Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has strongly condemned Israel’s announcement on 2 March that it was blocking all humanitarian aid into Gaza. The decision ‘will deny the provision…

by Chris Wilson.

The ILP (Independent Labour Publications) has always been highly regarded by the Quaker Socialists and we can recommend its current array of articles. Very topical is the article by Mary Stratford on ‘Labour in Government: We  Need Hope, Not Hardline Polices’ (21 Feb 2025); then there is ‘The WOW Factor: The Future of Trade Unionism’ by Chris Wilson (27 Feb), ‘Labour in Government: Why Slashing Aid is a Strategic Error’ by William Brown (03 March), ‘New Approaches to Tackling the Far Right’ (05 March); and ‘The View from Space: A Meditation on Earth & the Urge for More’ by Maria Goulding. All these articles are of great interest and can be found by clicking on www.independentlabour.org.uk.

Relevant to the concerns of many Quaker Socialists was this ILP review by Chris Wilson of Ian Geary’s book, ‘Faith, Politics and Belonging’ (25 Oct, 2024).

CHRIS WILSON reviews a new collection of essays that aims to put Christianity at the heart of left politics, but fails to offer a coherent vision of a democratic socialist future. Ian Geary’s collection of essays, Faith, Politics and Belonging, will be of interest to all those wishing to explore ethical socialism. He offers insight and challenge, writing with clear sincerity from the perspective of a Blue Labour partisan.

The book is divided into three sections – headed by each of the three words in the book’s title – with an afterword by former Labour MP Jon Cruddas. Secular socialists might be tempted to focus only on the last two – ‘Politics’ and ‘Belonging’ – but that would be a mistake. Geary’s lively evangelical faith (deriving from the Salvation Army, and drawing on theologians such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer) informs his analysis and provisional conclusions.

As a fellow Christian socialist, I cannot agree with all of his contentions. His uncritical defence of scripture as the lens through which to view society is – to me – problematic, especially when he writes: “I hold that the Bible is true and sufficient in all matters.”

All texts, including scripture, have a context and most Christians would not argue for such a literalist interpretation. Higher biblical criticism should at least be acknowledged, as well as the whole discipline of contextual theology.

Having said that, Geary rightly observes the quest for biblical imperative, and consequent theological emphasis upon “human flourishing”. His critique of capitalism also resonated, but I was disappointed that, while offering a powerful critique of liberalism, he seems to conclude that little can be done, writing, “while there is no alternative to capitalism, capitalism is no alternative”. So where does that leave us?

I was also disappointed to find only one reference to the Rochdale Pioneers. It would have been good to have had some further consideration of the co-operative movement, not least as co-operation finds favour within the Catholic social teachings that Geary admires.

But perhaps I am being unfair. I greatly enjoyed his chapter on Keir Hardie and discussion about “stirring up divine discontent”. I also thought his concerns about assisted dying are powerful and timely.

Like him, I find it difficult to see how the proposals will not radically change the core values of society and the core business of health care, palliative care and protection of the elderly and vulnerable. His chapter on the issue should be read by anyone interested in the current controversy.

Rights & Reflection

I liked his strong advocacy of trade union rights, collective bargaining and having workers on the boards of companies. He rightly identifies the need to reduce the gender pay gap, seeing these issues as rooted in Christian imperatives for social justice as well as his own appreciation of Catholic social teachings. The left has neglected questions of ownership and control of industry and while he says little on the former, his interest in the latter is to be commended and shared.

There is also something for secular readers to learn from his chapter on prayer. Taking time to reflect (if you prefer) is a vital part of effective political praxis. Again, the author is on to something here, but communicating that idea to people who do not share his (and my) faith will always be difficult. Reflection, time out and time alone, really matter. Maybe we can start there.

Geary’s primary identity is as a Christian, but unfortunately this means he embraces Christian Conservatives and Christian Liberal Democrats as allies in a common cause, while his sympathies include Iain Duncan Smith’s Centre for Social Justice as well as Phillip Blond’s Red Tories.

There is more logic, for me, in his sympathy for David Cameron’s notion of the Big Society, although it is not something I share. My Christianity takes me to socialism as the political outworking of the discipleship of Christ, and therefore my allies in that political aspiration are secular socialists, not Conservative Christians.

It’s not always clear from the book what Geary’s socialism means other than improved trade union rights, worthy welfare reforms – such as tax credits and tax breaks for married couples -– and the work of groups such as Christians Against Poverty, Street Pastors and the Evangelical Alliance.

He does reference the Hungarian economist Karl Polanyi and his critique of commodification, acts of “de-sacralisation”, but it’s not clear what Geary’s alternative vision is. I would liked to have read more on alternative Christian economic models.

The author’s belief in the common good is continually underscored, yet he dismisses Acts 2:44-45 as not being about common ownership (disciples holding goods in common) so much as “life in common”. I cannot agree. Early Christians were trialling different economic structures, new ways of living and being in the world; this area too deserves wider debate.

Too romantic

I fear his idea of the working class is also too romantic, particularly the working class of the past with large vibrant trade unions; a strong sense of place, family (and church going); an appreciation of the common good and common sense; and adherence to the idea that the more you pay for benefits the more you should get out. He holds up George Lansbury (pictured left) as a much loved Labour leader who epitomised this era.

I am not convinced that this sense of decency (and solidarity), while certainly held by some, was ever as widespread as he (or I) would sometimes like to wish. The working class was never homogenous (consider religious sectarianism), while in the 1930s, for example, some working class people supported the British Union of Fascists. What’s more, as a pacifist, Lansbury would have been little good against Hitler’s war machine.

I am also puzzled by Geary’s argument that our politicians have become less popular because they are less representative of the working class. The truth is surely more complex. Tony Blair was popular (but middle class); Clement Attlee (educated at Haileybury Public School) was radical. And what about all those working-class Tories? It is not that class doesn’t matter, but do working class origins automatically make someone more socialist? There is no simple class determinism.

Geary argues that liberalism has run its course, and that we need to return to living “in the love of the common people”. This means accepting Brexit, understanding UKIP as a working-class revolt, and – if I have understood correctly – learning, not just from Maurice Glasman (Blue Labour) and Jon Cruddas (Compass), but also Australian Labor leaders such as Kevin Rudd.

A whole chapter is devoted to “woke” ideas and whether the left has deliberately promoted “cultural Marxism” since the end of the Cold War when leftist economic models were questioned. I have heard this view expressed in Christian circles before and I don’t buy it. Nor can I agree that liberalism (whether economic or social) is exhausted. The recent success of the Liberal Democrats suggests otherwise.

That is not to say Geary isn’t right to articulate his key theme – that we find who we are through place, relationships and the traditions which bind us. All these things are valuable. And while liberalism would reduce us to competitive rational individuals, it is socialism that understands identity comes from community.

Geary gets this, and on this point I whole-heartedly agree. I just think we can do better than aim for reformism based on Christian humanism. I still call my vision democratic socialism, a vision rooted in faith but drawing inspiration for its commonality and solidarity from people of all faiths and none.

Reverend Chris Wilson is a church minister, an active trade unionist and a Christian socialist.

Faith, Politics, and Belonging: A Reflection on Identity, Complexity, Simplicity and Obsession by Ian Geary is published by Wipf and Stock and available from their website for £23 (paperback) and £35 hardback.