by Charlotte Gill, Daily Sceptic
Last month, you may remember the Met Police raided a Quaker meeting house in Westminster, causing huge uproar. Over 20 uniformed police, some equipped with tasers, entered and arrested six female members of the activist group Youth Demand who had gathered there. They were arrested on suspicion to cause a public nuisance, under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023, but have since been released on bail (apart from one who was released and will face no further action).
On the surface of it, the police raid might appear excessive and authoritarian. Even the most hardened on the Right could find themselves agreeing with George Monbiot in the Guardian, who criticised the police’s heavy handedness, recounting how “six women were having tea and biscuits” before their arrests.
My own view, however, is that it’s actually good that Quakers have had some heat on them. During my research on political funding, Quakers often turn up, undermining our democracy and subsidising causes that harm British interests. Too often their places of ‘worship’ are used for hard-Left activities, and Quakers’ ‘religious’ beliefs sound more like political positions.
To give you an example, Friends House, the central offices of Quakers in Britain, hosts an annual ‘Reparations Conference’ which was attended last year by the MPs Diane Abbott, Bell Ribeiro-Addy and Clive Lewis. These MPs happen to be part of the All Party-Parliamentary Group on Afrikan Reparations, which receives £10,501-£12,000 from Friends House, as well as £15,001-£16,500 from Rockefeller Philanthropy. It’s all rather mysterious:
Quakers are pretty obsessed with racial justice in general, and particularly keen to push open borders – at least, that’s how it looks from their funding decisions.
There are multiple incredibly rich Quaker trusts, such as The Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust and Barrow Cadbury Trust, the latter of which has poured money into initiatives and organisations such as Migrant Voice (£57,200), Refugee and Migrant Centre (£60,000), Rainbow Migration (for LGBTQI+ asylum policy and campaigning; £55,000), HOPE not Hate (£80,000), Roma Support Group (£47,600), Asylum Matters (£75,000) and The Ramp Project (£75,000), the latter intended to build “Political Support for Migrants and Refugees 2022-25”.
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