Through the Network of Christian Peace Organisations in the UK, NFPB has endorsed an open letter to the Foreign Secretary, James Cleverley, asking him and the UK government to work for: – urgent de-escalation of the conflict – meaningful dialogue, recognising the long-standing unresolved issues arising from the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and … Read more
For our second members’ meeting of the year, Friends gathered in Darlington and online on 24 June, with roughly equal numbers in the physical and virtual spaces respectively. The date of our meeting coincided with the government-sponsored ‘Armed Forces Day’ and Friends had the opportunity to reflect on this in the opening part of the … Read more
‘No one said it was easy’, wrote Mary Lou Leavitt in the NFPB booklet published in the late 1980s. Peace is not easy, but on the other hand, to see wars being waged and money spent on weapons for no good reason is distressing and frustrating, plain and simple. As we approached the anniversary of … Read more
November meeting The final of our four members’ meetings of 2022 was to have been at Lancaster Meeting House at the end of November, with a zoom link. Unfortunately, it coincided with a day of industrial action by rail workers, meaning that few Friends would have been able to get there. The meeting online worked … Read more
The war in Ukraine has had a devastating humanitarian impact. … At the same time as the war grinds on in and the brutality continues, preparations are under way for a very different event in central Europe; the first meeting of the states parties to the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), from 21-23 June.
We have today sent the following text in a letter to the UK Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss: Quakers are united in distress at the terrible toll that the continuing war in Ukraine is taking on human life. There can be no justification for military action such as that taken by Russia, however strongly grievances might be felt. As a community committed to peace, it pains us to recognise that the situation in which citizens of Ukraine find themselves is one in which armed resistance seems, to most, to be the only option.
Addressing human and planetary needs is urgent in building a sustainable security. Meanwhile, the military industrial complex consumes money on an extraordinary scale and the war in Ukraine is leading many Nato member states to call for this to be ramped up still further. It is a challenging context in which to be raising these … Read more
The war in Ukraine was the thread that ran throughout the first full meeting of NFPB in 2022, on 5 March. Thirty Friends gathered online, with new members joining us and most Area Meetings being represented. Some Friends were unable to stay for the whole meeting as they were supporting peace witness in different parts of the country.
Celebrating one year The UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) entered into force on 22 January 2021, with the period since then seeing further progress in a number of respects. (see https://www.banthebomb.org/campaign/nuclear-ban-tpnw/). Plans are in hand for campaigners to mark this anniversary. We have produced the poster below for Friends to print … Read more
Storm Arwen arrived the night before our members’ meeting on 27 November. Plans for a fully-blended meeting were rapidly changed as trains across the north were cancelled and all but a handful of Friends were able to get to the Meeting House in Bolton. So most joined via Zoom, representing Area Meetings from most from across Scotland, North Wales and Northern England. We were pleased to welcome newly appointed members.