A silent Quaker Meeting was held outside New Scotland Yard on Thursday 3 April, to bear witness to the police raid on Westminster Meeting House last week in which six Youth Demand activists were arrested. Since the raid, Youth Demand have also remained resilient, holding an open-air meeting which was disrupted by the far right.
Quakers: we shall not be moved
Hundreds of Quakers, politicians, and others stood in silence for forty minutes as traffic rattled past on busy Victoria Embankment, with 25 other silent meetings held nationwide and online:
The raid, carried out by Metropolitan Police officers, involved breaking into a place of worship to arrest six people discussing climate action and peace in Gaza. As the Canary reported at the time, at around 7:30pm on Thursday 27 March, over 30 Met Police officers crashed into the Youth Demand Welcome Talk at the Quaker Meeting House in Westminster and arrested six people, including one attending their first ever welcome talk and a journalist.
The move sparked widespread criticism, with constituents expressing concerns about heavy-handed policing to their MPs.
On Monday, MP Luke Taylor raised the issue during urgent questions in the House of Commons, while Home Secretary Yvette Cooper addressed it on BBC television the previous day. Both responses framed the raid as an operational matter for the Met Police.
However, along with many others Quakers have been calling for the repeal of the Public Order Act 2023 and parts of the Police, Crime, Sentencing, and Courts Act 2022 since they were passed. Under these new laws the right to protest has been severely restricted. Vague and sweeping definitions mean that even discussing peaceful protest can be criminalised.
This has not stopped Youth Demand, though.
Youth Demand: pushing back against cops and the far right
On Tuesday 1 April, the Canary attended the group’s open-air rally outside Senate House Library in London. Around 200 people gathered to hear from speakers and to join a rallying cry for Palestine:
Specifically, Youth Demand were defiant in the face of both the Met Police – who displayed yet another example of over-the-top policing, with around 40-plus officers present – as well as the far-right:
#ShutItDownForPalestine
Protesters are now being targeted for more, watch our TikTok live…👇 pic.twitter.com/e4LNui3PZP— Canary (@TheCanaryUK) April 1, 2025
The Canary witnessed what appeared to be an organised, albeit tiny, protested by the far right as opposed to Zionists – given the tactics, dress, and organisation of the group. Of course, the far right and Zionists are intrinsically linked now, anyway – so it could well be the case that they were both.
Yet as a Youth Demand speaker summed up, the struggles of the right to protest in the UK and for freedom for the Palestinians are interconnected:
Quakers and Youth Demand: united against repression
Concerns over the police’s approach have spanned the political spectrum from Labour Cities of London and Westminster MP Rachel Blake, Labour, to former Conservative Party MP Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Blake has formally requested information from the Met on their policy regarding entering places of worship. And Rees-Mogg told the Church Times on Monday:
There has long been a tradition in this country of taking a view that religious spaces should not be invaded by the forces of law and order unless absolutely necessary.
Green Party MPs Carla Denyer, Ellie Chowns and Sian Berry, along with Baroness Jenny Jones and London Assembly members Zack Polanski and Zoe Garbett attended the open-air meeting.
Siobhán Haire, deputy recording clerk for Quakers in Britain, said:
We’ve been warning since these laws were proposed that this is about the kind of country, the kind of world, we want to live in. Quakers believe that all people are equal, and for that to be a lived reality, we need laws that enable participation rather than suppress it.
Featured image and additional images via Michael Preston for Quakers in Britain, videos via the Canary
