Labour Humanists are go!

Excellent stuff! Yesterday in a pleasingly full Committee Room 2 in the House of Lords the Labour Humanist Group held its first public meeting.

There was a more than healthy turnout from both grassroots and PLP members (not to mention a phalanx of Young Fabians) to hear Polly Toynbee made a very good call to arms in her speech. Labour Peers Baroness Whitaker, Baroness Massey and Lord Harrison all spoke in support of the need for a Humanist orientated socialist society within the party, as did MPs Ken Purchase and Andrew Slaughter - and over the next week I'll post more details on some of the issues raised by the parliamentarians.

Malcolm Wicks also came along- how very fitting to see the science minister in a Labour administration present at the launch of a Labour Party Humanist Group. 

Malcolm made a thought provoking contribution that regretted the current need to refight old battles we thought we had won as far back as the 1960s on social freedoms and rights. But Malcolm wondered whether it was simply enough to advance secular politics for him, and others, to be atheistic in their outlook and if we really needed a formal group to make the case. Some high quality debate followed these comments, but a recurring theme was the danger that a new political environment might enable a profound transfer of power and resources into the hands of socially conservative faith groups, that our party's leaders appeared hopelessly weak in the face of churches' lobbying, who after all are minority groups in our broadly secular society, and that there were signs that progressive politicians felt pressure to hide their non-religious beliefs (including one anecdote on rumours of some atheist PLP members joining the Christian Socialists in the hope Tony Blair might look upon them in a more favourable light!!!).  A secular humanist outlook is representative of the values and outlook of a very large section of mainstream opinion with Labour's support and there was a feeling we simply had to be more visible.

Anyway, my hunch is that malcolm will join sooner rather than later  :-)

It was also good to meet some other Labour bloggers at the event and congrats to Baggage Reclaim and Rachelapp for getting their reviews of the meeting published long before mine!

Comments

[Harry Barnes]

Sorry I did not make it, so I finished reading Dawkins' "The God Delusion" instead. Found it a big disappointed, so I posted "A Disservice to Atheism" today - 1st Feb.

[Danivon]

Good on you, and I'm glad to see a humanist group starting up in Westminster.

Humanism and socialism should go hand in hand.

[BP]

Humanism being closely related to atheism and agnosticism, should not trade under a political persuasion.

Unlike fundamental right wing Christians, those of Humanist persuasion should feel entirely free to debate the merits of Conservative or Labour policies.

As an atheist who usually votes conservative I feel annoyed by 'Labour Humanist' and 'Conservative Christians'. Politics is politics and religion or lack thereof is another thing altogether.

(I get equally angry with the right wing press constantly banging religion down my throat!)

[The Labour Humanist]

Hello BP
Not sure what your main point is here. In this specific case we are talking about people who support the Labour Party who are ALSO humanist/atheist. Nobody is saying humanists should automatically be left wing - check out the tory humanist links on the right hand column. You say religion is seperate from politics, and ideally it should be, however, we are going through a period of change where religion is pursuing an aggresive strategy of involving itself in all levels of politics. That's the reality and we would be complacent to ignore it.

[BP]

Apologies if I am little confused, and I can sympathise that on some level it is necessary to take all practical approaches to combat a religious movement within politics. However I feel that a bipartisan approach will in the long run be more affective.

What I’m trying to say is that your position over whether an unelected (religious) body should have influence over the democratic process is a fundamental principal which need not side with legitimate debate to the left or right of the centre ground of politics.

Do you not feel that having a tory humanist society and labour humanist society divides the pack / confuses the real issue.

[RachelAPP]

Hey,
just wanted to say thanks for mentionning my blog.

Where were you sitting in the room?

I am ashamed to say i was one of the 2 women who turned up a tad late; we sat at the back, sitting right behind Hanna, from the BHA (the last person to talk).