Together with the British Humanist Association (BHA) we held an extremely successful fringe meeting at this year’s Labour Party conference in Manchester. 100 delegates packed out the room for our 5th ‘No Prayer Breakfast’ and as usual provided really lively discussion. We had a great panel of speakers – committed Labour Humanists Angela Eagle MP and Kelvin Hopkins MP, Andrew Copson the chief executive of the BHA, Polly Toynbee the BHA’s president, and journalist and blogger Sunny Hundal. The event was chaired by Labour Humanists chair Naomi Phillips.
See photos on the BHA’s Facebook page.
‘Militant secularism’ was the theme of the No Prayer Breakfast and all speakers set out their perspectives. The discussion session from the floor covered a wide range of burning issues for humanists in the Labour Party – the government’s programme to expand discriminatory state-funded faith schools, Christian-only food banks, public services handed over to religious organisations, the growing numbers of non-religious people throughout the UK, equal marriage, and much, much more.
It was also a great opportunity to sign up new members to Labour Humanists for the equivalent of just £1 per month – people can now join online via the PayPal link on our homepage www.labourhumanists.org.uk. Delegates were also encouraged to follow @LabourHumanists on Twitter. We live-tweeted the event with photos (check out our Twitter timeline!) and the BHA also Storify-ed the event.