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UK church leaders warn Boris Johnson govt over key Brexit bill
Interventions by leaders of the Church of England on pressing issues of the day are influential, given the context of the long history of the relationship between the church and UK parliament.
Five influential leaders of the UK’s Anglican churches on Monday warned the Boris Johnson government that a new Brexit bill currently going through parliament would set a “disastrous precedent” since it would allow ministers to break international law.
The controversial Internal Market Bill could not only violate the Withdrawal Agreement signed by the Johnson government with Brussels last year, but also strain trading relationships between the four constituents of the UK: England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Interventions by leaders of the Church of England on pressing issues of the day are influential, given the context of the long history of the relationship between the church and UK parliament. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York, the bishops of London, Durham and Winchester and 21 other bishops sit in the House of Lords.
The bill was passed in the House of Commons in September and was due to be debated in the House of Lords on Monday. The government defended the bill on the ground that it is needed as a ‘safety net’ in the post-Brexit trade arrangements.
The five leaders wrote to Financial Times: “We are taking the rare step of writing together because the decisions implemented in this bill will profoundly affect the future of our countries and the relationships between them.”
“The bill represents a profound shift in how trading relationships within the UK will be regulated and governed…The bill is, of course, not just concerned with domestic law. It currently asks the country’s highest lawmaking body to equip a government minister to break international law”.
They added: “This has enormous moral, as well as political and legal, consequences. We believe this would create a disastrous precedent. It is particularly disturbing for all of us who feel a sense of duty and responsibility to the Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement — that international treaty on which peace and stability within and between the UK and Ireland depends.”
The letter was published ahead of the UK’s complete exit from the European Union on December 31, with little prospect of a trade deal in the post-Brexit future. Preparations for Brexit have added to the challenges of the government grappling with the Covid-19 pandemic.
The church leaders added: “The UK negotiated the Northern Ireland Protocol with the EU to ‘protect the 1998 Agreement in all its dimensions’. One year on, in this bill, the UK government is not only preparing to break the protocol, but also to breach a fundamental tenet of the agreement: namely by limiting the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights in Northern Ireland law.”
“If carefully negotiated terms are not honoured and laws can be ‘legally’ broken, on what foundations does our democracy stand? We urge lawmakers to consider this bill in the light of values and principles we would wish to characterise relationships across these islands long after the transition period”.
The letter was signed by John McDowell, Archbishop of Armagh, Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, Mark Strange, Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, John Davies, Archbishop of Wales, and Stephen Cottrell, Archbishop of York.
