Disestablishment debate proves lively and popular

There was a big turn out for the annual public debate staged by the Farnham Humanist group this week, when the motion on the table was “Britain should be a secular state”.

NSS Vice President Carla Revere

Speaking for the motion (and on the winning side) were NSS honorary associate Lord Desai and Carla Revere, NSS Vice-President. Against the motion were Chris Herbert, former Bishop of St Albans, and Dame Elizabeth Anson, a retired barrister.

Lord Desai and Carla Revere set out the legal implications of the creation of a secular state and described the inequalities inherent in a state where one religion had a privileged status.

The speakers against the motion did not address the issue of disestablishment itself but focused on trying to persuade the audience that their very culture and identity would be threatened by a secular state. They did not engage with the issues and had no response to the arguments that Christian Britain had failed to protect rights of individuals in the past and that the progress we had made was as a result of principles of fundamental rights rather than reactionary tradition based on scripture.

At the end of the debate, Carla Revere shook hands with the Bishop — who had signally failed to make an argument for retaining the “Lords Spiritual” — and quietly suggested to him that, underneath it all, he was really in favour of the motion. The Bishop did not disagree.