NSS launches its No to Council Prayers campaign – and opens a fighting fund

Bideford Town Council

The NSS’s campaign to remove prayers from council meetings entered a new phase last week when a lawyer’s letter ahead of action was sent to Bideford Council setting out the grounds under which we believe the practice to be illegal. We advised the Council that unless the practice was stopped, the NSS would seek a judicial review. It is hoped that this will set a precedent that will affect the many other councils that have prayers as part of their agenda.

Our intervention follows a complaint from local councillor Clive Bone, whose motions to remove prayers from the agenda have failed, despite the Council having been warned by the National Association of Local Councils that continuing prayers as part of the council meeting would be a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The case has sparked media interest, with the Guardian and the Daily Mail carrying articles about our challenge. Further interest was generated when Lord Carey, a former Archbishop of Canterbury, joined the fray. He told the Guardian: “The centuries-long tradition of saying of prayers before council meetings is simply an acknowledgment of the important role the Christian faith plays in civic life. The attempt to rule such prayers as discriminatory is an attack on freedom and a cynical manoeuvre to drive public expressions of faith from national as well as local life. This should not be a matter for the courts as it concerns democratic freedoms. Councillors can halt the practice of saying prayers through a vote rather than resorting to judicial means.”

But Clive Bone, the councillor at the centre of the protest, told the BBC that prayers at a council meeting were no more relevant than prayers would be at a board meeting of Tesco. Mr Bone said: “Religious worship is a fundamental human right, but so is procreation, but we don’t bring that into the council chamber.”

Keith Porteous Wood, Executive Director of the NSS, said: “Charges that the NSS was picking on Bideford because it was small and had limited resources were unfounded. We didn’t pick Bideford; we were asked to intervene by a councillor there. This need cost the council nothing. They know this is almost certainly not legal: the National Association of Local Councils told them some years ago and our lawyers explained it to them in detail last year. All they have to do is comply with the law. We have no objection to people praying if they want to – but it should not form an integral part of the Council meeting. The Council claims that prayers have been said since the time of Elizabeth I, conveniently omitting that they were abandoned and reintroduced relatively recently. Emptying pews put paid to the other supposed justification – that Britain is a Christian country (and, by implication, Christianity can and should be forced on everyone).

“If Bideford Council’s prayers take place before — but completely separate — from council business, we will have no arguments with them. The Council should confine itself to providing services for the public, not forcing religious services on its councillors. We are a secularist organisation, and as such we seek to separate politics from religion. Council prayers represent a fusion of politics and religion and a completely unnecessary one.”

All we are doing is asking the courts to decide whether this practice by a public body is legal, and for that his former grace Lord Carey sees fit to berate us for an ‘attack on freedom’. This ridiculous comment belies a much larger and more sinister agenda by Carey and his evangelical lawyer friends. Carey had intervened in the recent Gary McFarlane (Relate) case to make wild and gratuitous claims, similar to his ‘attack on freedom’ jibe, even wanting special panels to decide Christian cases. For his troubles he was torn apart by Lord Justice Laws (see Newsline last week). Carey’s assertion that freedom to worship was being undermined was also met with undisguised contempt by the learned lord, a card carrying Anglican.

The real objective of Carey and Co. is for British law to revert to the times when Christianity was grossly privileged. And the National Secular Society is just as determined that they will not get their way.

The NSS is opening a fighting fund to help with the costs of this case. If you would like to contribute, you can make a donation by credit card here or by cheque to NSS Fighting Fund, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL.

Meanwhile, a Methodist Minister, Paul Martin, who occasionally takes the prayers at Bideford Council, now says that he will no longer do so unless the prayers are separate from the council meeting. On his blog, Mr Martin writes:

I wish this was resolved without courts. However, sad as it may be, this has so far not happened. I think the Remembrance Day incident when two councillors were publicly criticised for not attending a service at the Parish Church de[s]pite being present at the Act of Remembrance at the War Memorial has given them and any who have similar attitudes some justification in thinking they are being got at. The point of human rights legislation is that minorities have rights as well.

Moving on to the Bishop of Crediton, he offers the following insight; "The saying of prayers before meetings is an integral part of the British system of government."

Only this is not so. I served for 4 years on the Redruth Town Council. Never did I hear a prayer in that time – and given that I think only one other member ever attended a place of worship it would have been odd for the situation to be otherwise! I know of many other councils where prayers are not said.

Let me be clear about my position! I am happy to pray with anyone. I am happy to pray with councillors who wish to be prayed with. Equally I am happy to pray with refuse collectors, teachers or nurses who express such a wish. Their responsibilities are at least equal to members of a town council.

But I am not going to force my prayers down those who do not wish them. Why? Some Christians say it does no harm and is tradition. My response is that prayer is a dangerous thing because it opens us up to the living God. And that living God is not the possession of safe bourgeoise understandings to pour holy water on decisions that at times may be contrary to the gospel that proclaims a world in which the might[y] are brought down and the lowly lifted up.”

Mr Martin says that his decision is not a capitulation to the NSS — whose motives he suspects — but his belief that there should be no compulsion in religion.

Terry Sanderson, President of the National Secular Society, said: “Mr Martin might not trust us, but we are full of admiration for his principled stand. He seems to have grasped the issue at stake in a way that the Council and Lord Carey have failed to do. He is a secularist himself, whether he accepts the label or not.”

And Northam Council, which neighbours Bideford, is to consider scrapping its prayers. The North Devon Gazette reports:

“Northam Town Council will be reviewing its policy of having prayers at the beginning of its meetings. Mayor Chas Langton said the council was having difficulty getting members of the church to come to meetings and lead a prayer. Councillor Langton said he would be putting the item on the council's next agenda. He told the council: ‘I have also had difficulty seeing some members of the council leave the room during the prayers. I wonder if we could have some form of words, we are all happy with, read out before meetings. I think this may alleviate some problems for us.’”

And in the Morning Star, Councillor Paddy Kane of the London Borough of Sutton writes:

“May I applaud as long overdue the legal challenge by the National Secular Society to the ritual of prayers before council meetings. I made my colleagues aware some years ago of my reason to delay entering the council chamber until that part was over. Hopefully the challenge will shed some light as to why it's perceived that mayors need a chaplain at all. From the numerous reserved seats for the Church of England in the House of Lords, down to modest local councils with their mayor's chaplains, we are still fighting the age-old battle to separate church and state.”

In the Guardian, Bill Nock, an atheist ex-councillor with 19 years of service on Wirral MBC, wrote that he and others made a point of staying outside the council chamber until prayers were over. But when he became mayor he ended the ‘tradition’ – as well as the mayor’s church service. He said to Clive Bone: “I hope you win, as in a democracy no one should be made to take part in any religious service.”

Latest: An attempt to end prayers at Wellington town council in Shropshire this week failed when independent councillor Pat McCarthy’s suggestion that the council hold a separate service before meetings with official council business starting 15 minutes later was rejected. The council refused to debate the motion and went straight to a vote.