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Last Saturday, he stood before the throne in Westminster Abbey and carefully placed the crown on the head of King Charles III. On Wednesday, he stood in the gilded chamber of the House of Lords to denounce the government’s new migration bill as “morally unacceptable and politically impractical.”
It has been an important week for the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Justin Welby – one who takes a special place in British life. Not only is the senior bishop of the Church of England, the person who crowns the king, he is also an unelected member of the upper house of the British Parliament.
Archbishop Welby earned praise for his confident conduct of the coronation ceremony. But the fiery intervention in the immigration debate has drawn a tart response from government ministers and other Conservative politicians, who say the law is necessary to curb the number of illegal migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats.
“They are wrong on both sides,” the immigration minister, Robert Jenrick, told the BBC. “There is nothing moral about allowing the pernicious trade of people smugglers to continue,” he said. “I respectfully disagree with him.”
“By bringing this proposal,” Mr. Jenrick continued, “we make it clear that if you find illegal in a small boat, you will not find a route to live in the UK That will have a serious deterrent effect.”
It is not uncommon for Archbishop Welby, 67, to weigh in on political or social-justice issues. He has spoken about same-sex marriage, tax policy, rising energy bills and what he calls the divisive effects of Brexit. But the speech in the House of Lords carries extra weight because migration law is a pillar of the government’s legislative agenda, and the law, which will remove almost all asylum seekers who arrive in small boats, has received a hostile reception in the chamber.
Given the Conservative Party’s majority in the House of Commons – currently 64 seats – the House of Lords is unlikely to torpedo the legislation. But it can slow down the process by inserting amendments to the Bill and sending it back to the Commons, where the Conservatives then have to reject it.
Archbishop Welby’s words won front-page headlines in British newspapers, making him an influential voice in one of the country’s most fraught policy debates. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government has come under fire from human rights experts for threatening to put migrants arriving in the UK illegally on one-way flights to Rwanda, with which the UK has a relocation agreement.
But cracking down on immigration remains popular with pro-Brexit voters who helped give the Conservative Party a big victory in the 2019 general election. Mr. Sunak will have to call the next election in January 2025. Therefore, political analysts say they expect. Mr. Sunak to keep pushing the law, regardless of criticism from human rights groups or religious leaders like the Archbishop.
“It’s amazing that the Church of England was once called the Tory Party when it prayed,” said Baroness Rosalind Scott, a member of the House of Lords from the Liberal Democrats. “But the Tory Party has drifted to the right, while the Church of England has remained where it is or slightly to the left. It is very interesting to see that the bishops fell out with the government on this issue.
Archbishop Welby stressed that the legislation is deeply flawed because it ignores the drivers of mass migration, from war to climate change. As an expression of social policy, he said, the bill “fails to match history, moral responsibility and political and international interests.”
“We can’t take everyone and neither do we,” he said. “But this bill has no understanding of the long-term and global nature of the challenges facing the world. It ignores the fact that migration must be done at the source, as well as at the channel, as if we, as a country, have no connection with the rest of the world.
For all the criticism, Archbishop Welby called for the law to be amended rather than scrapped. The ruling Liberal Democrats proposed a motion to scrap the bill, which did not gain support.
An oil company worker who only began training to become a priest in 1987, Archbishop Welby has long sought to balance religious tradition with a changing society. He supported the consecration of women as bishops and their inclusion in coronation ceremonies. But other proposals have met with mixed success.
On the eve of the coronation, he proposed expanding the oath of homage to the new king to include millions of people in England and the outlying regions, rather than just members of the aristocracy.
But the gesture backfired, with critics on social media saying it was presumptuous and political in a democracy. Archbishop Welby was quick to clarify that the oath was purely voluntary.
The archbishop’s attack on migration law has focused renewed attention on the role of the Church of England in the House of Lords. Bishops have had a seat in the chamber for centuries, dating to their status as landowners in the early British Parliament. There are currently 26 bishops with seats, five of which, including Archbishop Welby, obtain them automatically by virtue of their rank (the others are chosen by seniority).
Critics argue for kicking bishops out of the House of Lords, saying their presence is outdated and undemocratic in an increasingly secular country where the Church of England is only one of several religions.
“Oddity has a bishop in the Lord,” said Peter Ricketts, a retired British diplomat who is a cross-bench member of the House of Lords, meaning he does not represent a party. “I agree that there is a good case for ending this practice.”
“But since we have people, it does not surprise me that they will speak up, including where the concept of law raises moral issues,” Mr. Ricketts continued. “That, by the way, is the purpose of having him.”
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