After the Battle of Trafalgar, Pitt the Younger was toasted as 'the Saviour of Europe'. He demurred, insisting that Europe was not to be saved by any one man: “England has saved herself by her exertions, and will, as I trust, save Europe by her example.”We did, of course, ‘save Europe’ on many occasions.
Perhaps not always ‘by example’, but certainly by consistently maintaining a balance of power which was invariably in the national interest.
Now, of course, Europe has consumed (indeed, abolished) England: we are nothing but a country of ‘euro regions’, each directly funded by and subject to the foreign power; to the princes and potentates in Brussels who prohibit and permit, determine and decree, legislate and direct what we may and may not do.
But that is old news.
With a supine (to put it politely) national church, the marginalisation of Christianity and an increasing assertion of fundamentalist secularism, Islam may be about to the UK a great service.
Bear with His Grace on this one.
Harridan Hormone’s (EU-inspired) Equality Bill was dealt a severe blow in three key votes on proposed amendments in the House of Lords. The legal inequalities which our Masters in Brussels sought to force Parliament to eradicate were retained at Their Lordships’ pleasure.
The churches were prepared for the battle, and no doubt many thousands of Christians donned their breastplates of righteousness and interceded for victory. Cranmer wondered who might win (fully expecting, being a seasoned observer, that the Gates of Hell would prevail).
The issue of the extent to which churches (and other religious bodies) might continue to discriminate against employees on the grounds of their sexual conduct (or, for Pope Benedict, even their inclination), was of importance not only for religious liberty but also the right to freedom of conscience.
Baroness O’Cathain, supported by the passionate, charismatic and patriotic Archbishop John Sentamu (...would that he might succeed Rowan Williams...) insisted that religious institutions must retain their exemption from equality legislation which prohibits discrimination on the grounds of sexuality: they must be permitted to maintain their traditional ethos and have the right to expect that staff would uphold tenets of their faith.
And they won: a powerful coalition of bishops and Conservative peers defeated the Government by 216 votes to 178.
The Government, of course, still wants it to be made impossible for a Roman Catholic school to sack its head teacher if he should declare himself homosexual, enter into a civil partnership with his boyfriend, undergo gender realignment and then cross-dress (if such it would be) to come to school.
But such a law must be applied uniformly. Thus the imam in a mosque or the head teacher of a Muslim school may also not be dismissed on the grounds of sexuality.
One wonders what legislative madness it is that permits dismissal for consuming a bacon sandwich, yet not for consummating a same-sex union.
But the Government now have a problem.
Lord Tebbit put it succinctly when he said: "We have a choice tonight – whether we walk in fear of the law of the Lord or the law of Brussels. I know which way I am going."
The House of Commons could be asked to vote to overturn Their Lordships, effectively asserting EU judicial primacy over centuries of freedom of conscience and religion. Or risk prosecutions being brought by agitating atheists, militant homosexuals or tactical transsexuals against a church, a church school – or (Allah forbid) a mosque.
And this is not a trivial point of inconsequential levity.
While the Church of England has been content to do nothing to defend itself against foreign princes and potentates (indeed, it has been complicit in its own destruction), the Mosque of England might be a little less inclined to be told what it must and must not teach and whom it may or may not employ.
Will this Labour Government, consumed and distracted by its agonising death throes, ram this Bill through Parliament regardless of the views of the Lords Temporal and Spiritual?
Since the Archbishop of Canterbury has (again) gone Trappist, will the mosques assert the primacy of the Law of (the) God over the laws of man?
Will this England, which was wont to save herself by her exertions, now be saved by the example of Islam?
