by Ian Paul, Psephizo
When bishops and archbishops speak about migration it always hits the headlines—and never ends well.
In 2016, Justin Welby got into trouble when he said that it was quite reasonable to ‘fear’ the consequences of mass migration.
There is a tendency to say ‘those people are racist’, which is just outrageous, absolutely outrageous.
But in 2023, he got into trouble in the opposite direction, when he said that Government plan to crack down on illegal immigration were ‘morally unacceptable and politically impractical.’ Different comment; same result. (Incidentally, it is fascinating to note the quite radical change in his position on this in a ‘liberal’ direction over the same time period of his change in his views on same-sex marriage.)
Stephen Cottrell, the archbishop of York, has dived into the issue, as has Steven Croft, bishop of Oxford, with criticisms of Nigel Farage’s plans to deport illegal migrants.
In an interview with Trevor Phillips on Sky News, Stephen called Farage’s approach a ‘isolationist, knee-jerk response’ which ‘will not solve the problem’. The first part of the interview focused on child poverty, but it then moved to the question of migration, and the Reform policy, and Cottrell seemed happy to talk about it.
And this, I think, it where the problems began.