The Tories haven’t a prayer
by Laudable Practice, Artillery Row:
Secularism seems to grip the party that was once the embodiment of Anglicanism.
“I have referred to what I look upon as the first object of the Tory party — namely, to maintain the institutions of the country.” So said Benjamin Disraeli in his 1872 Crystal Palace speech, a speech which can be claimed to have defined the enduring interests of British Conservatism as a national party. The first institution Disraeli turned to after those words was the Church of England: “No institution of England, since the advent of Liberalism, has been so systematically, so continuously assailed, as the Established Church”.
In recent weeks, following the Archbishop of Canterbury’s words in his Easter Day sermon regarding the Rwanda plan, some Conservative MPs have sounded like nineteenth century Liberals and Radicals in their assaults on the Church of England. We have been told by some Conservative MPs that we have “separation of Church and State” in the UK (a phrase which implies someone would have fought on the wrong side in 1776: that is, not with the brave North American Tories who defended the British Constitution during the Revolutionary War).
Removing bishops from the House of Lords has been suggested. There have been public mutterings about the need to disestablish the Church of England. Such stances represent a thorough rejection of Tory wisdom over centuries and an embrace of the very radicalism which Toryism has traditionally opposed.
If Tories were actually to heed the accumulated wisdom of the Tory tradition regarding the Church of England — rather than echoing the agenda of historic and contemporary radicals — how might the Conservative Party regard the Church of England?
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