Cameron moves to disestablish the Church of England
One expects a Conservative prime minister to conserve all that is good in our Constitution. Where reform is necessary, one expects a Conservative prime minister to implement change in accordance with Burkean precepts – evolutionary, not revolutionary; consonant with social mores and sensitive to national customs and traditions. And one expects a Conservative prime minister to be fully informed of the facts of the nation’s political and religious history, and if not informed, certainly well advised.
It is depressing to observe that all those Conservative MPs with any grasp of history and politico-theology are languishing on the back benches: we have a government of constitutionally-illiterate technocrats, more concerned with the politics of economics and ‘modernisation’ à la Cool (if bust) Britannia.
This week, at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Australia, David Cameron went where Tony Blair and Gordon Brown did not dare: he chipped away at the Act of Settlement 1701. He announced the end of male primogeniture in the Royal succession, and of his intention to lift the ban on the Monarch being married to a Roman Catholic. As His Grace has previously pointed out, such a change will require a raft of historic legislation to be amended. The BBC mentions the Bill of Rights (1689) and the Royal Marriages Act (1772). To these, we must add the Coronation Oaths Act (1688), the Crown in Parliament Act (1689), the Accession Declaration Act (1910) and the rather more sensitive Act of Union (1707), Article 2 of which specifies that Roman Catholics may not ascend the Throne of the United Kingdom. The Treaty of Union 1707 is the founding charter of the United Kingdom. Tamper with this, and the whole house of cards comes tumbling down.
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