The archbishop, the PM, and Lisbon
WORKERS, APR 2008 ISSUE
THE MUSINGS of the Archbishop of Canterbury on "Sharia" law have thrown up some unintended consequences.
Apart from a few who rushed to support, and more who wished to rephrase the clueless Dr Williams, most politicians and commentators were quick to distance themselves from his remarks.
But Gordon Brown, while insisting that "British law must be based on British values", is the self-same Gordon Brown who signed a treaty in Lisbon increasing the precedence of EU over British law.
The argument is not, at its essence, about the undoubted savagery and backwardness of Sharia law and custom. It about is whether the nation state has the right to make and enforce its own laws.
Ceding those rights to an alien body is precisely what Williams was calling for and precisely what Brown, Blair, Thatcher and all the rest have agreed to whenever a new EU treaty has been signed over the past 30 years.