Clegg calls for the disestablishment of the Church of England – and he’s right

In an increasingly atheistic and multi-faith society, a secular state, which protects all religions and privileges none, is a model to embrace.

By George Eaton

(Photo By Nick Clegg at the BBC studios before his second debate with Nigel Farage on the EU. Photograph: Getty Images.)

Britain may or may not be a “Christian country” (depending on your metric of choice) but should it be a Christian state? One person who thinks not is Nick Clegg. On his LBC show this morning, the self-described atheist called for the disestablishment of the Church of England.

He said:

More generally speaking, about the separation of religion and politics. As it happens, my personal view – I’m not pretending this is something that’s discussed in the pubs and kitchen tables of Britain – but my personal view is that, in the long-run, having the state and the church basically bound up with each other, as we do in this country, is, in the long run…I actually think it would be better for the church and better for people of faith, and better for Anglicans, if the church and the state were to, over time, stand on their own two separate feet, so to speak. But that’s not going to happen overnight, for sure.

Religious believers who oppose such a move should look to the US, where faith has flourished alongside the country’s secular constitution. Indeed, in an interview with the New Statesman in 2008, the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, (who went on to famously guest-edit the magazine) suggested that the church might benefit from such a move: “I can see that it’s by no means the end of the world if the establishment disappears. The strength of it is that the last vestiges of state sanction disappeared, so when you took a vote at the Welsh synod, it didn’t have to be nodded through by parliament afterwards. There is a certain integrity to that.”

In an increasingly atheistic and multi-faith society, a secular state, which protects all religions and privileges none, is a model to embrace. As the 2013 British Social Attitudes Survey showed, 48 per cent do not belong to a religion, up from 32 per cent in 1983, and just 20 per cent describe themselves as belonging to the Church of England, down from 40 per cent in 1983. The UK is home to nearly three million Muslims, a million Hindus and over 250,000 Jews.

It’s time to bring Jefferson’s “wall of separation” home.