CONCERNS about immigration and border policy deserve “honest and constructive public debate”, and “rhetoric that dehumanises vulnerable people fleeing violence or persecution” must be challenged, the Bishop of Leicester, the Rt Revd Martyn Snow, said this week.
Bishop Snow was responding to comments by the leader of Reform UK, Nigel Farage, who said last week that the Church’s bishops had “a rather twisted view of what their flock in this country actually want them to do”.
As reported by Premier, Mr Farage told reporters on Monday of last week that his party was “completely open to genuine refugees”. But the Bishops “must have their heads in the sand. . . If they cannot see that aggressive young males chucking their iPhones and passports into the English Channel at the 12-mile line, so we can’t find out who they are — if they don’t understand that that is a threat to our country, then frankly, they’re not doing a very good job.”
Responding on Tuesday, Bishop Snow said: “The Church of England is a diverse Church with people who have a wide variety of views on the political issues of our time. This is one of our greatest strengths — our local churches bring people together across differences — united as one body.
“As bishops, we do not take our lead from polling or from political movements. Rather, we seek to follow Christ. He calls us to ‘welcome the stranger’ and to ‘love our neighbour as ourselves’ (including those with radically different views from our own).
“We recognise that immigration and border policy are matters of deep concern for many across our nation. And we recognise that people are anxious about the pressures on services, community solidarity and the integrity of our borders — issues which deserve honest and constructive public debate. So, we affirm the right of people to express concerns about immigration, but we must equally challenge rhetoric that dehumanises vulnerable people fleeing violence or persecution.”
Mr Farage’s comments repeat his earlier criticism of the bishops. Last year, he suggested that they were “out of touch” when asked about likely criticism of his plans to deport migrants who crossed the Channel illegally. Writing for The Times last September, Bishop Snow suggested that there was “a grain of truth” in the claim.
While the Church could not “remain silent in the face of inhumane policies or populist fearmongering”, he was aware of “faithful Christians sitting in our pews who support tighter border controls not out of hatred, but out of sincere concern for social cohesion, pressure on public services, and the pace of cultural change in their communities. Dismissing those concerns outright risks pushing these people further from the Church they love.”
This week, he said that he had written to Mr Farage “to invite him to come and see the work that our local churches are doing to bring people together across differences, to support people seeking refuge in the UK, as well as supporting those who feel themselves overlooked by Westminster politicians. Unfortunately, I have not received a reply to my letter.”
Bishop Snow made his maiden speech in the House of Lords, in 2022, during a debate on UK asylum and refugee policy, when he spoke of “the honour of serving a city which has been made by migration, including those seeking asylum” (News, 9 December 2022). He introduced himself as a “migrant”, born in Indonesia, and expressed concern about the adequacy of the country’s “welcome, guidance, and orientation to refugees and asylum-seekers”.
He warned: “When we are possessed by fear of the ‘other’, fear of losing control over our borders, or fear of what refugees show us of the fragility of human structures and ways of life, we are lesser versions of ourselves.
“Of course, recognising our kinship with asylum-seekers and refugees does not decide the political questions around immigration. Questions of integration and how to live well together must still be wrestled with, but those are questions we must grapple with regardless, and we must do so with sincerity and integrity.”
Last year, a report on “the implications of projected population growth for the UK’s demographic future”, Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow, by the Common Good Foundation and the Centre for Policy Studies, noted that the net average population increase over the past few years had been running at more than 500,000 per year, equivalent to a city the size of Sheffield — mainly through work visas and students. Further growth on this scale was not, it observed, “a prospect the majority of British people welcome”. It included a chapter by a former Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, on social cohesion.
Responding to a debate on the report in the House of Lords in December, Bishop Snow spoke of wanting to “put on record first my support for for an open debate on questions such as, ‘What is a reasonable level of population growth?’ It may be an uncomfortable question, but what are we here for if not to model healthy, mature debates on uncomfortable questions?”
Backing calls for a social cohesion strategy, he said: “We need to wrestle honestly with the toll taken by poverty, deindustrialisation, decades of increasing individualism, institutional distrust and inequality.”
On Monday, the Conservative Party leader, Kemi Badenoch, announced a new Cultural and Integration Commission, to create an integration and cohesion plan “that sets out the culture that we want people to assimilate into”.
“British culture exists,” she said. “We live in it. We benefit from it and we have a duty to defend it and pass it on.”
The latest tracker from YouGov found that immigration topped the list of the “most important issues facing the country”: 48 per cent of the respondents selected it. For the past year, Reform UK has led in voting-intention polls.
The Church Times approached Reform UK for comment.
