Speaker 4
agreement, I think, on the panel here that there is a threat internally. We'll come to the external threat, which Philip referred to to start with. There's an internal threat. What is our response to that? I mean, do you want to say, well, we should insist on these values and impose them on people internally, forget about externally for a moment, but just internally, should we try and insist on that? Two things.
Speaker 2
I mean, Britain's position in this Western context, in this debate about Western values, is somewhat anomalous. Because we talked about the separation of church and state, but of course we haven't really done that, because we've got a confessional state. I mean the Queen is still the governor of the Church of England, we have bishops in the House of Lords. So nominally, we haven't really gone through that Enlightenment, sort of French Revolution stage. We're still very much in the Ancien Régime. And that's where a lot of these difficulties arise because we realize that okay we've got an established church so we want to establish a lot of the privilege we want to share a lot of the privileges that the established church has faith schools Church of England schools with other faiths and I think there is a big tension with that which we haven't intellectually really resolved in our own minds so what's your answer? there be
Speaker 4
more imposition? My
Speaker 2
answer actually would be to have some form of, we need to have some sort of, not imposition, but we need to work out what it is, the relationship between the church and the state. That sounds a little bit of a fudge there. What do you mean? Disestablish the church. Disestablish the church. Well, I'm a conservative, so I don't actually believe. Go for enlightenment principles across the board, whether majorities or minorities.
