Churches are generally ideal venues for public debates. But there’s a slight chance that a speech about the perils of EU membership will be interrupted by a homeless person doing a pee in the corner. At a debate on Christian responses to the EU at St James the Less church in Pimlico last night, Giles Fraser left off quoting his hero Tony Benn on the evil of unaccountable power in order to do his muscular Christian duty and help eject the man, who spluttered invective as he departed. Did I imagine it or did he shout ‘Fexit Brexit’?
A bit earlier, his opponent Ben Ryan had set out an optimistic vision – not Project Fear but Project Hope. He argued that the European project was never simply about economics: it was based in a Christian moral vision. He said that the desire for pure sovereignty was illusory, and reminded him of Milton’s Satan who preferred to rule in hell rather than serve in heaven.
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