Anti-Catholic law must be tackled

The discriminatory Act of Settlement is the forgotten issue at the heart of the anachronistic British state. It epitomises everything that is wrong with Westminster politics that no major party or prime minister have had the gumption to confront this flagrantly anti- Catholic law beyond Gordon Brown’s pathetic platitudes towards reform in March 2009.

Britain’s claim to be a modern, tolerant and equal state is utterly bogus when the very top of its society – the monarchy – operates so blatantly under a different set of rules to us mere subjects, aided and abetted by a meek, spineless and unprincipled Oxbridge political elite. For as long as we have a monarchy, it must not be allowed to hide behind spurious theological claims in order to justify institutionalised sectarianism.

David Cameron and Nick Clegg are adept at producing excuses to explain away inaction. They’ve claimed it’s too hard, too complex and that reform would consume too much government time. But everyone knows the truth: they simply haven’t got the bottle. Moral, pro-active governments make time for fighting discrimination and prejudice, no matter where it festers – even if it means a late-night call to Stephen Harper. Shame we’re stuck with a defeatist, myopic one, then.

David Kelly, Dunblane

GERALD Warner makes what I found to be a rather astonishing claim: that this idea that the thrones of the Commonwealth realms should continue to be denied to Roman Catholics (and, implicitly, all non-Anglicans) is the brainchild of our own Prime Minister Stephen Harper and not David Cameron.

I find that to be astonishing, because while the prime minister of the United Kingdom may have cause to take such a stand, the Canadian monarch has no ecclesiastical role, so the prime minister of Canada has no reasonable grounds to pursue amending the succession in such a way that continues to deny the Canadian throne to a potential heir on the grounds of his or her religious beliefs. If that is true, then it would cause me to question whether our prime minister is committed to the separation of church and state.

Indeed, I would go further and contend that if Prime Minister Cameron did propose to permit non- Anglicans including Roman Catholics to inherit the throne, then for Prime Minister Harper to have objected would represent an inappropriate level of interference in the internal politics of the United Kingdom. In effect, it would appear that Prime Minister Harper is attempting to prevent the disestablishment of the Church of England in England – something that is clearly no business of Mr Harper’s.

Martin R Boser, Alberta, Canada