The Archbishop of Canterbury has criticised both sides in the Brexit debate for exaggerating the likely consequences of Britain leaving the European Union.
In a new book, Reimagining Britain, due out next week, Justin Welby accuses hardline Remainers of being “apocalyptic”, saying they “foresee the arrival of the Four Horsemen of the book of Revelation – death, hunger, war and conquest – or at the least the UK economy becoming like that of Greece, with … the country turning in on itself and succumbing to extremism and xenophobia”.
The archbishop, who backed Remain in the EU referendum, likens anti-Brexit campaigners to the “Paranoid Android” in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. But he says Brexit supporters are equally unbalanced, promising that negotiations with the EU would be over “in the twinkling of an eye” and would deliver “money for everyone”. They seem to believe, he says, that “by the end of the process we will, like the Dodo in Alice in Wonderland, say ‘everybody has won and everybody will have prizes’.”
Archbishop Welby also states his opposition to the introduction of elements of Islamic sharia law into British family and inheritance law. He argues that the “powerful and ancient cultural narrative” of sharia could not become part of another narrative: “Household and family … face enormous pressures and need one legal basis of oversight and one philosophical foundation of understanding.” His comments are a reversal of the position taken by his predecessor Lord (Rowan) Williams, who in 2008 backed introducing sharia into the British legal system.
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