Churches Together in Bishop's Stortford labels Leave.EU's 'Bells for Victory' call 'deeply abhorrent' and 'offensive'
Calls to ring bells across Bishop’s Stortford to celebrate Brexit are a clanger, according to the town’s churches.
They have rejected any suggestion that the UK’s exit from the European Union on Friday January 31 at 11pm should be celebrated the next morning with a peal for ‘independence’.
Leave.EU is behind Bells for Victory and has issued a rallying cry to its supporters: “Just as we did to mark the Allies’ victory in Europe in 1945, we’re calling on patriots to ring the bell of their local church at 9am on Saturday, February 1 to celebrate Britain’s new-found independence.”
The Indie flagged up the campaign in an email to Churches Together in Bishop’s Stortford (CTBS) to see if any places of worship in the town would support it.
CTBS chairman Clive Weir responded: "At the time of writing, we have not received any information from our church members that anyone has been approached by the Leave.EU – Bells for Victory initiative.
"Your email was the first we had heard about it. It would be up to individual churches to decide whether this would be an appropriate use of their church bells."
After consulting with clerics across the town, he said they were unanimous that suggesting the wartime link was “deeply abhorrent and offensive”.
He said: “Leaving the EU has been, and is, a deeply divisive issue. There are members of our churches who voted in both directions at the referendum and it is offensive to suggest that one side was being ‘patriotic’ while the other was not.”
Victory in 1945 was a “deeply uniting moment” and a time to remember the supreme sacrifice of all those who died.
He said: “The churches stand for the ideals of reconciliation and unity between people who may think differently about a variety of issues. Therefore we would not want our churches used in ways that could be seen as triumphalism of one group over another.”
There was a final rebuff after Leave.EU said: “If the powers that be don’t like it? We’ll do it anyway.” Mr Weir said: “As people of peace, we would oppose any organisation that seeks to get its way by breaking the law.”
The Hertford and Stortford parliamentary constituency voted 50.8% Remain to 49.2% Leave, according to the House of Commons library – in contrast to the East Herts local government district, which voted 50.4% to 49.6% in favour of Leave. Nationally, the margin was 51.9% for Leave and 48.1% for Remain.
