Bishop: 10 years on, concerns that led to Brexit have still not been addressed

It has been almost a decade since Britain voted to go away the European Union and yet lots of the underlying aspects behind that vote have still not been addressed, a Church of England bishop has argued.

Philip North, the Bishop of Blackburn, said that many leave voters were motivated by concerns that national sovereignty and pride had been eroded and that the Church has a job to play in helping people rediscover national pride.

Speaking to The Express, North said that many within the Church falsely claimed that leave voters were primarily motivated by racism or anger. His own diocese voted heavily in favour of leaving the EU, prompting North to confer with leavers and understand where they were coming from.

“At the time of the controversy, I remember plenty of criticism, particularly coming from Church circles of those that voted for Brexit, giving false motives for that vote. Some were saying it was simply a xenophobic, racist vote, others saying it was a protest vote, an offended vote,” he said. 

“What I saw was actually people voting for a selected vision of nation. They saw that, as they understood it, national identity had been eroded over various years by a form of globalist EU project, by other pressures and forces.”

However, North also said that the foundation concerns of leave voters about national identity had largely gone unaddressed.

“I believe I see almost the identical division now. I see it lived out and played out in alternative ways. But I still see many individuals who feel embarrassed to talk about pride in nationhood, pride within the Royal Family and within the Armed Forces, as if that’s in some way a language of the past,” he said. 

The Diocese of Blackburn covers a lot of the county of Lancashire in north-west England, which widely voted Leave.

North has previously spoken with regret about his failure to lift the problem of predominantly Pakistani Muslim rape gangs.

He said that fears of disrupting community relations, combined with a disconnect between the Church and the working classes prevented him from speaking up.

“I’m performing some serious reflection about my fear-driven silence in relation to grooming gangs. I hope other church leaders will do the identical.”