Andy Burnham, a Catholic who somehow managed to become Health Secretary without the Church imploding, has decided that a 1701 legislative ban on Catholic and Jewish prime ministers appointing their own religious officials is, and this is his word, “unacceptable.” The government agrees. They are now ending it.
The ban existed because everyone in 1701 was reasonably paranoid that a Catholic PM might subordinate parliamentary authority to papal authority, which is a fair concern if you’ve read any history. But Burnham says this is discriminatory. He is correct. It is also discriminatory against atheists, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists, except nobody banned them from anything because they weren’t in power in 1701 and the paranoia was specifically about Rome.
The actual absurdity here isn’t the removal of a 325-year-old theological restraint. It’s that the government is acting shocked—shocked—to discover that faith-based politicians exist. These are the same people who campaign in churches, invoke God in speeches, and justify policy through religious frameworks while maintaining they’re totally secular institutions. Removing the ban is just admitting what everyone already knew: that religion and governance are already entangled, and pretending otherwise with a 1701 law fooled nobody.
Burnham’s complaint is technically valid. The ban is technically discriminatory. The government’s solution is technically logical. The entire premise—that we needed a law to prevent this in the first place—was technically based on the idea that political leaders might use state power to advance religious interests. Which they do. Every day. Just through different mechanisms now.