The putting together of this issue of the Journal required the drafting of two separate editorials pending the outcome of the referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union. It is with a very heavy heart that it is this version that your editor presents. By the time of publication the dust may have begun to settle and a view of the future may have begun to become clearer but it remains to be seen what the real, long-term cost of a victory of one sort of ideology will be.
The pages of this Journal have, over the years, demonstrated the interconnectedness of legal systems throughout the world. Likewise, churches are interconnected, whether constitutionally, through tradition and teaching or via discernable common principles. In this issue Frank Cranmer tests out whether there is any concrete influence on the UK courts of US Supreme Court religious cases. Interestingly, while the legal systems may at first sight seem very similar, there seems to be significantly less influence on UK courts from the US than from other jurisdictions in such cases.
Two further articles delve into legal history. Keith Thompson examines the echoes of Magna Carta down the centuries and around the world. David Little takes readers back to the famous debates in the Temple Church between Richard Hooker, the Master, and Walter Travers, the Preacher. The debate was largely conducted through the medium of the sermon: Hooker preached in the mornings and Travers in the afternoons. Back in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries England remained connected to Europe, even after the original ‘Brexit’ of the Reformation period. One did not have to be a Presbyterian of the style of Travers to consider oneself connected to and part of the movement that was European Protestantism. It was only natural that men from Britain, and from the Church of England, were present at the pan-European and pan-Protestant Synod of Dort in 1618–19, the delegation being led by the Bishop of Llandaff.
Despite being islands and, therefore, technically insular, the British Isles can be seen to be not necessarily politically, socially or religiously insular. The presence of the UK in the EU was part of this history and tradition. Continued membership of the Council of Europe and participation in the workings of the European Court of Human Rights are another. Moves towards the unpicking of human rights legislation should not be rushed into on the back of the referendum result.
The future of the UK and the future of the EU is now uncertain, politically and economically. It remains to be seen whether the ‘Brexit’ will prompt other member states to contemplate similar moves and whether the EU as a whole will attempt reform in order to keep the whole together. We will continue to monitor, comment on and analyse questions of law and religion in the UK jurisdictions and internationally. And, in the meantime, the editor is contemplating ordering a tee-shirt saying ‘Don't blame me; I voted Remain’.
