Oh Lord! Kent County Council

[Imdunfer]

Kent County Council under Reform are putting a vote to full council to start council meetings with the Lords Prayer.

I get the anti Muslim bit, but don't they realise how many of us are atheists?

They also want to sing the National Anthem. I can sort of see their point with that one, but it's not going to get the bins collected, is it?

I live in Kent so unfortunately this is my council. I did not and never would vote Reform.

The council has been useless, put up council tax (after claiming they would not to get elected) and now this nonsense about prayers.

Hopefully people will realise how truly awful and useless Reform is when leading a council and will think again about voting for them at a GE.

Before Council meetings? I didn't know they did. It be just as furious about that. Please link them.

I'm an atheist not an anti Reformist.

Council I worked for always did this.

House of Commons starts with prayers. Our school prays daily. Cant see the harm, not everyone has to join in

I've looked this up and the calls to prayer are being broadcast by Mosques and nothing to do with Council Meetings, in fact nothing even to do with the council except that they are allowing it to continue after it was introduced as an emergency measure during Covid lockdowns.

I don’t want it forced down my throat. Whether it’s Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity. I am not religious and do not agree with organised religion in any shape or form.

I've said already I'm an atheist and I don't want religion mixed up with local politics.

A council shouldn't have a little clique of people who exclude others from an activity at the start of a session where they are going to discuss, for example, a contentious planning issue. And yes, praying does exclude people from the group.

It would be illegal in France and should not be being reintroduced here after dying out as a practice, imo.

It's because we are not officially a secular country. We have a state religion- C of E.
I think there should be a disestablishment of Church and State. Prince William clearly isn't religious and can't be bothered with it ( or much) so there's no reason why he should be head of State and Head of the C of E when his time comes. If they were separate we could have rules banning all religious practices in State buildings, and probably State schools.

Just for the record, I’m a church going, very religious Christian and I strongly oppose this. How dare Reform hijack my faith which says the greatest command is to love my neighbour for facist purposes.
I know many other Christians who would also find this deeply offensive. It’s cosplaying faith.

Yes, and France is legally secular, which is what I would prefer.

I hope William manages to find a way to drop being head off the CofE when he becomes King.

Well said. I do feel that at heart it's intended to be a passive aggressive move against Moslems.

The dumbest thing is that in Muslim majority councils, of course Muslim councillors will conduct Muslim prayers 😂So much for secularism.

Many council meetings do start with prayers, perhaps not at county level but our town council does and they meet in the church hall because the town council one’s roof collapsed. The issue isn’t prayers, it’s the posturing and trying to alienate people.

Several councils start the day with the Islamic call to prayer.

There's videos of chanting in Arabic.

Oldham Council recently got an Imam to recite Muslim prayers before council meetings:

https://christianconcern.com/comment/islamic-prayers-in-oldham-council/?hl=en-GB

We should just ban all religious ceremony at all government meetings. I didn't know this went on.

Ridiculous.

Keep religion out of it!

Neither did I - maybe Kent county council are doing it to make some kind of point
re religious ceremony at government meetings?

I don't know - it's all batshit in my mind whoever is doing it.

Yes I'm Christian too and think we should be secular. I wonder how many Reform councillors would be able to recite the Lords Prayer without a crib sheet?

I've done some digging here. None of the pointers in that article work so I can't see the video but in any case they are 9 years old. Google says that Oldhsm has held prayers since 1974 and that the person conducting the prayers changes, sometimes a Chaplain, sometimes an Imam.

In view of the pulsating of Oldham that would seem only fair given that players are a legal right.

Not quite the picture painted by that Christian publication with an axe to grind.

And you think this is something to be celebrated?

Or are applying double standards and saying that it's ok for Christians to pray at council meetings but not for Muslims to do the same thing?

As an atheist, I would really prefer that we keep religion and politics separate. And that applies to everyone.

I don’t think many do now?

My son’s prep school did - he’s now 16, but I don’t think my daughter even knows it.

Well, there's a surprise.

He doesn't strike me as a ' great reformer', more someone who would like to cling on to as much status as he can in return for doing as little as possible. I would love to be proven wrong though!

To me he looks like he's changed pretty much everything about what being heir apparent to the throne means.

His grandmother didn't allow herself to be touched by members of the public and expected everyone to bow and curtesy. That was only a few years back.

Charles has made everything a lot less formal, William is going further still.

I loved these pictures of him at a Villa match recently, he's a big supporter. The queen would never have lowered herself to showing herself just to have ordinary emotions like this.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2k2vxk0y1no

Typical of Reform’s Temu Trumpism, I’m afraid and their performative Christianity - which they’ll be using to push through abortion law changes if they ever get into power. Absolutely agree with the pp who said about their Christian Nationalist agenda; James Orr (Head of Policy) and Danny Kruger are ones to watch on this.

I think we’re all meant to ignore that their divisive politics is clearly un-Christian… The hypocrisy is sickening.