A Week in Politics

In Jersey, we do. States Members do God when they take their oath of office, a prayer to God is read at the start of every States sitting, and one of the only non-politicians allowed to address the States Assembly is a priest.

God, if not His Wisdom, is writ large across the States. It’s a simple fact that eight out of the ten members of the Council of Ministers are religious – the Chief Minister, Treasury Minister and Housing Minister are Roman Catholics, the Environment Minister is Jewish, and the Home Affairs, Education and Health and Social Security ministers all belong to various Christian denominations.

Conversely, despite the amount of God that States Members do, there aren’t many debates that call on faith.

Last week’s gay marriage debate was one, the abortion debate of several years ago was too and the casino debate that comes back round like a roulette wheel every few years is another.

In a sense, it’s all above board because candidates tend to refer to their faiths in election material, so voters know what they’re getting.

And in another sense, it’s just one of several things that makes a person tick: Deputy Ben Fox is a former policeman, Senator Alan Maclean supports Manchester United (his ring-binder’s preferences are as yet unclear) and Deputy Ian Gorst spends his Sunday mornings in church.

But sometimes, it’s more than that. Sometimes faith creeps out of the private life and into the spotlight.

That’s what appears to have happened last week, when Home Affairs Minister Ian Le Marquand was the sole hold-out against the civil partnership proposition that sought to extend marriage benefits to gay couples.

His was a strange speech. He said that he could not support the proposals because they were too much like marriage – although he preferred an arrangement extending civil partnerships to straight and gay couples. No, I can’t figure it out either.

The argument was too fragmented, too disjointed. It gave the impression of a fig-leaf – an article held up to protect something that the wearer did not want to be seen.

Senator Le Marquand was not the only Member who struggled with his faith, his public mandate and the proposition – and nothing should be said to minimise that struggle, or to trivialise it.

But what Senator Le Marquand has to accept is that his vote against the proposal was a vote in favour of the discrimination against gay couples.

Like so much in politics, foreign policy is easiest understood by comparison to the school playground. Cliques are composed not of sporty types, academic types or oddballs but are brought together by language, religion or simple proximity.

And the hierarchy is the same: big kids can bully smaller kids. The US, for example, can push the UK around. The UK can push Norway around. If a couple of kids, say France, Germany and Spain, got together, they can push the UK back.

It’s the Law of the Playground on an international level. So, we accept that the US can declare war on tax havens, we accept that the EU can put the kibosh on zero-ten and we accept that the UK don’t have to back us up. We don’t have to be happy about it, but it’s in the nature of things. They’re bigger than us – they call the shots.

But to be pushed around by Guernsey sticks in the craw a little. That’s not just silly patriotism – they’re smaller than us, they have fewer people and they’re in worse shape economically. It runs against the Law of the Playground.

And that’s why the Guernsey Policy Council’s proposition to review zero-ten with ‘a presumption’ towards a ten per cent rate of corporate tax rails against the natural order of things. They may be quick to say that they aren’t prejudging the review so much as stating a general direction, but it’s a strange way to go about your business if you haven’t got at least half an eye on the answer that you want.

And given the Chief Minister’s commitment to an allied approach with Our Friends in the North – he says that if they go one way, we’ll probably end up going there too – this has the potential to turn into a spicy little spat.

What is not clear, yet, is how much the Council of Ministers here in Jersey knew about the announcement in Guernsey. My guess – not a lot. It’s not the kind of thing that Treasury Minister Philip Ozouf would let just pop out without his handprints all over it.

Senators Le Sueur and Ozouf have been fairly matter-of-fact about the way that Jersey just got shafted by the EU and the UK, mostly because they had little choice. Whether they’ll take the same attitude about Guernsey is a totally different question. For all the talk of a joint approach, shared resources and co-operation – Friday’s announcement could mark the end of a beautiful, but brief, friendship.