Nigel Farage has joined the growing number of politicians and senior public figures calling for the Archbishop of Canterbury to resign amid the ongoing child abuse scandal.
The Reform UK leader broke silence on the row this morning with a three word demand, as Justin Welby fights for his ecclesiastical career.
Mr Farage blasted: “Archbishop Welby has overseen the collapse of the Anglican Church in this country.”
“Yet, for all his progressive positions, he turned a blind eye to terrible abuse.
“He must go.”
Mr Farage was joined by fellow Reform UK MP Lee Anderson, who went further and called for Mr Welby to be “locked up”.
The Archbishop’s future was thrown into turmoil this week after a swathe of vicars and bishops said his future in untenable after playing a role in a cover-up of “abhorrent” child abuse by serial predator John Smyth.
The demands began last week after a new report was published setting out a large-scale cover-up by the Church of Child Abuse by barrister John Smyth in Zimbabwe and South Africa, with as many as 130 victims.
The Makin report set out that the Archbishop had been informed of the abuse allegations in 2013, but failed to take action while Smyth was still alive.
It said: “[Welby] may not have known of the extreme seriousness of the abuse, but it is most probable that he would have had at least a level of knowledge that John Smyth was of some concern”.
Mr Welby’s future may be debated in the House of Commons today, after MPs pushed for an urgent statement from the Government.
Top Tory Nick Timothy has requested the Urgent Question, after writing yesterday that the Church of England chief must go.
Mr Timothy, who served as Theresa May’s chief of staff in Downing Street, said that while critics should be fair to Mr Welby and acknowledge improvements to children safeguarding in the Church since he took over, he failed in his duty regarding Mr Smyth.
He argued: “We should also remember the context of July 2013. Rolf Harris had been arrested in March.”
“The crimes of Jimmy Savile and others had been known and discussed from 2011. The failure of institutions to respond to child abuse was a matter of national debate that led to a public inquiry announced in 2014.”
“We should also recall what Welby has said about other institutions and their response to allegations of abuse. In 2017, he attacked the BBC, saying, “I haven’t seen the same integrity over the BBC’s failures over Savile as I’ve seen in the Roman Catholic Church, in the Church of England, in other public institutions over abuse.”
A petition by members of the church’s General Synod council, calling for Mr Welby’s resignation, has now surpassed 11,000 signatures.
