THE General Synod of the Church of England will meet in York on Friday to discuss the highly contentious political question of regionalisation; but the organisers have arranged the agenda so that regionalisation can be approved without being directly addressed.

The Bishop of Southwark will present a discussion paper entitled "Regionali-sation and the Church", which puts the case for grouping dioceses by EU-constituency (ie by "region").

The Bishop of Durham will then chair a debate about the "regional" re-organisation of the Church, thus cleverly by-passing the question of whether the United Kingdom should become a jumble of dis-united provinces, with representatives in Brussels, and making the staggering assumption that this is what people need, want or will put up with.

The Bishops of Durham, Southwark, Liverpool, Exeter, Chichester and many others are leading lights of the secular Campaign for English Regions. They have been chairing provincial pressure groups, consisting of Labour, Lib-Dem and Green-Party activists - and called "constitutional conventions" - to create the impression that the public can hardly wait for the chance to elect regional assemblies.

Synod should be calling the Bishops to account for this and asking them what they think they're playing at.

Steve Reed,

UK Independence Party,

The Roman Way,

Glastonbury, Somerset.

Updated: 11:13 Wednesday, July 03, 2002