Just when you thought Britain’s immigration debate couldn’t get any more sanctimonious – the bishops have weighed in. Yesterday, in the House of Lords, none other than the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, spoke out against the Tory government’s Illegal Migration Bill, calling it ‘isolationist’, ‘morally unacceptable’ and ‘impractical’. In this, he was backed up by the Bishops of Durham and Gloucester, who also sit in the Lords as part of the unelected chamber’s quota of Church of England bishops, also known as the Lords Spiritual.

The bill – which would detain and remove those who arrive in the UK illegally, stopping them from ever claiming asylum – is now in the Lords, after it passed through the House of Commons last month. It has sparked outrage among commentators and NGOs, as well as the clergy, apparently. In the chamber, Welby said the bill would ‘damage the UK’s interests and reputation at home and abroad’. ‘Even if this bill succeeds [in stopping illegal migration] – and I don’t think it will – it won’t stop conflict or climate change’, he added, sounding more like a Lib Dem lord than a man of the cloth. Welby says he intends to table amendments to the bill at committee stage.

This isn’t the first time the archbishop has voiced his political opinions. Last December, he hosted a Lords debate on asylum policy, slamming the government for its ‘cruel’ approach and ‘harmful rhetoric’ – taking a swipe at home secretary Suella Braverman for likening the small-boats crossings on the south coast to an ‘invasion’. Last April, he called the Rwanda scheme – under which Britain will deport illegal entrants to the Central African nation – ‘ungodly’. Apparently, the almighty Himself has had enough of those awful Tories. Welby hasn’t limited his meddling to this particular issue, either. His previous interventions include rallying to the defence of the Northern Ireland Protocol, pledging to ‘decolonise’ the Church of England in the wake of Black Lives Matter, and comparing politicians who fail to act on climate change to those who ‘ignored what was happening in Nazi Germany’.