Isle of Wight council scraps prayers before meetings

A councillor's 16-year campaign to stop prayers at the beginning of his local authority meetings has succeeded.

The action automatically came into motion when Cllr Geoff Brodie became the new chairman of Isle of Wight Council.

Local authorities can participate in the practice of prayer before meetings, but it is at the chair's discretion.

Opposing councillor Steve Hastings said he was "disgusted" the decision had gone through without consultation.

Cllr Brodie, a self-proclaimed Atheist, started fighting to scrap pre-meeting prayers when he joined Isle of Wight Council in 2005, claiming they were "discriminatory", as reported by the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

He was elected as the new chairman for the authority in a full council meeting on Wednesday after being voted in a 20 to 18 vote against Cllr Ray Redrup.

Cllr Brodie had submitted a motion to discuss ending prayers as part of the meeting agenda, however once he became chairman the motion was withdrawn and prayers were scrapped at his discretion.

He told councillors he was "a non-believer, you will have to respect that" and he would not be appointing someone to conduct any "faith business" before full council meetings.

Cllr Brodie added: "If people want to take prayers or have periods of contemplation before full council I am more than happy to see that, but it will not be part of the formal part of this agenda. That is who I am and the majority of people accept that."

Conservative Cllr Steve Hastings said many members of his party were "disgusted" the removal of prayers didn't make it to debate.

He added: "My group as a whole are quite distressed and we are not happy about it being a unilateral position to drive religion underground and not have it as part of proceedings."

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