Last updated at 00:58 13 February 2008

So that's all right then.

The Archbishop

of Canterbury's

remarks about sharia law

were completely

and totally misunderstood.

He has apologised

for his "unclarity" and

expressing himself clumsily,

but definitely not for

what he said.

End of story.

This, four days after Dr

Williams' comments on the

need to accommodate sharia

law in Britain ignited public

outrage.

His remarks united in condemnation

politicians from all

parties along with people of all

religions and none.

Phone lines

to radio and TV programmes

were jammed with furious calls,

website were deluged and

inside the church there were

calls for him to resign.

Scroll down for more...

Yet the day after Dr Williams

faced the Synod to fight for his

professional life, liberal voices

were loud in support of the

"misunderstood" prelate.

He was apparently the victim

of both "the tabloids" and

"traditionalists" in his own

church who had been gunning

for him since he took office.

To the BBC he was merely

"guilty of innocence"; his problem

was that his enormous brain

was simply incapable of "neatly

packaged soundbites"; and it

gushed that he was "a great"

Archbishop of Canterbury.

For its part, the Synod had

given him a standing ovation.

The arch-muddler had turned

into a martyr.

So how had Dr

Williams pulled off this miracle?

I'm sorry but this really looks

like smoke and mirrors.

There

are no fewer than seven cogent

reasons why Dr Williams's

position is more untenable

today than it was at the start of

the week.

ONE: His mea culpa that his

"unclarity" had led people to

misunderstand what he said.

Put to one side the implied

insult behind the self-deprecation,

that the public were too

stupid to understand him.

His excuse ignored the key

fact that the public had

exploded in anger five hours

before his lecture, when he said

on BBC Radio's The World At

One that "one law for everybody" was "a bit of a danger",

that Islamic sharia law was not

"an alien and rival system" and

that the adoption of sharia was

"unavoidable".

It was this, a shocking and

unequivocal renunciation of the

core principle of equality before

the law, that provoked the fury.

So his excuse that people had

jumped to the wrong conclusions

from his lecture demonstrably didn't hold water.

TWO: He gave that interview

in the first place as part of a

strategy to manipulate public

opinion.

Well before his lecture

was even written, Lambeth

Palace's press advisers were

pondering how to secure the

most favourable media reaction

from a densely argued address

which was bound to be

intensely controversial.

The wheeze they hit upon was

to offer an exclusive interview

with Dr Williams to The World

At One, so that they could carefully

"manage" the reaction to

his lecture.

Unfortunately, this cynical

plan spectacularly boomeranged

when Dr Williams said on

air a number of things which

were both incendiary and

crystal clear.

The result was that

within minutes of the interview,

the radio programme's phones

were ringing with calls from

furious listeners.

THREE: Having seen his

attempt to control public reaction

go so badly wrong, Dr

Williams tried to pretend that

he had not said what he did in

fact say.

In particular, he told the

Synod that he had not been

talking about "parallel jurisdictions"

of sharia and English law.

But in his lecture he had

talked in terms of "supplementary

jurisdictions", and

suggested an end to Britain's

"legal monopoly" so that British

Muslims could choose to be

dealt with under either sharia

or English law.

That inescapably implies everyequal

status — or parallel

jurisdictions.

But on this point

Dr Williams chose be less than

transparent — and added to

the confusion.

He told the

Synod that he merely wanted

to offer additional choices for

"resolving disputes and regulating

transactions".

This implied that all he

wanted to do was extend the

existing system, already used

by both British Muslims and

Jews, of informal religious

tribunals whose decisions have

no force of law.

A "jurisdiction", however, is a

very different matter. It is a

means of enforcing a body of

law.

And indeed, in his lecture

Dr Williams actually spoke of "a

delegation of certain functions"

of English law to sharia courts.

So his disavowal was disingenuous

to the point of being

downright misleading.

True, he said nothing should

prevent Muslim women from

having recourse to the remedies

of English human rights

law.

But in his interview he also

spoke about "an alternative to

the divorce courts".

How on earth would human

rights law help protect a British

Muslim woman who is exposed

to manifold injustice, violence

and even "honour killings"

under the sharia family law Dr

Williams wishes to entrench?

FOUR: The Archbishop's

inexcusable naivety about

sharia law. He made clear he

was talking about a "soft" kind

of sharia.

But while this is

espoused by reformist Muslims,

there would be nothing to stop

its more draconian provisions

being enacted here.

Indeed, Islam has never

allowed itself to be a pick and

mix religion, nor to be

subservient to any other legal

system.

Entrenching it within

our system would inevitably

introduce principles that are

inimical to British justice.

FIVE: Dr Williams's prescriptions

would spell the end of British identity.

Until now, all

minorities have set up their

own communities of faith and

culture under the law of the

land, which binds us all as

equally loyal citizens of this

country.

But Dr Williams suggested

that English and sharia law

should engage in a grotesque

"competition for loyalty" among

British Muslims, whom he

described as facing the "stark

alternatives" of allegiance to

their culture or the state.

It is simply unacceptable for

the head of this country's

established church to say, in

effect, that if Muslims refuse to

adhere to British values then

Britain will have to become a

bit Muslim.

SIX: Dr Williams's remarks will

already have emboldened

British Islamist radicals and

recruited yet more to their

cause.

Some will disagree but I

believe they will see in his

willingness to accommodate

sharia law evidence that British

society is now terminally weakened

and is theirs for the taking.

SEVEN: His remarks will have

a devastating effect on Christians

in the Third World.

Don't forget Dr Williams is the head of

a church whose members, in

countries such as Sudan,

Nigeria, Pakistan and elsewhere,

are being persecuted,

harassed, attacked, forcibly

converted and murdered in

large numbers at the hands of

the enforcers of sharia law.

By proposing to entrench

sharia law in Britain, he has

both betrayed his besieged

flock worldwide and weakened

Britain against the danger that

it faces from the same Islamist

enemy that threatens Christians

around the world.

That, disgracefully, is what

the Synod rose to its feet to

applaud when it gave Dr

Williams its standing ovation.

No, there was no public

misunderstanding over the

Archbishop's remarks. People

understood precisely what he

was saying.

But now he has

compounded that gross

misjudgment by spinning it as

cynically as any venal politician.

For shame.