John Major supported the banning of only UK movie ever censored for blasphemy

Former Prime Minister John Major was in support of banning the only UK ever censored under blasphemy laws, according to government files.

The records, which have been publicly released, show Major’s concerns about the film Visions of Ecstasy, a short film made by director Nigel Wingrove in 1989.

It was refused a certificate by the BBFC, which said that any exhibition of it in the UK could be punishable under blasphemous libel.

The 18-minute movie was about the Carmelite nun St Theresa, and her sexual fantasies about Jesus on the cross.

At the time of the ban, Major called an appeal by Wingrove to the European Convention on Human Rights to have it lifted as ‘wholly unacceptable’.

Documents sent in 1994 by Major to the Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd and Lord Chancellor by Major, seen by the Daily Mail thanks to an annual release of cabinet office files, said: “I must make it clear that I would not tolerate a position which required the Government or the BBFC to grant a certificate to this film or to others of a similar type.

“This is a matter on which I feel sufficiently strongly to be prepared to consider a derogation from the European Convention on Human Rights if that were to be necessary in the final analysis.

“I must say I find the position in which we find ourselves wholly unacceptable.”

Though the filmmakers later made substantial cuts, it was still banned from release, though the ban was eventually lifted in 2008 after the blasphemy laws were repealed.

It was released in 2012 with an 18 certificate and no cuts.

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