Makes the affected laws effectively inoperable in their totality.  If people wish to carry knives in public or smoke marijuana, the rational thing for them to do under this legislation is to falsely claim to be Sikh or Rastafarian respectively so that they are not subject to these laws. This logic applies to all laws affected by this legislation.  The government would first have to work out what religions count for this legislation, the government would likely want to exclude at least some extremist cults and would not want to allow individuals or small to make up their own religions. Equally problematic would be that the government would need to regulate what all these beliefs are so as to prevent new beliefs from springing up to get around laws. The government would then have to work out ways of working out if someone is legitimately part of a religion or not, this would be practically impossible. The ultimate effect would be that all laws affected by this legislation would be so easy to get around that they may as well not exist.  Instead the government should look to accommodate religious values within British law by making the necessary changes in specific instances rather that introducing a carte blanche to override the laws of the land. [1]  [1] Petre, Jonathan et al, ‘Bishop: Impossible to have sharia law in UK’, The Telegraph, 8 February 2008,