Neville, when a legitimate beis din with rabbonim not known to be maskilim or corrupters of halacha comes out with a psak, I’m not inclined to go against it – with some exceptions.
But regarding the Brooklyn eruv, a psak was made by the preeminent gadol hador with the support of the overwhelming majority of other gedolim behind him. Those who went against them, even though they were competent rabbonim, i believe were jn the wrong for doing so.
In England, there are basically two communities, as far as i know. The united synagogue and beis din, and the kadasia/charedi world. I know people from both sides, and they usually get along with each other. I rolled my eyes at what many of the chief rabbis have said and written, and some of it is outright apokorsus. No one’s defending giving LGBT abomination the tolerance that you sometimes hear from such rabbis, or their participation in Limmud together with kofrim, or other things.
But because I’m not very familiar with the british rabbinic scene, i don’t know the facts on the ground, nor do i know enough to have an opinion about the psak in question, as i would an issue in new york. When haskel lookstein was almost thrown out of the RCA for attending an interfaith ceremony when obama was inaugurated, he defended himself with some teshuva he found, and they decided not to get rid of him. At the time, i dismissed it as just MO nonsense, another casual sin that comes from their intermarriage with secularism.
But my reaction to an issue that I’m not familiar with is not to get involved until I know all the details, and i still don’t know enough to say that the london beis din was totally wrong in the psak they gave rav jakobovitz, and that he was wrong in doing what he did too. Gedolim respected rav jakobovitz, so I’m not quick to say he was wrong.