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Unlike their US counterparts, British leaders are taught to wear their faith lightly. Tony Blair, a deeply committed Christian, was reminded by a leading aide that “we don’t do God”. David Cameron likened his belief to a rural radio station’s signal — “it comes and goes”. England may have an established church but its tone is typically understated.
This approach makes sense. British voters evince little enthusiasm for the Bible-bashers of America’s religious right. At the last census less than half the population of England and Wales described themselves as Christian while those with no religion rose from a quarter to 37 per cent. In Scotland that figure is 51 per cent. Tellingly, most opponents of the assisted dying bill argue in terms of public safety, not sanctity of life.
But now Britain has a leading political party seemingly ready to “do God”. For the two men Nigel Farage has chosen to lead policy development in Reform UK, James Orr, a Cambridge theologian, and Danny Kruger, the recently defected Tory MP, are outspoken committed Christians who want to put faith back at the centre of political debate.
Well-funded movements like NatCons and Arc (the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship) have for some years now been promoting Christian, or sometimes Judeo-Christian, values. Orr has been a prime mover in these groups, which promote the natalist social conservatism of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and the writings of Jordan Peterson.
What has changed is that in Reform they have now found a major outlet and possible party of power. And this is no gentle Anglicanism. Indeed Orr dismisses the Church of England as “the Labour Party at prayer”. The faith this movement projects is forceful social conservatism.
Grievance is central to this agenda. Christian values are depicted not as quietly embedded but under siege from immigration, multiculturalism and Islam. They note the growing political assertiveness of Islam and the rise of independent Muslim MPs. Reform is not the only force bringing overt religion into British politics. Orr tweeted: “Import the Arab World; become the Arab World.” Party leaders argue that while minority faiths are cosseted, Christians are unprotected. Sadiq Khan, the London mayor, is attacked for prioritising minority faith festivals. Reform this week announced plans to prevent disused churches being turned into mosques.
But for Kruger and Orr this is bigger than immigration. It is a larger crusade, a true culture war between Christian values and the new religion of the liberal, secular individualism they blame for the atomisation of society, falling birth rates, the pornification of sex and the erosion of Britain’s cultural values and social glue. Some of this message will resonate, though critiques are simpler than solutions.
The question is how far an ambitious political party dares to allow overt religiosity into its policymaking in an increasingly secular society. While Reform frets about immigration and Islam, the true threat to Christianity in Britain is atheism. Churches would in fact be even emptier but for the influx of African evangelical Christians.
Farage is always cautious, so the first steps will be around family policy. Obsessed by falling birth rates, Reform will champion policies to encourage childbirth, primarily through tax allowances to support families. You can argue about the efficacy of tax incentives but many parents will welcome this. Reform would also abolish the Equality Act and seek to repopulate the leadership of major institutions with people of more socially conservative values.
The fear for many women is that this is really an agenda to return them to traditional domestic roles, including moves to reopen settled social policies, notably abortion. Farage himself has already said the current limit of 24 weeks is “ludicrous”, though it would remain a free vote issue. Reform would deny it seeks to restore old gender roles. Kruger depicts his direction as designed to send clearer signals of social good, encouraging virtue rather than going back to the 1950s.
Yet much of this is clearly backward-looking. In his book, Kruger writes disapprovingly of universities coaxing school-leavers away from their family, to be schooled in liberal values and “cleansed of their provincial mores”. There is similar suspicion of global companies, blamed for ruining local business, undermining farming and so weakening communities.
The temptation is to not take this too seriously, to believe that liberal secularism and understated Christianity will keep a lid on efforts to unwind years of modernity, liberalism and individualism. The UK is not the US.
Perhaps the faith actors will not overplay their hand and can gently pull other parties on to their territory. Wise heads know that an excess of zeal is off-putting.
But Reform does not seek to win round those who are most offended by it. In the UK’s current fragmented electoral politics, a third of voters could be enough to win. By framing this as a culture war and antidote to social decay in a “broken” Britain, the religious right is not looking for easy compromises.
Either way, it is clear that Britain’s political evangelicals have found a credible vehicle from which to push Christian ideas in the mainstream. The radical right has been consistently underestimated in Britain and the west. It would be careless to assume this road must lead nowhere.