The case for another UKIP Christian Manifesto.
Nigel
Farage caused a storm a couple of years ago when, against the prevailing
political zeitgeist as always, he called for Britain to accept only Christian
refugees from Syria. “They are a seriously persecuted minority… under attack on
all sides… as Islamist elements seek to purge the (Middle East) of
Christianity”, he
argued.
Then,
after Muslim migrants from north Africa threw Christian fellow migrants out of their
boat to drown in the
Mediterranean, he proposed that Europe should accept only Christian African
refugees“as they have almost nowhere else to
go”.
So it was welcome when UKIP deputy leader Peter Whittle recently weighed in too. “There needs to be a prioritisation of Christian refugees from Syria,” he contended ten days ago. He was echoing the concern of renegade former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey, that the UK government is “institutionally biased” against Christian refugees and “politically-correct” officials are discriminating against Christian Syrians in the UK’s refugee programme.
The political class is at best embarrassed by Christianity as the nation’s traditional religion, and at worst actively hostile. It prefers to support the religions brought into Britain post-war by immigrant communities, especially from South Asia. Remember Boris Johnson fatuously proposing that we should all fast for a day during Ramadan and then break our fast at the local mosque? I don’t recall him ever asking us all to pray during Lent and visit the local church on Sunday.
And
when the then director-general of the BBC was accused by Ben Elton of letting
Vicar jokes pass but not Imam jokes, Mark Thompson admitted that the public
service broadcaster – flagship of Britain’s global soft-power with a world-wide
audience, but also at the heart of British culture and paid for by you and me –
does give special treatment to
Islam but not Christianity
“because Muslims are from a religious minority and… often from ethnic
minorities”. It was classic liberal twaddle that patronisingly plays the victim
card on behalf of the world’s second largest and most aggressive religion, and
flagrantly repudiates the Beeb’s own claims to neutrality and
impartiality.
UKIP
is never afraid to stand alone or challenge conventional wisdom, so it is both
bold and typical of the party that it insists on standing up for the nation’s
traditional religion against the prejudiced political establishment. Neither is
it surprising that UKIP broke new ground at the May 2015 general election and
was the first and only national party to publish a separate Christian
manifesto.
Nigel
Farage contended in his foreword to the manifesto – it was entitled Valuing
Our Christian Heritage – that:
“we need a much more muscular defence of our Christian heritage and our Christian Constitution. Ours is fundamentally a Christian nation… UKIP is the only political party… that still cherishes our Judeo-Christian heritage.”
The
manifesto contained common-sense stuff. It recognised that children are best
brought up “within safe, secure, happy families”; said that “reasonable
accommodation” should be made legally for those in the workplace who cannot
accept same-sex marriage; and backed faith schools “provided they are open to
the whole community, uphold British values, do not discriminate against any
section of society and meet required educational standards”.
UKIP
is a secular party and, as far as I know, neither Nigel Farage nor Peter Whittle
are regular church-goers let alone committed Christians. But they, and UKIP’s
2015 Christian manifesto, acknowledge that Christianity has a particular place
in the culture of our society that Islam and other religions do not have. And,
as I haveargued elsewhere, UKIP is and should be a defender of
the Faith.
In
the name of multi-cultural tolerance and good inter-faith relations, liberal
Scottish clergy at Glasgow Cathedral recently invited a Muslim student to read
verses from the Quran during a service marking Christianity’s Feast of the
Epiphany. As a good Muslim and in honour of Allah no doubt, he read the key
Quranic verses which specifically deny Christianity’s central tenet – that Jesus
is the Son of God.
When
a courageous Church of England clergyman, the Revd Gavin Ashenden, objected
strongly to this denigration of Jesus within Christian worship, atheist
commentator Douglas Murray
memorably commenced an article proposing an award for the cleric
thus:
“Very occasionally — even in contemporary Britain — some good news arrives. No single piece of news has been more invigorating than the discovery that a member of the clergy of the Church of England has found a vertebra.”
In
the event Reverend Ashenden was forced to step down from his post as Chaplain to
the Queen for being controversial, so Murray finished his article with an
equally memorable conclusion:
“For the time-being, Revd Ashenden is on the retreating side. But in the long run he may not be. In a nation much in need of heroes, an Anglican Reverend has stepped forward, putting his sincere and serious beliefs ahead of the unserious and insincere pieties of our time. Everybody — secular or religious — has cause to feel enormous gratitude.”
UKIP
members – secular or religious – should be willing to support Britain’s
traditional religion. After all, Winston Churchill was a
disbeliever who reckoned
himself a
buttress of the church rather than a pillar, as “I support it from the
outside”.
UKIP
ought to continue its pioneering work and publish the party’s second Christian
manifesto in time for the June general
election.
