Christianity and Reform UK.

Sun, 21 Dec at 09:23

In October 1843, moved by distressing parliamentary reports on the iniquities of child labour, Charles Dickens started a feverish bout of writing that concluded just six weeks later in A Christmas Carol. Published on December 19, it rapidly became a bestseller. And at the heart of the tale was Newman’s Court, in the City of London, the likely setting for Scrooge’s counting house.

This December, almost exactly 182 years on, just opposite Newman’s Court at St Michael’s Church, a group of MPs began to fuse their own political cause with the oldest Christmas story of them all.

There the Reform Christian Fellowship, a new special interest group of Nigel Farage’s party, was launched with a traditional service of nine lessons and carols. It was Once in Royal David’s City to start; Hark the Herald to finish. As voices rose to the rafters, it sounded like countless other services being held up and down the country this month.

The difference came in the message – not always of goodwill – coming from both congregation and the pulpit.

“I wonder how long before we’re only allowed a decaffeinated, coffee-flavoured oat milk version of the Nativity,” pondered Reverend Henry Eatock-Taylor. “Picture the scene,” he asked the congregation. “The education department has proposed a culturally sensitive rewrite. Avoid too many male speaking roles. Consider turning the stable into a sustainable eco-dome. If including wise people from the East, watch out for cultural appropriation.”

The difference came in the message – not always of goodwill – coming from both congregation and the pulpit.

“I wonder how long before we’re only allowed a decaffeinated, coffee-flavoured oat milk version of the Nativity,” pondered Reverend Henry Eatock-Taylor. “Picture the scene,” he asked the congregation. “The education department has proposed a culturally sensitive rewrite. Avoid too many male speaking roles. Consider turning the stable into a sustainable eco-dome. If including wise people from the East, watch out for cultural appropriation.”

Sarah Pochin, Reform MP for Runcorn and Helsby, read the second lesson from Matthew chapter one.

Pochin noted that “Reform will always stand up for Christianity in this country, we are fundamentally a Christian country and we are proud to be Christian”. Former Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe declared that the service was the “day when Reform and Christianity are merged”. When Widdecombe rose to give her reading from John, you could barely see her head over the top of the lectern.

“We started the Reform UK Christian fellowship to persuade people to vote Reform,” explained 24 year-old Lachlan Rurlander, who organised the service. A sentiment which, for an insurgent party aiming for power at the next election, marks a dramatic statement of intent. After all, it is only a little over 20 years ago that Tony Blair’s spin doctor Alastair Campbell famously shut down discussion of his boss’s faith with the infamous quip: “We don’t do God.”

Today, in British politics, God is back. And that changes everything.Christmas may be the obvious moment for Reform to launch its Christian fellowship, but its embrace of faith has deeper roots. The party’s leading Christian advocates, Danny Kruger MP and Tim Montgomerie, have long-held Christian convictions.Montgomerie co-founded the Conservative Christian Fellowship in the 1990s, which briefly thrived when Iain Duncan Smith led the party. He was also influential in the creation of the successful, Christian-oriented charity, the Centre for Social Justice, which has produced excellent work on welfare. But it was Kruger, a former Tory MP and a longstanding advocate for poorer communities, who made the explicit link between faith and politics when he rose to his feet on a summer’s afternoon this year in a near empty Parliament chamber. Despite the absence of almost all his fellow MPs, his words proved electrifying when circulated on social media and beyond. “Our democracy is founded on Christian faith,” he said. “The Jewish and Christian God is a God of nations… England was founded and created consciously on the basis of the Bible and the story of the Hebrew people… Ugly and aggressive new threats are now arising, because we have found that in the absence of the Christian God, we do not have pluralism and tolerance.

“All politics is religious,” he noted, dismissing the queasiness about faith that has long persisted in British politics. “And in abandoning one religion we simply create a space for others to move into.” He then called for a Christian revival in Britain and for Christianity to return to what he termed the “public square”.

Today, in British politics, God is back. And that changes everything.

For many years, advocating such a return might have seemed unwise for a politician seeking high office. Today, however, there is political opportunity in advocating Christian revival in this country.Why?Well, one clear reason is that Left-wing activists have all but chased Christianity out of their movement.While there are a small number of politicians on the Left who self-define as Christians, the suggestion that Christianity is incompatible with diversity and women’s rights has forced many progressive politicians to keep their mouths firmly shut on religious matters.                                                                                                               Think about how Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron was hounded by Left-wingers (including in his own party) for his religious belief, or how the SNP leadership candidate Kate Forbes faced ferocious criticism and scrutiny of her own deeply-held faith. And it wasn’t so long ago that Labour’s Ruth Kelly, a devout Catholic, faced hostile questions about whether she could credibly lead a health service which obviously routinely offered abortion services.

Then there is the American example. Inevitably, as Christianity has become key to differentiating conservative movements from the progressive Left, it is the Trump White House and Make America Great Again movement that has shown how far it can be taken.

True, American politicians have always been more comfortable talking about religion than their British counterparts. There, Catholic politicians, for example, openly wear ashes on their foreheads on Ash Wednesday. Where British politicians worry that talking about religion will alienate voters, Americans have no trouble professing “In God we trust”. Since the 1990s, Christian political activists have been an integral part of the Republican Party machine. They played a particularly high-profile role in George W Bush’s movement.

For many years, advocating such a return might have seemed unwise for a politician seeking high office. Today, however, there is political opportunity in advocating Christian revival in this country.

Why?

Well, one clear reason is that Left-wing activists have all but chased Christianity out of their movement.

While there are a small number of politicians on the Left who self-define as Christians, the suggestion that Christianity is incompatible with diversity and women’s rights has forced many progressive politicians to keep their mouths firmly shut on religious matters.

Think about how Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron was hounded by Left-wingers (including in his own party) for his religious belief, or how the SNP leadership candidate Kate Forbes faced ferocious criticism and scrutiny of her own deeply-held faith. And it wasn’t so long ago that Labour’s Ruth Kelly, a devout Catholic, faced hostile questions about whether she could credibly lead a health service which obviously routinely offered abortion services.

Then there is the American example. Inevitably, as Christianity has become key to differentiating conservative movements from the progressive Left, it is the Trump White House and Make America Great Again movement that has shown how far it can be taken.

True, American politicians have always been more comfortable talking about religion than their British counterparts. There, Catholic politicians, for example, openly wear ashes on their foreheads on Ash Wednesday. Where British politicians worry that talking about religion will alienate voters, Americans have no trouble professing “In God we trust”. Since the 1990s, Christian political activists have been an integral part of the Republican Party machine. They played a particularly high-profile role in George W Bush’s movement.

Marco Rubio appeared on Fox News on Ash Wednesday with a cross on his forehead Credit: Fox News

But political Christianity has taken on ever greater significance recently, notably since Trump’s second coming. In November, for example, the American president declared that if Nigeria didn’t prevent the killing of Christians there, he might send in US troops “guns-a-blazing” to protect them. Trump’s secretary of war, Pete Hegseth, uses his own body to declare the total fusion of politics, arms and faith, criss-crossing his torso with tattoos that leave little doubt that, in his view, the fate and foreign policy of the American nation is intimately bound up with the Christian faith.

His chest features a large depiction of the Jerusalem cross – a square cross with a smaller square cross in each of the four quadrants, also known as the Crusader’s cross. Hegseth also has the words “Deus Vult” on his arm (Latin for “God wills it”). Another cross is accompanied by a sword, apparently referring to the Biblical verse (Matthew 10:34): “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

DT.