When Reform UK’s Zia Yusuf told the Times last week that Christianity was “core to the history and the DNA of the country”, you might think he was merely stating the obvious. In fact, this was the latest and strongest sign yet of the worrying rise of Christian nationalism in British politics. Yusuf was not just describing where the country has come from, he was prescribing where it ought to go.
“Regardless of whether somebody is of faith or not, or which faith they follow, I think the Christian heritage of this country is very important and protecting our heritage and our culture is important, otherwise the country is not a country, it’s just an economic zone," he said.
For years, Christian nationalism has been a largely American phenomenon. Recently it has started to emerge in the UK, however, with influential backing. In July 2025, the now Reform MP Danny Kruger gave a speech in the Commons in which he said that “a new restoration is needed now, with a revival of the faith, a recovery of a Christian politics and a re-founding of this nation on the teachings that Alfred made the basis of the common law of England all those centuries ago.”
The worldview typified by Kruger gets an airing on media owned, or co-owned, by the hedge fund manager Paul Marshall—UnHerd, The Spectator, and the TV channel GB News. Marshall himself has argued that “traditional British liberalism rests on the Judeo-Christian understanding that we are all, in moral terms, fallen creatures.”
Most worryingly, there is evidence that the far right has adopted Christian nationalist rhetoric. Tommy Robinson’s “festival of free speech” in September 2025 (which descended into violence) is one example. Banners and speeches portrayed the UK as a Christian country at risk from Muslim immigrants and secular humanists.
The UK has long ceased to be a majority Christian country. The most recent available British Social Attitudes Survey data show that 53 per cent of the population have no religion, with 37 per cent Christian and 9 per cent other religions. Most accept this, but an increasingly vocal minority want the UK to retain its Christian character, even if it has lost its Christian majority.
But that would be a perilous mistake. Pursuing Christian nationalism is at odds with and threatens the principle of religious pluralism which is at the heart of all liberal democracies. In France such pluralism has been enshrined in law since 1905, but even in the UK, with its established church, headed by the monarch, the assumption of religious pluralism has been widely accepted for generations. The monarch has the title “defender of the faith” but long before his accession to the throne, the then Prince Charles made it clear his role would be to defend all faiths (and, we hope, those who have none).
Christian nationalists say that they support religious freedom, but to privilege one religion over another threatens the essential equality of all citizens. It is ironic that it is often the same people who criticise certain Islamic countries for being theocracies who want to give elevated status to one church and its values.
Religious liberty has been hard-won but could much more easily be lost. The pilgrim fathers left for the Americas largely to escape religious persecution. Heretics were regularly put to death, often in grisly fashion, as late as the 17th century. In 1697, Thomas Aikenhead was the last person in the UK executed for blasphemy.
Advocates of Christian nationalism often claim that our nation was built on Christian values and that if its religious foundations are removed it is doomed to collapse. Even secularism, on their reading, is an essentially Christian notion. Kruger claimed that “the idea of a secular space is a Christian concept that is meaningful only in a Christian world.”
This argument not only confuses origins and justification. It also tells a highly selective story of what shaped the western world. Of course, Christianity has played a major role in our moral and cultural development. But so has the philosophy of the classical world, which increasingly moved centre-stage from the Renaissance on. Christianity itself would not be what it is without the strong influence of Platonic and Aristotelian thought. And our democratic and legal institutions have their origins in the decision-making and dispute-settlement practices of Germanic and Nordic pagans.
A more serious argument comes from conservative thinkers such as Edmund Burke and Michael Oakeshott, who argued for the importance of tradition and against the hubris of overthrowing established practices and institutions. But the point of traditions is that they gradually evolve as society learns from its experiences. Our tradition has become one of diversity and it would be very un-conservative to try to undo centuries of gradual change and re-establish a Christian state.
Christianity played its part in the development of liberal values. Still, few today need to appeal to religion to defend them. Instead, we base our most widely shared values on an understanding that human beings are essentially the same, whatever their skin colour, sexuality or gender; and that liberty and justice are more conducive to human flourishing than tyranny and dictatorship. These principles are evident to all, whether or not they believe they have a divine source.
As for fears of a collapse of morality, some of the most peaceful, pro-social countries in the world have low levels of religiosity, while some of the most violent are religious. Homicide rates in the Czech Republic, where a little over one in five say they feel religious, are more than seven times lower than they are in the United States, where nearly 70 per cent say they feel religious.
Most worryingly, many of the values promoted by Christian nationalists are not widely shared, nor even, arguably, very Christian. Christian nationalism is a largely evangelical phenomenon, with an emphasis on traditional family values. Many evangelicals display hostility to any form of sexual or family life other than monogamous heterosexuality. It would be easier to dismiss as harmless if it focused more on compassion for the poor and sick, as Jesus did, and less on sexual behaviour, which Jesus hardly talked about.
Our beef is not with Christianity, or any religion for that matter. We don’t want to cancel Easter or deny the UK’s Christian heritage. We know that most Christians are not Christian nationalists, and many are as appalled by it as we are. Support for state neutrality in matters of fundamental belief has and should continue to come from all those who believe in an open, tolerant society, of all faiths and none.
