The Far Right says it wants to turn Britain into a Christian country. What it actually wants is to borrow Christianity’s furniture while throwing out its contents. Crosses without ethics. Carols without compassion. A flag where a creed ought to be.
You can see it in the farcical scenes now playing out across London. On one side, street drinking, racial slogans and flags calling for “Anglo-Saxon freedom”, waved by people who admit they have not really thought about what that means. On the other, a carefully stage-managed service in one of the City’s oldest churches, launching a “Christian Fellowship” for a party whose representatives complain about black and Asian faces appearing in adverts. This is not faith. It is marketing.
The Bishop of Kirkstall was right to warn that the far right has parked its tanks on the front lawn of the Church of England. This is not about theology. It is about definition. A US-imported Christian nationalism, MAGA with hymn sheets, is trying to recast Christianity as an ethnic badge and a culture-war weapon. The fingerprints are obvious. American money, American rhetoric, American paranoia about “free speech”, and the familiar move of calling Britain “North Korea” while soliciting donations at the end of the email. Can you spare a tenner? God apparently takes card.
The contradiction at the heart of this project is not subtle. Christianity, along with Judaism and Islam, teaches that humanity is one. Worth is not conferred by race, tribe or nationality, but by conduct. Jesus was not English. He was a Middle Eastern Jew. At Christmas, he was a refugee. None of this is radical. It is basic doctrine. Which is why the most theologically accurate voices in these scenes are the ones holding signs saying “Love thy neighbour” and “Jesus was a refugee”, even if the far right likes to sneer at them as woke slogans.
What gives the game away completely is how these movements treat actual Christians. A Baptist minister invites prayer and is told to fuck off. Clergy who challenge racism are dismissed as traitors. Institutional Christianity is tolerated only when it keeps quiet. The moment it insists on justice, mercy or equal dignity, it becomes the enemy. That tells you everything you need to know. This is not a religious revival. It is a parasitic use of religious language by people who dislike the religion as soon as it makes demands of them.
Reform UK and its orbiters talk about Britain being “fundamentally Christian”, but never bother to say what that means in practice. History? Yes. Law? Partly. Belief? Increasingly no. Instead, Christianity is reduced to heritage wallpaper, something to be defended against immigrants and Muslims, while its actual moral content is quietly ignored. That is why a party can claim to stand up for Christianity while promoting racial grievance. The faith is emptied out and replaced with a flag.
The irony is brutal. If Britain really were to take Christianity seriously, racism would be the first thing to go. So would the demonisation of migrants, the obsession with purity, and the endless hunt for internal enemies. A genuinely Christian politics would look unrecognisable to the people currently shouting loudest about Christian Britain.
The Church of England is right to resist being narrowed to one flag, whether that is the Union Flag, the St George’s Cross or the stars and stripes. Christianity cannot be reduced to a tribal identity without ceasing to be Christianity at all. The far right is not defending the faith. It is attempting to hollow it out and wear the shell. And the louder it shouts about God and country, the clearer that becomes.
It will be interesting to see Tommy going to church every Sunday for the rest of his life. I somehow think the 2nd Coming will happen first.
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