A recent Catholic Herald piece on “Britain’s new wars of religion” touted the return of politicians very much “doing God.” This shift is fuelled in part by immigration and the flow of religious influence from overseas, bringing fundamentalism, sectarian divisions, and the ripple effects of foreign conflicts onto our own shores – making religion in public life harder than ever to ignore.
The growing entanglement of religion and politics – both on the far right and among Islamist-leaning groups – does not bode well. From Tommy Robinson’s “Unite the Kingdom” rally and UKIP’s Christian nationalist “crusade“, to counter-protests in Whitechapel where masked Muslim men vowed to “defend their community” and prayed In the street, religion is being wielded as a political weapon, threatening social cohesion and the secular foundations of stable democracy.
Whether it’s Christian grifters claiming “Christian nationalism is here and Christ is indeed King”, or Islamist groups chanting “Zionist scum, off our streets” and other slogans asserting dominance in public spaces, these rallies are not merely expressions of belief. They are shows of strength designed to intimidate others and mobilise political support under the banner of religion. When faith becomes a badge of political identity, division inevitably follows.
Christian nationalism and Islamism are two sides of the same coin. Both must be confronted. The rise of Christian nationalism can be seen as a reaction to the growing visibility of Islam and some Muslim MPs injecting sectarianism into politics and calling for blasphemy laws, threatening the freedom of expression that underpins an open society. Any ideology that seeks to impose itself on the state is a direct challenge to secular democracy and equal citizenship.
The UK is particularly vulnerable because it maintains an established church and state-funded faith-based education. Religious privilege translates into political leverage, giving religious leaders a platform to shape policy in ways other democracies can resist more easily. Rather than being a bulwark against fundamentalism, the Church of England opens the door to it.
The stakes are high. With parties increasingly willing to sacrifice secular principles to court religious voters, and faith communities mobilising politically, secularism needs to be assertive. We face a choice. We can either allow religion to be weaponised for political ends, or we can defend the secular principles that underpin democracy: equality before the law, freedom of conscience, and the separation of religion and state.
Secularism isn’t the absence of belief; it’s a framework for fairness that allows religions to coexist without dominating public life. Defending it will be crucial to ensuring that no faith – Christian, Muslim, or otherwise – claims supremacy over the rights of others. The future of British democracy and social cohesion depends on it.