Holly-Anna Petersen highlights how despite their occasional appeal for the votes of Christians, Reform are about as anti-Christian as they come, in an article for Premier Christianity.
Reform UK is using explicitly Christian language in an attempt to win Christian voters. For example, in a recent conference speech, Reform leader Nigel Farage spoke about “the Judeo-Christian culture” which “underpins everything that we are”. He also used terms like “Christian forgiveness” when defending colleagues embroiled in scandal. These are not accidental flourishes; they are targeted signals designed to expand the party’s Christian support base.
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It uses Christian-coded language while promoting policies that dehumanise people fleeing persecution.
But remember one of the most famous and important messages of Christianity:
When Jesus was asked which commandment mattered most, he said: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul…and love your neighbour as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39).
He distilled the Christian faith to its essential moral core: love of God, and love of neighbour.
Reform does not want us to love our neighbours. Quite the opposite. They campaign on hate.
So, when a political movement sprinkles Christian jargon on top while urging us to fear our neighbour, resent the stranger or reject the vulnerable, we should find it insulting rather than appealing. It suggests Christians will abandon the core imperatives Jesus gave us the moment someone utters a few familiar words. It assumes our convictions are shallow.
But this is not what Christianity is about. As Jesus warned in Matthew 16:26: “What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?”
At the end of the day, they may try to leverage the language of faith in a greedy attempt to obtain the votes of people who otherwise would bear them no truck. But if they succeed in doing so, the country will likely become less, not more, culturally Christian.
Reform may claim they want to defend Britain as a Christian nation. Yet the opposite is true. People become less Christ-like when they trade hospitality for hostility, solidarity for scapegoating, and love for fear.
When we close our doors to the stranger, we are closing our hearts to our faith. This is the path by which Britain stops being a Christian country.