Reform UK: The Best Option for British Christians

'Farage insists that “We are a Christian country with a Christian constitution and a Christian monarch,” and “I absolutely believe in Christian values that have made this country great.”'

From Crisis

By James Baresel

Concerning the most significant political issues of the present which are absolute rather than prudential, Reform UK is about as solid as a contemporary political party is likely to be.

After countless Catholic thinkers have spent the past several decades writing innumerable articles explaining how the Church’s doctrine is at odds with what Sir Roger Scruton called the injustice of “social justice” and consistently been ignored, it can seem mere regurgitated routine for that injustice to be, yet again, equated with Catholic teaching in a recent Catholic Herald article titled “The new Britain: UK prepares for a landmark election.” 

But it is rather unique in the Anglophone world to see one of its better Catholic periodicals use “social justice” to suggest that its country’s most tolerable option might be a political party so extreme that it wishes to ban therapeutic practices which aid “transgender” individuals to accept their biological sex and is led by an atheist.

Were the coming British elections merely a contest between the Labour Party headed by Sir Keir Starmer and a Conservative Party headed by Hindu Rishi Sunak and containing a notable minority of devout Christians with Christian views on the major political issues of the day, endorsing the former would be sufficiently bizarre. But it is truly bizarre at a time when a political party that has just attained the status of the second most popular in Britain is committed to about as Christian an agenda as is viable in contemporary Europe and led by an Anglican who values traditional Christianity.

I am, of course, referring to Nigel Farage and his Reform UK party.

Farage himself was, until recently, a practicing if not particularly devout member of the Church of England, though he announced as recently as March of this year that he has stopped attending its services due to the embrace of woke ideology among its clergy. Despite that disillusionment, Farage insists that “We are a Christian country with a Christian constitution and a Christian monarch,” and “I absolutely believe in Christian values that have made this country great.” 
He has even argued that British immigration policy should favor Christians over non-Christians—a rather commonsense implication of the belief in Christian society found not only in Catholic doctrine but in the traditional beliefs of both Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism. That border control and prudence in allowing migration are not just permitted by but required by Christian belief has itself been demonstrated so often that I will not belabor the point.

Concerning the most significant political issues of the present which are absolute rather than prudential—free speech for Christians, marriage, tolerance of homosexual relationships and transgenderism—Reform UK is about as solid as a contemporary political party is likely to be.

On the “positive side,” it advocates income tax policies which would be more favorable to married couples than unmarried cohabiting ones (who, perhaps unintentionally, are favored by existing law) and policies making it easier for one parent (either mother or father) to remain at home with their children while the other earns a living.

In terms of combating evils, Reform UK is firmly opposed to transgender ideology and will at least favor the right of individuals to take public stands against homosexual behavior and of nations to legally recognize only natural unions between men and women. Both the United Kingdom Independence Party (to which Reform UK is a de facto successor, despite the continued existence of the older party) and the Traditional Unionist Voice party (Reform UK’s affiliate in Northern Ireland) have firmly opposed “homosexual marriage.” While Reform UK is not now actively working for a reversal of these laws, its lack of active support for the homosexual agenda is notable—as is its profession of opposition to woke ideology.

Other commonsense policies embraced by Farage’s party include cutting government funding of educational institutions that limit free speech, promotion of its country’s cultural heritage, favoring small businesses, and enforcing law and order.

Those who are concerned primarily for the working class will be reassured to know that Reform UK intends to raise the minimum annual income for which income tax is paid, improve the British pension system (particularly for mine workers), and pursue policies to make housing more affordable.

Catholics throughout the Western world are increasingly ignoring the voting recommendations of bishops wedded to a “social justice” ideology largely developed by the very same prelates, priests, thinkers, and activists who variously tolerate, implicitly accept, or actively favor sexual immorality, female ordination, liturgical abuses and numerous other evils—turning instead to such parties as the Brothers of Italy, Poland’s Law and Justice Party, and France’s National Rally.

For as reputable a periodical as Catholic Herald to endorse a diametrically opposed move—to speak so favorably of a party antagonistically opposed to the most basic Catholic, Christian, and natural principles concerning human nature and morality—is more than slightly disturbing.