By Andrew Bradley
A Hindu, an atheist, and an Anglican walk into a polling booth.
It could be the start of a joke, but when it comes to the religious beliefs of the leaders of the top three UK political parties, this is the choice facing voters at the general election in the UK next week.
The Hindu, prime minister Rishi Sunak, Conservative. The “pro-faith atheist”, Sir Keir Starmer, whose wife is Jewish and whose family attend London’s Liberal Jewish Synagogue, eating challah “pretty much every week”, Labour. And the Anglican, Sir Ed Davey, Liberal Democrat.
Meanwhile, Nigel Farage, Reform UK’s frontman, recently announced that he has stopped attending church, blaming the Church of England’s “surrender” to the “woke agenda”, locking horns with the charismatic Bishop of Dover Rose Hudson-Wilkin on a spirited edition of BBC Question Time at the start of the campaign.
In Scotland, the first minister John Swinney, an elder in the Church of Scotland, which now celebrates same-sex marriages, has spoken of his “deep Christian faith”. His deputy, Kate Forbes, has come under fire for her membership of the more conservative Free Church of Scotland (having previously attended Anglican, Pentecostal, Presbyterian churches as well as the Church of North India, the country in which she was raised). The Wee Frees vigorously oppose same-sex marriages.
Humza Yousaf, the previous first minister, proudly claimed the title of “the first Muslim leader of a western country”, while the leader of the Scottish Labour Party, Anas Sarwar, is the son of the first Muslim MP in the UK.
Meanwhile, Carla Denyer, the pansexual vegan co-leader of the Green Party describes herself as a “nontheist Quaker”.
As for Labour, shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves, shadow foreign secretary David Lammy and shadow health secretary Wes Streeting, are all church going Christians who have spoken openly about their Christian faith. And the election is likely to see the return of the Presbyterian power house which is the Douglas Alexander dynasty.
And while Keir Starmer has confirmed he does not believe in God, he does believe in the power of faith.
Does this mark a signifcant change from the days when Alastair Campbell infamously declared: “We don’t do God”?
It is interesting to reflect that at the 2005 general election, the three main party leaders -Tony Blair, Iain Duncan Smith and the much-missed Charlie Kennedy – were either openly or soon-to-be openly Roman Catholic.
David Cameron may have once memorably likened his faith to “the patchy reception of Magic FM in the Chilterns”, but he also said “I’ve a sort of fairly classic Church of England faith, a faith that grows hotter and colder by moments.”
Boris Johnson, who was Britain’s first Catholic prime minister, could be said to embody a smorgasbord of Muslim, Jewish and Christian heritage.
Muslim News reports that there were 15 Muslim MPs until the last parliament was dissolved, as well as the mayor of London Sadiq Khan. Sajid Javid, the former chancellor of the exchequer, had an Islamic upbringing, but does not currently subscribe to any religion.
There are seven Sikh peers and were two Sikh MPs in the last parliament. Labour’s Tan Dhesi became the UK’s first MP to wear a turban in 2017.
In recent years we have had a Buddhist home secretary in Tory Suella Braverman, who took her oath of office on the Buddhist Dhammapada.
Priti Patel, her predecessor as home secretary, was raised in a Hindu household and it was symbolic that Rishi Sunak became Britain’s first Hindu prime minister in 2022 on Diwali, the festival of lights celebrated by Hindus, Sikhs and Jains across the world. Rishi, I am told, means seer or sage.
A multifaith dimension was sensitively added to the coronation of King Charles III by selecting peers of different faiths to be present in Westminster Abbey.
Rehman Chishti, the government’s special envoy for freedom of religion and belief (2019-20), took his oath on the Quran, but he also had the Bible and Jewish Torah at hand to show his “respect for all faiths”.
A disproportionate number of politicians — and indeed prime ministers — have been the children of clergy, including Theresa May, the daughter of a Church of England vicar; Gordon Brown, a son of the manse.
Margaret Thatcher’s father was a Methodist lay preacher. As the “Son of a Preacher Man” myself, this political pattern intrigues me.
I am also the proud descendent of the President of the Peace Society Joseph Pease, who was the first Quaker permitted to take his seat in the House of Commons in 1833. As he refused to take the oath, he was allowed to affirm instead.
Last year I had the honour of becoming godfather to a magnificent Anglo-Iranian godson, in a moving ceremony at an ancient church in the English countryside, surrounded by sheep. A truly Anglican occasion, with a baptismal font splash of Persian glamour.
I profoundly hope that the country, and indeed the world, in which my godson and his generation will grow up in, is one of acceptance, respect and collaboration between cultures, religions and traditions. Long may it last!
Andrew Bradley is a freelance British journalist
