by Tim Wyatt
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The main political parties in the 2019 UK General Election have produced manifestos outlining their policies, promises and plans if they are elected. These include commitments around religion:
- Implement the Bishop of Truro’s review into how the Foreign Office tackles persecution of people for their faith overseas.
- Protect people from attack or harassment based on their religion (or gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity or disability).
- Increase security funding for places of worship.
- Create a specific aggravated criminal offence of attacking a place of worship.
- Review funding for security to places of worship.
- Maintain funding to the Community Security Trust, which protects Jewish institutions.
- Uphold the rights of the Muslim minority in Sri Lanka via the UN and the Commonwealth.
- In its race and faith manifesto Labour pledges to:
- Appoint a special envoy for freedom of religion and belief and train all home and overseas Foreign Office staff in religious literacy.
- Protect rights for religious minorities to express their faith in their dress and the food they eat.
- Address the “gross under-reporting of Sikh hate crime”.
- Challenge antisemitism and Islamophobia in other European governments.
- Ensure school curriculums must cover antisemitism, Islamophobia and continue to teach Holocaust history.
- Improve social care services and coroners’ proceedings so that they are more “religiously sensitive”, such as providing for quick autopsies to allow for the speedy burials required by some faith groups.
- Investigate why there are a disproportionate number of Muslim men in prison.
- Protect freedom of religion and belief worldwide and appoint an ambassador-rank “champion of freedom of belief”.
- Fund security measures at places of worship, schools and community buildings vulnerable to hate crime.
- Condemn inflammatory rhetoric around antisemitism or Islamophobia by those in public life.
- Repeal the law which prevents the Church of England and the Church in Wales from conducting same-sex weddings.
- Replace the counter-terrorism programme Prevent with a new programme that is less antagonistic to minorities.
- Rewrite school curriculums to tackle prejudice and antisemitism, with a new focus on role models from various religions.
- Defend the right to express faith in public through clothing, food and religious observance.
- Defend the safety of places of worship.
- Accept the definitions of antisemitism and Islamophobia, and challenge all prejudice and bigotry.
No mention of religion.
No mention of religion in “contract”.
