How much does faith influence British politics?

Comments by leaders including the PM mirror the general direction of the wider British public on matters of faith — according to the Pew Research Group, 40 per cent are not religious, up 11 points in a decade, the fastest increase in the rate of non-religiosity in Europe aside from Estonia.

By Rosa Prince

Kemi Badenoch, leader of the UK’s beleaguered opposition Conservative Party, no longer has faith in the existence of a higher power, she told the BBC in an interview last week.

Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer is also a non-believer, meaning that perhaps for the first time in British political history, both the nation’s premier and the official leader of the opposition have shared such an attitude toward God.

That mirrors the general direction of the wider British public on matters of faith — according to the Pew Research Group, 40 per cent are not religious, up 11 points in a decade, the fastest increase in the rate of non-religiosity in Europe aside from Estonia. Across Europe, just a quarter of residents are non-believers; worldwide the figure is 24.2 per cent, and in the US it’s 29.7 per cent.

It's hard to imagine a US president openly declaring themselves atheist, although there has been speculation about how sincerely some held their beliefs. Similarly, while most British prime ministers have identified as being part of the Church of England, I suspect several would have found common ground with David Cameron who in 2008 shortly before coming to power, described his Christianity as: "a bit like the reception for Magic FM in the Chilterns: it sort of comes and goes."

In his book God in Number 10, the nominative deterministic author Mark Vickers suggests only a handful of prime ministers have been fervent believers, including Harold Macmillan, Edward Heath and vicar’s daughter Theresa May.

The exceptions to the parade of Christians in Downing Street are Benjamin Disraeli, who was Jewish before converting to Anglican in 1817 at the age of 12, and Rishi Sunak, Britain’s first Hindu prime minister, who served from 2022 to 2024, which was a big deal at the time mainly because it really wasn’t a big deal — no one seemed to care at all.

So is it a big deal that Starmer and Badenoch are both avowed non-believers? (Former Tory leader, Liz Truss, described herself as “not a regular practising religious person,” but her chaotic six week reign as PM seems too brief to count.)

In British politics, faith may matter less than morality. Indeed, I’m deeply comfortable with someone in charge who isn’t necessarily religious, but I would like them to believe in the basic tenants of humanism: reason, the promotion of happiness, empathy and a concern for others. In short, I want them to believe in using their office for good.

In this, I take an opposing view to that of Tony Blair, whose belief in the importance of people having faith, any faith, carries with it an implied lack of confidence in the moral capacity of someone with none. His press secretary, Alastair Campbell, had to persuade him to keep quiet about his strong faith while he was in No. 10, feeling it wouldn’t go down well with voters. In reality, Blair very much did “do God,” famously declaring that the almighty would judge him over the invasion of Iraq. (He refused to confirm reports that he and George Bush had prayed together on the eve of the war.)

There is a question about whether left-wing parties are less comfortable with overt religiosity than those on the right. Blair’s decision to delay his conversion from Anglicanism to Catholicism until he left office, for example, contrasts starkly with Boris Johnson’s return to the church of his birth in 2021 while still prime minister.

Much of the reaction to Badenoch’s interview has focused on her reason for giving up on God. Having been a churchgoer when a child in Nigeria, Badenoch said her faith blew out “like a candle” when she was 18 in response to the grim case of the Austrian Josef Fritzl, who kept his daughter Elisabeth captive for 26 years, raping her and fathering several children with her.

But the Tory leader was quick to make clear that she remains a “cultural Christian,” adding, “the world that we have in the UK is very much built on many Christian values.” That may reassure her right-of-center base, as well as the growing small-C conservative evangelical movement, which while yet to become a force comparable to that in the US, is nonetheless increasingly potent on the right.

Church attendance, especially among the young, is on the rise, with the Bible Society charity and campaign group reporting attendance among Gen Z going up to 16 per cent from 4 per cent since 2018. Prayer meetings and bible classes are springing up across Westminster, and the annual Alliance for Responsible Citizens conference, where guests are warned about the need to protect the West’s “Judeo-Christian foundations,” has become an annual fixture. Among the leading figures who addressed the gathering this year: Reform Leader Nigel Farage, a Christian who stopped going to his local church because it was too “woke,” US House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson and Badenoch herself.

While populists on both sides of the Atlantic seem to be taking inspiration from combining traditional conservative values with religion, politicians with socially conservative Christian values from left-leaning parties have found a colder reception. Liberal Democrat Tim Farron was forced to quit as party leader in 2017 after coming under pressure over his views on gay sex. The SNP’s Kate Forbes lost her party’s leadership election two years ago amid criticism of her beliefs against abortion and same-sex marriage; this week she announced she would stand down from the Scottish Parliament. Meanwhile, Starmer’s lack of faith seems less of an issue for internet trolls than his occasional appearances at the synagogue his Jewish wife attends.

Of course, there are still some Christians in the Labour Party — Foreign Secretary David Lammy, for example, is an Anglo-Catholic former choral scholar who once attended mass with Vice President JD Vance in Washington. But the polarization between the believers and non-believers seems to mirror the polarization we see in our politics. Atheism and full-blooded faith are in; wishy washy “Magic FM” agnosticism is out.

But this unique moment in British political history at least shows that there’s as much that unites the mainstream parties as divides them. Starmer and Badenoch may disagree on policy, but both pass the morality test. It’s clear that they care about the people they seek to lead, that they serve out of altruism not vanity, that they do their best, every day, not because a higher power tells them to but because they’re compelled to help others. If only some of those who preach religion but rule without compassion would do the same.