Christian candidates launch election campaign

Campaigners for the Christian Party and Christian Peoples Alliance have taken clean brooms to Westminster to underline their commitment to sweeping reforms to the political system.

At the weekend launch of their campaign bus, which will tour the London European electoral region, the two party leaders urged Christians and all people of goodwill to cast a vote for Christian integrity and truthfulness at the European elections on June 4.

For the first time ever in a UK election, there are candidates running on a Christian ticket across the United Kingdom.

Speaking at the launch, Christian Party leader the Rev George Hargreaves, who is top of the London Region EU List, said: "Christianity has been at the heart of our national life for centuries.

"Our Christian religion promoted the public values of modesty, self-restraint, integrity, honesty and service that made the 'Mother of Parliaments' a democratic model for the world.

"Our campaign is about bringing those values back into the heart of politics, in Europe and then next year in Westminster."

Councillor Alan Craig is Leader of the Christian Peoples Alliance, which is part of the wider family of Christian Democracy in Europe.

He said this election is an opportunity for the country to recognise the essential role that Christianity plays in shaping the national moral and political discourse.

"Half a century of corrosive and aggressive secularisation has created a selfish, superficial and materialistic culture amongst decision-makers and opinion-formers that is appropriately reflected in those we have elected to Parliament," he said.

"We can have a criminal investigation and a reform of the expenses system, we can replace the speaker and even call a General Election, but none of these will get to the core of the problem.

"Rather we need to recognise that the active marginalisation of Christianity has led directly to the current moral malaise and that it is only the renewal and reassertion of those values that offers any hope for the moral authority of our Parliament and the long term future of our democratic institutions."