A Reform government would be “far friendlier” to Christians in Britain because Nigel Farage “really believes it”, a key figure in the party has claimed.
James Orr, a philosopher, theologian and, more recently, Reform UK’s head of policy, made the comments during an interview with The Telegraph.
At once a dream of supporters and a nightmare of opponents, the prospect of a Nigel Farage premiership has become a very real one. For over a year Reform UK has dominated opinion polls and while support has declined in the last six months, the party maintains a strong lead over all of the other parties.
Farage has previously identified himself as a member of the Church of England, albeit one who is at odds with the church leadership and does not regularly attend church.
Orr said of Farage’s faith, “He’s got a kind of grounded Christianity … His fondness for Christianity, or Judeo-Christianity as he calls it, comes from a sense that it belongs to the nation that he loves.”
Pushing back, The Telegraph’s Tim Stanley, a Catholic, said this form of Christianity sounded like “English Shinto”, referring to the religious cult surrounding the Japanese Emperor.
The term “English Shinto” has been promoted and was possibly coined by the historian David Starkey. Starkey, an atheist who is also close to Farage and Reform, despite being a member of the Conservative Party, has spoken positively of the Church of England’s role as a national unifier.
In 2012 he told the Guardian that prior to Michael Ramsey becoming Archbishop of Canterbury in 1961, “the archbishops had been the high priests of English Shinto: in other words, the church's job was really just to [enable us to] worship the monarchy and, by extension, ourselves. That was sensible. But then it gets cluttered up with all this nonsense about Christianity."
Orr, whose wife is a vicar, described his own faith in similar terms that Farage has used in the past, saying of his Anglicanism, “[I’m] hanging on by my fingernails. Imperfectly practising. I practise when I can … It’s very difficult for me to go to church on a Sunday.”
Of Farage’s personal faith, Orr said, “I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to him about religion … but if you are a Christian, Reform is going to be far friendlier to you than the other parties.”
Farage, he said, is “not just giving lip service to it".
"He really believes it," Orr said, although he struggles with the “leftward, progressive turn that he identifies in the … leadership of the Church of England, which he deeply regrets”.
