Farage Accused Of Using Christianity To Fuel Anti-Muslim Sentiment

Nigel Farage has been accused of misusing Christianity to “channel anti-Muslim feeling” by the former Archbishop of Canterbury.

Life peer Dr Rowan Williams told the New Humanist magazine there was an “inevitable scepticism these days about some claims to religious conviction”.

He said: “I suspect really that Farage and others want to channel anti-Muslim feeling, and it helps to have ‘we’re a Christian society’ to fling back. It gives a sort of ballast.”

Williams, who served as the senior bishop for the Church for England from 2002 to 2012, said he believed there were a lot of possible causes driving Christian nationalism in the UK, including “anxiety about migration, anti-Islamism”.

He said: “In France, that anxiety has a secular aspect, but the St George’s Cross still means something in the English imagination, which still has a Christian aspect.

“The second thing is the globalising of all political discourse. The message given at international Christian conservative gatherings is that self-respecting nationalist movements need a bit of theology injected into them.

“Ironically, for someone like Nigel Farage, it’s about trying to find a presentational strategy that allows him to be taken seriously outside England. He’s often not here, after all.

“Then again, if we’re looking for what animates Christian nationalism, I think it’s in part the very simple search for someone to blame.”

Farage posted on social media at Easter, saying: “The Christian values on which our country is built are something to be proud of.”

In his first election interview back in 2024, he said there were a “growing number of young people in this country who do not subscribe to British values, in fact loathe much of what we stand for”.

He later told Sky News he was talking about Muslims.

The Clacton MP also criticised an iftar – the meal eaten to break Muslims’ daily fast during Ramadan – in Trafalgar Square earlier this year, describing it as an “attempt to overtake, intimidate and dominate our way of life”.

Williams went on to criticise Tommy Robinson, the far-right activist whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon who claims to have taken Bible studies in jail and is now a Christian.

His Unite the Kingdom march in London in May saw demonstrators carry wooden crosses and chanting “Christ is king”.

Williams said: “There’s an inevitable scepticism these days about some claims to religious conviction, and I don’t want to give way to this. If Tommy Robinson is doing his best to lead a life of Christian discipleship, I’m very glad, but I would really want to ask him some awkward questions.

“I would ask him how attempting to lead a life of Christian discipleship squares with public rhetoric designed to produce hostility and violence.”

Reform UK has been approached for comment.

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