Two Conservative MPs (now parliamentary candidates) who’ve been vocal in defending the role of orthodox Christian faith in public life would lose their seats within the General Election on July 4 if current opinion polls prove right.
Nick Fletcher won the South Yorkshire constituency of the Don Valley (now renamed Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme) for the Conservatives from Labour within the 2019 General Election.
Fletcher spoke with alarm out in regards to the “attack on Christianity” in response to a report published this week by Voice for Justice UK (VfJ) on how LGBT ideology is marginalising orthodox Christians.Â
He said: “Christianity is the cornerstone for therefore most of the values we take with no consideration. If it weren’t for Christianity our tolerance, our diversity, freedom of conscience and love for our neighbour would grow to be a thing of the past.
“This report must be circulated widely amongst those working in human resources, those answerable for education, in addition to employers, Church leaders, civil servants and people answerable for policy making.
“We all have to wake as much as the attack on Christianity in our society, before it turns into something much more sinister. This report is an important step in sounding the alarm.”
The VfJ survey of 1,562 UK Christians about their experiences of intolerance or discrimination identified: “While there must be no hierarchy within the list of protected characteristics (under the Equality Act 2010), this appears to be contradicted by the fact. It appears that there’s a hierarchy of protected characteristics, with all things LGBT+ at the highest and ethnicity barely below that.”
Unfortunately, Fletcher’s orthodox Christian voice can be lost to the House of Commons if the ‘Red Wall’ seats within the North of England, won by the Conservatives in 2019, revert to Labour on July 4.
The Reform UK website says the party is fielding a candidate in Doncaster East. Reform may claim it can take votes from Labour but the fact is that in Fletcher’s constituency it will attract disillusioned 2019 Conservative voters.
The other Christian ‘Red Wall’ MP looking vulnerable is Miriam Cates, who won the South Yorkshire seat of Stocksbridge and Penistone for the Conservatives from Labour in 2019. The Reform website says the candidate in her constituency is to be arranged.
In May 2023 the Guardian newspaper ran a profile of Cates which highlighted her Christian faith: “Cates met her husband at their church in Sheffield and sits on parliament’s ecclesiastical committee, which scrutinises the Church of England…She has been likened to Kate Forbes – the SNP politician who ran for the party leadership but whose fervent religious views were viewed as outdated by most of her party.”
The paper said: “When Forbes got here under fire, Cates called her ‘incredibly brave’. The Tory MP also cited Tim Farron, the previous Liberal Democrat leader who was criticised for suggesting gay sex was a sin, in an interview with the Christian Institute.”
It quoted her telling the CI: “I get so many emails from Christians and lots of others thanking me for taking a stand on these items and that does really keep you going.”
Reform leader Nigel Farage has on many occasions expressed his respect for the way in which by which Christianity has shaped our country. On the BBC’s ‘Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg’ political programme on June 9 he invoked “Christian forgiveness” when asked in regards to the criminal past of a Reform candidate. “There is a thing called Christian forgiveness. If people get convicted of something or do something flawed, well, they’ve one other likelihood in life to go on and prove themselves,” he said.
Cates is defending a majority from 2019 of seven,210 and Fletcher 3,630. Though their seats would fall to Labour with none help from Reform if the polls prove true, the countercultural Christian voices of those two MPs would arguably stand a greater likelihood of continuous to be heard in Parliament if their party had had the sense to form an electoral pact with Farage.
Julian Mann is a former Church of England vicar, now an evangelical journalist based in Lancashire.
