Religion and politics

In his Easter message BNP chairman Nick Griffin stated that "After the General Election, all BNP leaflets will carry a Christian Cross to demonstrate our commitment to maintaining and preserving our Christian heritage as a nation" and he believes that "In the past too much emphasis has been placed on the ethnic aspect of our present national dilemma, whilst the longest running feature of our identity has been overlooked: the fact that our country has been held together and guided for millennia by our common, ancient religion: Christianity."

Now that the election's over I presume we'll see these new religious friendly leaflets appearing.

This conversion to Christianity by Mr Griffin is quite astonishing as I recall attending a meeting only a few years ago where Mr Griffin stated that he didn't believe in God.

Clearly then this is just a campaigning tactic but will it work?

Less than half of the British people believe in a God and 66% of the population have no actual connection to any religion or church. Between 1979 and 2005, half of all people who describe themselves as Christians stopped going to church on a Sunday. Religion in Britain has suffered an immense decline since the 1950s, and all indicators show a continued secularisation of British society in line with other European countries.

In a large poll in August 2006 of year 9 and 10 teenagers in Cornwall, only 19% said that they 'have a religious faith'. It seems certain that if these teenagers reflect the future (only 22% said they believe in God), religious affiliation is going to continue to drop. A wider mori poll commissioned by the British Library found that nearly half of teenagers in Britain are atheists (2007).

In a poll in 2003 only 17% of the population responded that religion was one of the most significant factors in their lives.(Mori poll results Aug 08-17 2003).
Only 33% of the British public consider that 'religion is important'.(stats compiled by the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, Feb 18 2003 )
Only 33% describe themselves as religious - 63% say they are not.(ICM Poll)

This all shows that rather than encouraging people to vote promoting religion will turn people off.

The BNP should stick to its roots of promoting traditional British values as these are important to people, religion is not.