On Saturday 5 September, hundreds of men in black, their faces covered by balaclavas, blocked the roads into Dover and surrounded the port for hours. Then on Sunday, they did the same in Portsmouth. Traffic stopped for miles. Coastguard vehicles were damaged. And as they did it, they chanted ‘Christ is King’.
They haven’t stopped. In the days since, angry men have picketed a newspaper’s offices, threatened to return in greater numbers, and talked of round-the-clock blockades – a campaign whose tactics their leader says were inspired by Northern Irish paramilitary-style groups and which is being bankrolled via an American Christian crowdfunding site. All in the name of a ‘Christian patriotic army’.
By his own account, the leader of the ‘Christ is King’ protest group, Patriot Platform, has said an American ‘think tank’ once put £30,000 into his bank account to fund a protest in Downing Street. In 2024, Humanists UK warned that American evangelical groups had pumped over $280 million to international projects, including UK advocacy work.
Warning sirens
Humanists UK has been saying for some time that Christianity was being turned into a banner for nationalist intimidation in this country, and that the tactics, the money, and the language were being imported from the United States. At times we have been a lone voice.
We said it when preachers took to the stage at Tommy Robinson’s ‘Unite the Kingdom’ rally to denounce ‘secular humanism’. We said it when a self-styled ‘King’s Army’ set out to intimidate LGBT people in Soho. We said it when councillors were reintroducing Christian prayers to council meetings and banning Pride flags on the grounds that Britain is a ‘Christian country’.
And we said it this summer, when Andrew Copson sat down with the former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams in a high-profile New Humanist interview to ask whether Christian Nationalism is a threat to the UK.
What is Christian Nationalism?
‘Christian Nationalism’ is an organised political project that uses belief in Christianity to decide who belongs in this country and whose political voice matters. It is not the same thing as Christianity, and it is not the same thing as patriotic Christianity or patriotic churches.
Most Christians in Britain will have watched the weekend’s footage with the same unease as everyone else, and the clergy who lend themselves to these events do not come from the mainstream.
One form of extremism does not justify another
Worryingly, some have tried to argue that Christian Nationalism is a necessary evil or a ‘bulwark’ because of the existence of Islamic fundamentalism. Since the protests in Dover we have seen social media comments and emails from people who tell us that they would still ‘rather’ have a ‘Christian army’ on the streets than Islamic fundamentalists.
We understand the fear behind that, but we are dismayed that people are being drawn into what is clearly a false binary choice. As we wrote a year ago, Christian Nationalism and Islamist extremism do not cancel each other out; in fact, they mirror one another and feed off of each other. Each defines itself against the other, points to the other as proof of its own necessity, and recruits from a corresponding pool of angry and aggrieved men. Choosing one to protect yourself from the other only makes both stronger. The only people who benefit from the choice are the two factions offering it!
But in case anyone accuses Humanists UK of naively or foolishly ‘equating’ or ‘lumping them together’, let’s be perfectly clear about one thing. The threats are not the same.
On numbers alone, an Islamist extremist is more likely to kill you or someone you care about. A buoyant Christian Nationalist movement in Britain has a far more realistic chance of taking away your rights and freedoms because its danger lies in its proximity to power. That is what has happened in the United States, where much of Project 2025, a 900-page plan drawn up to remake the federal government along Christian Nationalist lines, is now being implemented by its own authors as federal policy across abortion rights, education, broadcasting, and more.
We need secular democracy
It’s easy to see how this movement could become close to power in this country.
Reform UK has already vowed to abolish the legal protections for human rights that every person in this country relies on. Just this week its education spokesperson, Suella Braverman, said schools that fail to make children sing hymns and the national anthem will face ‘consequences’, enforced through Ofsted and through parents reporting their children’s teachers.
These are unsettling days. But they are not the first this country has seen, and the answer has always been the same: people who believe in reason, kindness, and equal belonging, standing up together and refusing to be quiet.
Andrew Copson, Chief Executive of Humanists UK, said:
’30 years ago Christian Nationalism in the United States was a fringe. Today it sits in the White House. We are watching the first chapters of that story being written here, and we must resist it.
‘We call on people of goodwill from across the religion or belief spectrum to stand with us against this use of religious rhetoric and religious organising power to foment a movement based on hatred and division.’
Notes
For further comment or information, media should contact Humanists UK Head of Press and Campaign Communications Nathan Stilwell at press@humanists.uk or phone 0203 675 0959 (media only).
Read our earlier piece on rising Christian Nationalism.
Humanists UK is the national charity working on behalf of non-religious people. Powered by over 150,000 members and supporters, we advance free thinking and promote humanism to create a tolerant society where rational thinking and kindness prevail. We provide ceremonies, pastoral care, education, and support services benefitting over a million people every year and our campaigns advance humanist thinking on ethical issues, human rights, and equal treatment for all.