It is now fashionable to invoke religion in British politics. Right-wing politicians increasingly advertise their Christian credentials and profess allegiance to so-called Judeo-Christian values. Yet the Christianity being advanced bears little resemblance to the genteel Anglicanism of old. It functions less as a moral framework than as a tribal badge.

Rather than remaining implicit, expressed through habit and inheritance, it is now loudly proclaimed as a heritage under threat: from mass immigration, secular liberalism, multiculturalism and, above all, a growing and more assertive Islam.

Into this debate has stepped Fraser Nelson, whose recent intervention in the Times mounts a defence of the “dignity of difference” against this resurgent sectarianism. While its instincts are noble, the argument largely reads as a reprise of 2000s soft-liberal multiculturalism with its reliance on feel-good vignettes of bridge-building, from open iftars in football clubs to interfaith events in cathedrals. This is then tempered by a dose of muscular liberalism, with its emphasis on a “unifying culture of Britishness” and a willingness to confront the “real failures of integration”.

Nelson’s argument is naive in its assumption that sectarianism can be countered with mawkish invocations of a “unity” that is, at best, aspirational. Such appeals risk sounding like dated pieties rather than a serious diagnosis of present tensions. More importantly, they fail to engage with the emotive and ideological narratives that animate identitarian politics: the fact that communal identity is not a lifestyle choice but instead bound up with belonging, historical memory and perceived threat. These dynamics are then hardened by structural factors — segregated housing, stratified schooling, inequality and competition for scarce resources — which give them material force as well as psychological depth.

Fundamentally, what fuels this strain of Christian nationalism is anxiety over cultural and demographic change. For years, the decline of Christianity in Britain (now a minority affiliation) has been linked with the relative decline of the white British population. It’s why Islam looms large for the Christian nationalists as the foe against which they define themselves. The scale of change is hard to dispute. Britain’s Muslim population has roughly doubled since the early 2000s, reaching 6.5% by 2021. On current projections, it is likely to climb to at least 8.2% by 2030. In several cities, most notably Birmingham and Bradford, Muslims already constitute a substantial minority, and in some areas approach a third of the population.

Naturally, the “character” of the area will reflect these changes. Dessert parlours have a ubiquitous presence on British high streets. Ramadan and Eid now have an “official” public visibility. Christian nationalists read these shifts as proof that Britain’s Christian inheritance is being diluted and that Islam is becoming more assertive. For many Muslims, by contrast, they signal the gradual incorporation of a community that is increasingly British-born rather than immigrant, and steadily embedding itself in the mainstream of national life.

Muslims might be a minority, but there is a clear difference between a marginal, barely visible presence and a community that is growing in size and confidence. If, with Muslims representing around 6% of the population, Britain has already seen recurring flashpoints — over free speech, face veils, blasphemy controversies and public prayer — then the question naturally follows: how will these tensions evolve as that share rises, and with it the community’s social and cultural weight?

A central driver of rising sectarianism and ethno-religious absolutism is the erosion of any shared sense of Society (with a capital S). The idea that we participate in something larger than the sum of our parts, something that mediates and tempers our private identities, has steadily weakened. The local associations and institutions which once generated cross-cutting ties — binding people across class, faith and ethnicity — have been hollowed out by decades of atomisation.

In the absence of a thick, functioning civil society, appeals to “British values” sound abstract, even performative, because there are few institutions left to embody and transmit them. That is why competing identity projects emerge in its place. Any serious attempt to contain this emerging sectarianism has to start with rebuilding civil society from the ground up. Nelson’s approach risks minimising the scale of the challenge; the prescriptions of Christian nationalists would only intensify it. The choice is clear enough. Whether it is made is another question.

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Ralph Leonard is a British-Nigerian writer on international politics, religion, culture and humanism.

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