Nigel Farage gave a glib reply when I asked if it was hypocritical to talk about Christian values when Christian leaders aren’t keen on his plans to deport tens of thousands of people
If Reform are to win the next general election, they need to keep everyone angry about immigration.
A lot of pressure, then, rests on the shoulders of Nigel Farage’s key lieutenant, Zia Yusuf, in the fight for Britain’s moral compass.
Today it was off to Dover – the epicentre of small boat arrivals – to set out his stall as a hard-right hardman. Speaking in a picturesque hotel which faces onto the seafront, the white cliffs in sight, Mr Yusuf said thousands of migrants – including many who came to the UK legally – will be rounded up and put onto flights.
There will even be an RAF Voyager aircraft on standby to assist, he claimed. We’ve seen a similar playbook across the Atlantic, where Trump’s violent ICE force has opened up sinister dividing lines.
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Reform also wants to rip up Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) – so even people who have been allowed to live here would be at risk. Mr Yusuf attempted to justify his plans, which were quickly branded authoritarian and cruel, by claiming they were rooted in Christian values.
“I can see that so much of what makes Britain such a great country is associated and irrevocably derived from Christian heritage,” he said. But despite his brazen claim, there’s a very big problem for Reform – Christian leaders themselves aren’t keen.
When Mr Farage and Mr Yusuf unveiled a plan to deport people to warzones and despots last year, the Archbishop of York told The Mirror it was “beneath us as a nation”.
And the Bishop of Oxford accused Mr Farage of lacking compassion. That’s not the only flashpoint where Reform’s “Christian values” clash with those who study the Bible for a living.
Bishops have also been vocal in calling for the two-child benefit cap to be lifted, helping hundreds of thousands of kids out of poverty. After months of flip-flopping, Reform finally decided it would reimpose it if it gets into power – which would negatively impact an estimated 1.6million children.
So, is it hypocritical for Reform to go around telling people it believes in Christian values, I asked, when Christian leaders oppose their policies?
“You’ve just encapsulated beautifully, I couldn’t have done it better myself, why the Church of England has gone to the dogs,” Mr Farage responded glibly.
This was met with applause in the roomful of Reform supporters. Do the Christian leaders not understand Christianity as well as Mr Farage does, I pressed.
“I think they’ve got a rather twisted view of what their flock in this country actually want them to do,” he hit back. As this performance showed, if Reform keeps coming up with hard-right, divisive plans and lifting ideas from Donald Trump, things could turn very ugly indeed. A Farage government will fast find itself at odds with religious leaders, despite its lofty statements on Christianity.