Georgina Waylen, a professor of politics at the University of Manchester who has been researching the influence of evangelical Christianity on British politics, said it had “grown in recent years, and most notably in the Conservative party, following the election of a small number of rightwing socially conservative evangelical MPs who were well organised, knew what they wanted to achieve and oppose, and have been aided by the increasing influence of evangelical Christians in the rightwing ecosphere.”.
The influence of evangelical Christianity in the Conservative party remains relatively marginal, but it has grown in recent years via two prominent voices: Danny Kruger, an MP since 2019 who has become a leading opponent to legalising assisted dying; and Miriam Cates, who was elected to parliament in 2019 but lost her seat last year, who is a vocal proponent of traditional family values.
She understands the “importance of Christian values as the foundation of family and community life”, David Burrowes, a former Tory MP and co-founder of the Conservative Christian Fellowship, said last year.
The meaning of this phrase, much repeated at the Arc conference, is the “moral foundation of western civilisation” based on the shared values of Christianity and Judaism, according to Dennis Prager, an American conservative talkshow host.
During Trump’s first term as US president, Meredith Warren of the University of Sheffield said it was a dog-whistle myth peddled by the far right “to draw a line between imagined Christian values and a perceived (but false) threat of Muslim immigration”.
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