Farage using Christianity ‘to stir anti-Muslim feeling’, says Rowan Williams

A former archbishop of Canterbury has accused Nigel Farage of misusing the UK’s Christianity “to channel anti-Muslim feeling” and said he also had “some awkward questions” for the far-right activist Tommy Robinson.

Dr Rowan Williams, who was the archbishop of Canterbury for 10 years until 2012, said there was an “inevitable scepticism these days about some claims to religious conviction”.

Speaking to the New Humanist magazine, Williams said: “I suspect really that Farage and others want to channel anti-Muslim feeling, and it helps to have ‘we’re a Christian society’ to fling back. It gives a sort of ballast.”

Asked what he believed was driving Christian nationalism in the UK, Williams said: “There are lots of possible causes. Anxiety about migration, anti-Islamism. In France, that anxiety has a secular aspect, but the St George’s Cross still means something in the English imagination, which still has a Christian aspect.

“The second thing is the globalising of all political discourse. The message given at international Christian conservative gatherings is that self-respecting nationalist movements need a bit of theology injected into them.

“Ironically, for someone like Nigel Farage, it’s about trying to find a presentational strategy that allows him to be taken seriously outside England. He’s often not here, after all.

“Then again, if we’re looking for what animates Christian nationalism, I think it’s in part the very simple search for someone to blame.”

The Reform UK leader posted online at Easter stating: “The Christian values on which our country is built are something to be proud of.” In 2024, he prompted criticism after suggesting there were “a growing number of young people in this country who do not subscribe to British values, in fact loathe much of what we stand for”. He confirmed he was referring to Muslims.

Earlier this year, Farage criticised an iftar in Trafalgar Square, saying the religious fast-breaking event in London was an “attempt to overtake, intimidate and dominate our way of life”.

Last year, Reform UK announced the appointment of the theologian James Orr – an academic who has influenced Donald Trump’s US administration – as a senior adviser to Farage.

The far-right activist Tommy Robinson led a carol concert to ‘put the Christ back into Christmas’ in London in December. Photograph: Ilyas Tayfun Salci/Anadolu/Getty Images

Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, has spoken about taking Bible studies while in jail and said he was now a Christian, having grown up Catholic but not practised. In December, he led a carol concert to “put the Christ back into Christmas” and his Unite the Kingdom march in London earlier this year saw some participants carry wooden crosses and chant “Christ is king”.

Williams told the magazine: “There’s an inevitable scepticism these days about some claims to religious conviction, and I don’t want to give way to this. If Tommy Robinson is doing his best to lead a life of Christian discipleship, I’m very glad, but I would really want to ask him some awkward questions.

“I would ask him how attempting to lead a life of Christian discipleship squares with public rhetoric designed to produce hostility and violence.

“And although Nigel Farage thought it was worth getting a theologian on board for Reform UK, I don’t think he lies awake at night thinking about his soul. I may be doing the man an injustice, but I don’t believe he cares about profound theological questions.”