Labour and Tories pledge support for persecuted Christians while others put faith schools under threat

THE TWO largest political parties in the United Kingdom have pledged to support persecuted Christians in manifestos released this week ahead of May’s general election, write Liz Dodd and Paul Wilkinson.

The Labour Party on Monday committed itself to establish a Global Envoy for Religious Freedom as well as a multi-faith advisory council on religious freedom within the Foreign Office.

The following day the Conservatives promised “to stand up for the freedom of people of all religions – and non-religious people – to practise their beliefs in peace and safety”, with explicit reference to Christians in the Middle East.

However, faith schools looked to be under threat from two parties, with the Liberal Democrats pledging to end faith-based admissions while broadly supporting the existence of religious schools.

Its manifesto supported schools’ right to appoint only people of faith as religious education teachers, but called for an end to “unfair discrimination on grounds of faith” among other staff. This policy is at odds with church guidelines on staffing at Catholic schools, which requires Catholics to be appointed to leadership positions such as head teacher.

Although it titled its manifesto “For the Common Good”, the Green Party said it would phase out public funding for faith schools. Paul Barber, director of the Catholic Education Service, said this was a “profound misunderstanding” of church schools. Elsewhere the manifesto recalled aspects of Catholic Social Teaching by pledging to prioritise individual need over market economics.

For its part, the United Kingdom Independence Party criticised the schools’ inspectorate, Ofsted, saying it should focus on combating radicalisation, “rather than criticising widely held Judeo-Christian beliefs”.