UK National Secular Society, weighing in on the Conservative Party, May 9, 2023

Cabinet ministers to speak at Christian nationalist conference

The National Secular Society has expressed alarm over plans for cabinet ministers to speak alongside anti-LGBT campaigners at a conference organised by Christian nationalists.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman MP and Communities minister Michael Gove MP will deliver keynote speeches at the National Conservativism conference (NatCon) in London next week, according to the conference website.

Other MPs and peers, including former minister Jacob Rees-Mogg MP, are also confirmed as attending as speakers.

NatCon is based on a ‘Statement of Principles’ which asserts “public life should be rooted in Christianity” where a “Christian majority” exists.

The Statement of Principles adds that no nation “can long endure without humility and gratitude before God and fear of his judgment” and that for millennia “the Bible has been our surest guide” to “public morals” and “political traditions”. Christianity’s “moral vision”, it says, should be “honoured by the state and other institutions both public and private”.

It also appears to reject same-sex relationships, stating “the traditional family” is built around a “bond between a man and a woman” and is “the source of society’s virtues”.

The Statement of Principles embodies many characteristics of Christian nationalism. The Christian nationalist movement in the US, which saw a rise during the Trump administration, holds that the US is meant to be a Christian nation. Christian nationalist campaigners have been linked to the revocation of the right to an abortion and the January 2021 attack on the Capitol.

The conference is organised by the Edmund Burke Foundation, a US group with the aim of “strengthening the principles of national conservatism in Western and other democratic countries”.

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