The rise of Christian nationalism in Britain

Published

10 hours ago

November 10, 2025

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Bishop Ceirion Dewar rejects the Church of England as heretics. Instead, he gathers his flock under a gloomy sky on a beach in Cornwall.

More than 20 people answered the call he made on social media – one wears a T-shirt saying Jesus is King.

Another wears a Union Jack anorak with a T-shirt emblazoned “UTK” – Unite the Kingdom – the movement organised by anti-Islam campaigner Tommy Robinson.

Wearing a white robe over a wetsuit, Dewar strides down the beach and prepares for a mass baptism.

His voice booms out: “In the name of Jesus Christ, I gladly baptise you!”

Critics call Dewar “the far-right bishop” – a label he rejects.

But he does represent a new type of Christianity – more militant, more political – and one that is on the rise.

Several of those here came because they saw Dewar preaching fire and brimstone at Robinson’s Unite the Kingdom march on 13 September.

And they are ready to follow him into the cold waters of the Celtic Sea. One by one, he blesses them, then plunges them under the waves. Afterwards, they hug. Some are euphoric.

Fergus Worrall drove from Bristol with his girlfriend Louise French; both were baptised.

“I saw Ceirion’s speech at the Unite the Kingdom rally, and it was just epic,” Worrall says. “I mean, I just loved it.”

Worrall says he used to be “fairly lefty”. After trying Buddhism and New Age practices, he came to Christianity. But Dewar’s appeal is not just religious – online he decries immigration and the influence of Islam, a message that “chimed”.

“We are a Christian culture, a Christian nation. And I do feel like we have lost a lot of that.”

A month earlier, Dewar had addressed the 150,000-strong crowd at the Unite the Kingdom march in London, bishop’s crook in hand, his voice thundering out over Westminster: “God, you have not abandoned Britain!”

When he looked out, he saw not just British and English flags, but wooden crosses and depictions of Jesus.

It was not his first appearance with Robinson. The year before, he spoke at another rally in Whitehall and said: “This nation of ours is under attack! We are at war! We are at war not just with the Muslim, not just with wokeness.”

This is something new and growing – a movement that has long marched against immigration, against Islam, is now marching behind the cross.

I ask Dewar what for him, as a Christian, is the appeal of Robinson.

“It’s not the appeal of Tommy Robinson, per se,” he says. “It was the opportunity that he afforded to me to stand in front of that many people and to both pray for the people and this nation.”

Dewar was marching front and centre with Robinson. He may be borrowing an audience from Robinson, but he’s also effectively endorsing him, I suggest – and doing so in a bishop’s garb.

“I don’t think that at all. I’m very clear on what I endorse, and my political views are public and well-founded.

“My stand with Tommy is not necessarily political. It’s a man that has surrendered his life to Christ, and he’s on that journey of faith and trying as a good shepherd to help lead him in that and to shape that faith in a way that is beneficial to him.”

I ask him whether he truly thinks we are “at war” with the Muslim.

“Unfortunately, what I was trying to convey, having listened to an entire day’s worth of speeches, didn’t come across quite the way I’d hoped to have expressed it,” Dewar says.

“The problem for me is I understand we’re a multi-ethnic, multicultural, multi-faith Britain, but when you have so many elements that refuse to get into the great melding pot of multiculturalism, but remain outside and try and force that culture, force that religious system, force that legal system into an existing culture, then there’s always going to be problems.

“I would love to see more Christianity at the heart of our politics. I would like to see Christian principles once again driving our legal system.”

Many on the hard and far right agree with him – and increasingly link an anti-Islam agenda with a Christian identity. That also adds grandeur to grassroots street politics, elevating a culture war into a clash of civilisations.

UKIP, which has become more explicitly nationalist since the departure of Nigel Farage as party leader, says in its manifesto that it will “declare war on radical Islam and place Christianity back into the heart of government”.

Online, people call for a “holy war”. Katie Hopkins, the far-right commentator who also marched shoulder to shoulder with Robinson, said in a recent interview: “Certainly the time of the crusades will need to come again… We are overrun.”

One group organising online, with more than 50,000 followers, uses Christian imagery as part of its pledge to “hunt down Muslims”.

Dr Maria Power, author of The Church, the Far Right, and the Claim to Christianity, describes this as “Christian nationalism” and says it has a precedent in the UK, especially in Northern Ireland, where Britishness and Christianity were often equated.

“But really, I’ve seen it increase since we’ve seen the power of Christian nationalism in the states develop. You start to see inklings of it, probably about four or five years ago. Particular pastors talking this way, podcasts emerging, and content emerging on places like YouTube. And it’s very easy to fall down the rabbit hole of the algorithm, isn’t it?”

Ceirion Dewar rejects the term Christian nationalism, which he sees as specific to the United States, a country that has a different tradition of public, political Christianity. And it’s true that he and others have been advocating and preaching a more muscular Christianity since at least 2016 and the Brexit referendum.

One of his friends is Rikki Doolan, who belongs to the Spirit Embassy, a church in London with British-Zimbabwean origins. (A 2023 investigation by Al Jazeera accused Doolan and others in the church of being involved in money laundering, an accusation Doolan describes as “fake news and a false narrative”.)

It was Doolan who “converted” Tommy Robinson to Christianity three weeks before the latter left prison earlier this year. Doolan says it is “a new journey” for Robinson.

Doolan was also on stage at UTK. I ask him about some of the statements made there, including by a Belgian politician, that “Islam does not belong in Europe and Islam does not belong in the UK”. He says he disagrees with that “because it’s not realistic”. But “if we can’t fix the problem, then that makes more sense. But I would like to try and fix it first”.

Doolan and Dewar stand outside the established Church. But the majority of Christians in the UK still belong to the Church of England.

Dr Sam Wells is the vicar of St Martin’s-in-the-Field, a Church of England church on the corner of Trafalgar Square in London. He was holding an annual service commemorating victims of suicide when Robinson’s march came right up to the square, resulting in skirmishes with the police. Wells says his congregation was “hurt” by the Christian imagery on display.

“The gestures of the cross, the Christian symbols, are about love and understanding and peace and gentleness and they’re being thrust in people’s faces as weapons,” he says. “I think that’s very painful.”

Wells was one of the senior clergy leaders who signed an open letter denouncing Robinson’s march as a “corruption” of the Christian faith, saying the cross was being “co-opted” by the far right. Dewar in turn wrote his own letter denouncing the Anglican hierarchy for seeking “polite applause in editorial offices and political chambers”, calling on them to “repent”.

Dr Wells says Dewar’s letter is “very well expressed but I think it’s nonsense”.

“Christian values, what does that actually mean? I think it means love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness. An institution or a church or a preacher has a right to be called Christian if they look like Jesus. Those marches didn’t look like Jesus to me. They looked like the kind of people who were attacking Jesus in Holy Week.

“I think they’re reading a different Bible from the one I’m reading.”

If the talk is of winning, well there are very different battlegrounds.

The cloisters versus a Cornish beach.

Dewar has several mass baptisms planned across the country; so does Doolan.

This is not just about the extreme right using Christianity for their own ends; it’s just as much some Christians using the far right to reach new audiences.

A new Christian politics, in all sorts of ways and all sorts of places, is on the march.

The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.

UK

Trump threatens to sue BBC for $1bn over speech edit

Published

1 hour ago

November 11, 2025

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Trump threatens to sue BBC for bn over speech edit

Donald Trump has threatened to sue the BBC for $1bn over edits the organisation made last year to one of his speeches.

The organisation has been engulfed in a crisis, forced to apologise on Monday after two of its most senior figures, including the director-general, resigned on Sunday night.

The defamation claim centres around a BBC Panorama documentary, which aired October 2024 and showed an edited speech made by Mr Trump before the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, in which he appeared to tell his supporters he was going to walk with them to the US Capitol and “fight like hell”.

In a letter dated 9 November, Florida-based lawyer Alejandro Brito set the BBC a deadline of 10pm UK time on Friday to respond, outlining three demands:

• Issue a “full and fair retraction” of the documentary,
• Apologise immediately,
• “Appropriately compensate” the US president.

He told the BBC it needed to “comply” or face being sued for $1bn.

A BBC spokesperson said: “We will review the letter and respond directly in due course.”

‘Error of judgement’

On Monday, BBC chairman Samir Shah, one of the most senior figures still standing, apologised for the “error of judgement” in editing the video.

In a letter to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee of MPs, Mr Shah said Mr Trump’s speech was edited in a way that gave “the impression of a direct call for violent action”.

“The BBC would like to apologise for that error of judgement,” he added.

Director-general and head of BBC News resign

Concerns about the edited speech first came to light in a leaked memo from Michael Prescott, a former journalist and independent adviser to the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines and Standards Board.

As a result, BBC director-general Tim Davie and BBC News chief Deborah Turness announced their resignations on Sunday evening, saying in emails to staff that mistakes had been made.

Mr Davie will address an all-staff meeting on Tuesday. While on her way into the Broadcasting House on Monday morning, Ms Turness defended the corporation, rejecting accusations of institutional bias.

Downing St stands by BBC – but chancellor says ‘lessons to be learned’

A spokesperson for the prime minister told reporters on Monday that the BBC wasn’t corrupt or institutionally biased.

Instead, they said it had a “vital role” to play in the modern age, but needed to ensure it acted “to maintain trust and correct mistakes quickly when they occur”.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves also stood by the corporation, but said that “lessons do need to be learned”.

‘Nothing but an apology’

Veteran broadcaster and former BBC presenter Jonathan Dimbleby told Sky News, however, that the organisation owed the US president nothing more than an apology.

But former legal correspondent for the BBC Joshua Rozenberg also told Sky News that he believed the corporation would “very likely” consider settling with Trump.

Mr Trump’s attack on the BBC is the latest in a long string of multibillion-dollar battles he’s engaged with various media institutions.

UK

Rachel Reeves signals she will break tax pledges – and gives strongest indication she will lift two-child cap

Published

1 hour ago

November 11, 2025

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Rachel Reeves signals she will break tax pledges - and gives strongest indication she will lift two-child cap

Rachel Reeves has signalled she is going to break her manifesto tax pledges at the budget – and has given her strongest indication yet she will lift the two-child benefit cap.

The chancellor said the world has changed in the year since the last budget, when she reiterated Labour’s manifesto promise not to raise national insurance, VAT or income tax on “working people”.

“It would, of course, be possible to stick with the manifesto commitments, but that would require things like deep cuts in capital spending,” she told BBC 5Live.

“I have been very clear that we are looking at both taxes and spending,” she added.

Politics latest: Second deported migrant returns

The chancellor also gave her strongest indication yet she will lift the two-child benefit cap at the budget on 26 November, saying it is not right a child is “penalised because they are in a bigger family”.

Ms Reeves blamed poor productivity and growth over the last few years on the previous government “always taking the easy option to cut investment in rail and road projects, in energy projects and digital infrastructure”.

She said she promised during the election campaign to “bring stability back to our economy”.

‘I’ll always do what’s right for UK’

“What I can promise now is I will always do what I think is right for our country, not the easy choice, but the thing that I think is necessary,” she added.

The chancellor blamed the UK’s lack of growth under her tenure on global conflicts, trade and tariffs over the past year.

In a dig at Donald Trump, who has imposed wide-ranging tariffs on countries around the world, she said: “The tariffs. I don’t think anyone could have foreseen when this government was elected last year that we were going to see these big increases in global tariffs and barriers to trade.

“And I have to be chancellor in the world as it is not necessarily the world as I would like it to be. But I have to respond to those challenges, and that’s the responsible thing to do.”

‘Children should not be penalised’

The government has, so far, resisted lifting the two-child benefit cap, which means a family can only claim child benefits for the first two children.

But, it is a contentious subject within Labour, with seven of its MPs suspended two weeks after the election for voting to scrap it, while others are aware it will cost £2.8bn to do so.

Former Labour prime minister and chancellor Gordon Brown has been pushing for Ms Reeves, who says he is her hero, to lift it.

She said she saw Mr Brown at Remembrance Sunday, where they “had a good chat and we’ve emailed each other just today”, as she revealed they speak regularly.

Ms Reeves added Mr Brown and Sir Tony Blair were big heroes of hers because they did so much to lift children out of poverty – the reason she went into politics.

Pushed on whether she would lift the cap, she said: “I don’t think that it’s right that a child is penalised because they are in a bigger family, through no fault of their own. So we will take action on child poverty.”

Mr Brown earlier told Sky News’ Mornings with Ridge and Frost he was “confident” of a two-child benefit cap change at the budget.

The latest YouGov polling found 59% of the public are in favour of keeping the cap in place, and only 26% thought it should be abolished.

Shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride said: “Rachel Reeves has borrowed, spent and taxed like there’s no tomorrow – and she’s coming back for more because she doesn’t have a plan or the strength to stand up to Labour’s backbenchers, who are now calling the shots.

“My message is clear: if Rachel Reeves reduces government spending – including the welfare bill, she doesn’t need to raise taxes again. “

UK

Eight people who could replace Tim Davie as BBC director-general

Published

1 hour ago

November 11, 2025

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Eight people who could replace Tim Davie as BBC director-general

After Tim Davie’s resignation announcement only a day ago, talk is turning to who could replace him and take on the highest-profile role in British broadcasting.

The BBC‘s director-general position is a crucial role, serving effectively as both the corporation’s chief executive and its editor-in-chief across television, radio and online.

Davie, who has worked for the BBC for 20 years and been in charge for the past five, is not stepping down immediately.

He said in his departure note to staff that he is “working through exact timings with the board to allow for an orderly transition to a successor over the coming months”.

It is still early days, but here are some of the names being discussed as contenders for the role.

Charlotte Moore

Chief executive of Left Bank Pictures, a British independent TV and film production company owned by Sony, Charlotte Moore was chief content officer at the BBC for five years before leaving in the summer.

She was among those shortlisted when Davie got the job in 2020 and is known as the mastermind behind the commissioning of The Great British Bake Off.

In March 2023, she was awarded the Royal Television Society Judges Award in recognition of her leadership “through one of the most momentous years in [the BBC’s] history and having done so with an exceptional combination of steadfast level-headedness, confidence and creative flair”.

“The BBC is an extraordinary place to work,” she said in a statement when her move to Left Bank was announced.

“There’s nowhere quite like it that backs risk-taking, innovation and homegrown creativity with such commitment.”

James Harding

A former editor of the Times and director of BBC News, James Harding is the co-founder and editor of slow news venture Tortoise Media, which bought The Observer newspaper in December 2024.

Harding called for the BBC to be “put beyond the reach of politicians” in an interview with Sky News before giving the James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival in the summer.

Establishing the independence of the BBC is critical “if we want to build confidence in shared facts and respect for the truth”, he said.

Jay Hunt

Jay Hunt is Apple TV+’s creative director for Europe and was appointed chair of the British Film Institute in 2024.

She has previously worked as chief creative officer for Channel 4, director of programmes at Channel 5 and controller of BBC One.

Channel 4 was named Channel of the Year at the Edinburgh International Television Festival in 2014 and 2016 under her leadership, and she was known for buying the rights to The Great British Bake Off from the BBC.

At Apple, she has overseen commissioning for award-winning shows such as Bad Sisters and Slow Horses.

Alex Mahon

After almost eight years as chief executive of Channel 4 – the first woman in the broadcaster’s history to take the helm – Alex Mahon left the role earlier this year to lead live entertainment group Superstruct Entertainment.

Superstruct owns and operates more than 80 music festivals across 10 countries in Europe and Australia, including Boardmasters in Cornwall and Mighty Hoopla.

Mahon’s move allowed her to earn a more lucrative remuneration package than the one on offer to her at Channel 4, Sky News City editor Mark Kleinman reported at the time.

Dawn Airey, Channel 4 interim chair, described her as a “great figure in British television” and said she had been “one of the most impactful CEOs” since the founding of Channel 4 in 1982.

She was the recipient of Variety’s 2020 International Achievement in Television Award and has been honoured with an International Royal Industrial Fellowship.

Dame Carolyn McCall

Dame Carolyn McCall has led ITV since she joined the channel in 2018, having served as chief executive of easyJet for seven years and chief executive of the Guardian Media Group for four years.

She was made a dame in 2016 for services to the aviation industry and an OBE before that in 2008 for services to women in business.

She has led ITV plc’s “significant transformation in the competitive digital media landscape since joining in 2018, successfully evolving it from a linear organisation to a strong linear and digital media, entertainment, and global production business”, her biography for the broadcaster states.

McCall is in the preliminary stages of talks with Sky, the owner of Sky News, over the possible sale of ITV’s media and entertainment division.

Sir Trevor Phillips

Another name that has been suggested by a few commentators is Sky News’s Sir Trevor Phillips, who presents Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips each weekend.

A businessman and journalist, Phillips has won Royal Television Society journalism awards three times. He is also a Times columnist and was shortlisted for Comment Writer of the Year in 2020.

Phillips, who was knighted in 2022 for services to equality and human rights, was previously head of current affairs for London Weekend TV (where he worked alongside BBC chair Samir Shah), chair of the London Assembly, chair of the Commission for Racial Equality, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission and president of the John Lewis Partnership Council.

His name has been mentioned as a possible contender on political website Guido Fawkes, as well as by Rod Liddle on Times Radio and journalist Stephen Pollard in a column for The Spectator, headlined: “Is this the man who can save the BBC?”

Senior BBC staff

Could the BBC look internally?

One name that has been mentioned is Jonathan Munro, who, since joining the BBC in 2014, has led news coverage “through every major story over the last decade”, his biography for the broadcaster states, from Brexit to UK general elections, and the death of the Queen to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

He became global director of BBC News in September 2024, and is also director of the BBC World Service and deputy chief executive of BBC News and Current Affairs.

There is also Kate Phillips, who replaced Moore as chief content officer, the senior executive responsible for all the BBC’s network TV and radio output, in the summer.

She has only been in the role for a few months, having previously held the position of director of unscripted content. During the pandemic, she was acting controller of BBC One.

In other circumstances, BBC News chief executive Deborah Turness perhaps could have been a possible candidate to replace Davie, but she announced her resignation alongside his on Sunday night.