What role does religion play in contemporary political discourse? Holding a mirror up to English politics in particular, James Crossley examines how Christianity is often used to legitimize ideological positions and parties that could easily be viewed as sinister. From the paternalistic Christianity used to justify ever-intensifying neoliberalism, to the ethnonationalist and protectionist Christianity of Theresa May and Brexit, to the socialist constructions of Christianity by Jeremy Corbyn and Momentum, Crossley guides us through the love affair between politics and Christianity.. Drawing on interviews with politicians, activists, revolutionaries, and voters on either side of Brexit, Crossley reveals how religion is linked to positions on issues of class, capitalism, and foreign policy, and how it can can often challenge dominant class interests, obfuscate potential causes of unrest, and even justify military intervention.   "In this work, Crossley shifts decisively to analysing the last decade of English politics and its intersections with religion—all in the context of Brexit, Islam and the rediscovery of a socialist left. Sharp analysis, insights aplenty, a major contribution to serious political debate in the UK." -- Roland Boer, Xin Ao Distinguished Overseas Professor at Renmin University of China, Beijing, research professor at the University of Newcastle James Crossley is professor at the Centre for the Social-Scientific Study of the Bible at St. Mary’s University in Twickenham. His recent books include Harnessing Chaos and Jesus and the Chaos of History . Cults, Martyrs and Good Samaritans Religion in Contemporary English Political Discourse By James Crossley Pluto Press Copyright © 2018 James Crossley All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-7453-3828-6 Contents Introduction, 1, 1 Religion in English Political Discourse, 1979–2017: A Brief History, 10, 2 Brexit Means Christmas, Christmas Means Socialism, and a Time for 'Homosexual Sex': Shifting Notions of Religion from the Frontbenches, 30, 3 Muslims, the 'Perversion of Islam', and Christian England on the (Far) Right, 65, 4 Brexit Barrow: Religion in Real Time During a Summer of Political Chaos, 99, 5 Manufacturing Dissent from the Centre: Cults, Corbyn and the Guardian, 132, 6 Red Apocalypticism on the Corbynite Left: Martyrdom, Rojava and the Bob Crow Brigade, 162, Epilogue, 200, Notes, 206, Index, 234, CHAPTER 1 Religion in English Political Discourse, 1979–2017: A Brief History Before we look at the ways in which ideas relating to popular understandings of religion were nuanced between 2015 and 2017, it is essential to know what assumptions were previously present in English political discourse. In other words, the ideas, understandings and figures discussed in this chapter will set the scene for the remaining chapters and help us understand from where the ideas distinctive to post-2008 English political discourse emerged. To do this we need to look to the emergence and acceptance of Thatcherite neoliberalism and accompanying constructions associated with religion from the 1960s onward. We will look at how such ideas and assumptions became embedded in mainstream politics and were then modified by Tony Blair and New Labour with socially liberal understandings of religion before the ideological crises inaugurated by the 2007/8 financial crash. This chapter will also cover the ways in which socialist understandings of religion and the Bible were pushed out of parliamentary discourse with the ascendency of neoliberalism, only to return with the emergence of Jeremy Corbyn. Here, I will summarise work that I have carried out in detail elsewhere but now with additional material to reflect the years immediately before the 2017 General Election. This is integral to understanding the rest of this book and it is necessary to do so at some length. Religion and the rise of Thatcherism In the late 1960s, the state-interventionist Keynesian consensus began to break down in Western political, economic and cultural discourses as neoliberalism began to emerge as the dominant ideological position from the 1970s onwards and only began to show signs of ideological and economic vulnerability with the 2007/8 crash. While it was understood that the role of the state would be diminished in areas such as welfare and industry, an accompanying neoconservative tendency meant that the state remained significant for military interventions to protect, support and promote neoliberal ideals (e.g., Falklands, Iraq). The Anglicised versions of these major global economic changes were starting to take shape in the 1970s. Thatcher and her circle took advantage of the anxieties of nostalgia, counterculture, radicalism, social liberalism, post-imperialism, consumerism, patriotism and conservatism generated or intensified in the 1960s. From this they moulded what would eventually become known as 'Thatcherism', with a stress on economic lib