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Reform’s home affairs spokesman, Zia Yusuf, has said his party will protect Britain’s Christian heritage if it is voted into power at the next general election.
He was due on Monday to deliver his first speech setting out his vision for the nation if he were to become its next home secretary.
According to media reports, he was expected to pledge automatic listed status for all churches across the UK to protect their historic character and restrict change of use.
The party would also introduce a new class for churches that would prevent them from being used as places of worship by different religions, with Yusuf telling The Times that he was acting to stop churches being converted into mosques after hearing from “anxious residents” across the UK.
Yusuf, a Muslim, suggested that large numbers of immigrants arriving from “low-trust societies” had contributed to a loss of Christian values in modern Britain.
“Regardless of whether somebody is of faith or not, or which faith they follow, I think the Christian heritage of this country is very important and protecting our heritage and our culture is important, otherwise the country is not a country, it’s just an economic zone,” he told the newspaper ahead of his speech.
“And so, as one step in pursuit of that, we will end the incendiary practice of converting churches into mosques or any other places of worship by granting listed status automatically to all churches and prohibiting that.”
Many historic churches have to juggle high maintenance and conservation costs, with small or dwindling congregations. The Church of England alone has 12,500 listed church buildings. While it has seen some growth in attendance over the last few years, total figures remain below pre-pandemic levels.
The National Churches Trust recently warned that as many as 2,000 churches could close by 2030, many of them in rural areas.
The government recently announced a new £92 million Places of Worship Renewal Fund to replace the existing Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme. Places of worship will also be able to apply to separate multi-million pound funds covering the repairs and conservation of “at-risk” historic buildings, and aimed at preserving local heritage. It comes at the same time as churches losing their VAT exemption on repairs.
Responding to Yusuf’s comments on X, Christian writer and commentator Adrian Hilton said, “You must admit, Zia Yusuf is a Muslim apart, and a credit to his religion. Some British Muslims fully respect the primacy of Christianity and the importance of the Establish Church, because, as the late Queen explained, it provides a canopy of religious freedom and sustains the place of religion in public life.
“The demographic reality, however, is that Christians are diminishing in number while Muslims are increasing, and they’re not all of Zia’s enlightened disposition. No party has yet proposed a strategy for how best to manage this societal change.”
