{"id":24487,"date":"2026-03-31T07:33:46","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:33:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=24487"},"modified":"2026-03-31T07:33:46","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:33:46","slug":"christians-concerned-about-starmers-new-social-cohesion-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=24487","title":{"rendered":"Christians concerned about Starmer’s new social cohesion policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n \u00a0(Photo: Getty\/iStock)<\/span><\/p>\n

Christians and free speech campaigners have criticised a recently announced government policy aimed at improving social cohesion.<\/p>\n

In a foreword to the policy, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer took aim at \u201cdigital grifters, hostile states, [and] politicians of grievance\u201d, who he said had a \u201cvested interest in division\u201d. Starmer\u2019s comment appears to be aimed at Nigel Farage and Reform UK, who he has previously accused of grievance politics and sowing division.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For almost a year now Reform has been ahead in British opinion polls, although their numbers have dropped recently, with increasing support apparently going to the Green Party and Rupert Lowe\u2019s Restore Britain.<\/p>\n

Writing for Christian Concern, Carys Moseley, questioned the thinking behind the government\u2019s new social cohesion policy, noting the \u201cBritish values\u201d appears to essentially mean liberalism and acceptance of all the rights claims made by LGBT activists.<\/p>\n

Moseley writes, \u201cHow will the decision be made as to what is an \u2018intolerant world view\u2019? Gender self-identification is an intolerant world view. It is not tolerant of people who want single-sex spaces for specific functions \u2026 Having preached tolerance, the government shows increasing intolerance in relation to speech. The report contains some new rhetoric that will no doubt become socially, politically and legally significant in the near future.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Free Speech Union, raised similar concerns, saying that the new policy, combined with the controversial new Islamophobia definition \u201cwill only entrench already fragile community tensions by offering one religion, Islam, greater protections than others”.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will also stifle free speech by silencing legitimate criticism of Islam and discouraging individuals from speaking out about the grooming gangs scandal and Islamist extremism,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Moseley expressed concern that the policy will entrench liberal views by denouncing dissent as \u201cextremism\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe definition [of \u2018extremism\u2019] uses the Human Rights Act as its legal instrument. This is important because there is a long-standing debate on whether the UK should leave the European Convention on Human Rights, which is enshrined in the act \u2026 So is a politician who argues that the UK should leave the ECHR an extremist?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The definition, Moseley, pointed out, could lead to pro-lifers being branded \u201cextremists\u201d for denying the \u201cright\u201d to have an abortion.<\/p>\n

A crackdown on charities promoting \u201cextremism\u201d is also a cause for concern, according to Moseley, as many churches are registered charities.<\/p>\n

Despite the significant concerns cited, Moseley argued there were some positives to the policy. For the first time the government said it would be cracking down on far left groups, rather than just Islamist and far right groups. Additionally the policy says it will not tolerate attempts to silence people via blasphemy allegations.<\/p>\n

While welcoming the sentiment, Moseley noted that the government\u2019s proposals on this front are \u201cfrustratingly thin on the practicalities\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0(Photo: Getty\/iStock) Christians and free speech campaigners have criticised a recently announced government policy aimed at improving social cohesion. In a foreword to the policy, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer took aim at \u201cdigital grifters, hostile states, [and] politicians of grievance\u201d, who he said had a \u201cvested interest in division\u201d. Starmer\u2019s comment appears to be<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24488,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[119,8148,4491,1169,259,8147],"class_list":["post-24487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-christian-living","tag-christians","tag-cohesion","tag-concerned","tag-policy","tag-social","tag-starmers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}