The Ascent of Far-Right Christianity in Digital Age Britain

In the days after the fatal stabbings of three young girls at a dance class in Southport, England, on July 29, 2024, thousands of protestors stormed the streets and attacked mosques and police officers in the surrounding area. Sparked by false claims online about the race and citizenship of the perpetrator, the protests had quickly pivoted from a mournful crowd to one violently lionized by misinformation. By the end of the week, the UK was engulfed by riots—replete with far-right flags and hateful chants.

This example is just one of many in the last five years that have seen protestors hoist St. George’s flag, spew racist rhetoric outside of mosques, and share inflammatory posts on social media about Britain’s supposed fall from Christian glory. A new troubling narrative has taken root in Britain’s far-right—one rooted in centuries of Christian influence on social norms, language, and politics. However, this revival has not stemmed from the pulpit, but rather digital sermons preaching the moral superiority of Christian life and the dangers of cultural decline. 

Underlying these antagonistic accounts of a supposed “cultural decline” are familiar themes broadcast through right-wing channels of online discussion forums and media pages. These stories harp on topics ranging from the breakdown of the nuclear family to the dilution of Christian faith in society, creating an echo chamber of incensed, outdated opinions. 

A key method of dissemination is via influencers such as Tommy Robinson, an anti-Islam campaigner with a history of criminal convictions. Wildly popular with young men, his niche is rhetorically framing policies like immigration and vaccinations as existential threats to “traditional morals.” Robinson and a multitude of other nationalist influencers have attracted an audience by preying on the ever-growing sentiments of male loneliness and anger among discontented youth in a post-Brexit world. 

Meanwhile, conservative British media sources like The Daily News and The Telegraph have found success in framing modern British society and policies such as LGBTQ+ rights or sex education in schools as symptoms of a moral plague undermining supposedly Christian virtues. This rhetoric closely emulates American conservative media, with easily digestible soundbite forms echoing throughout online communities like Stormfront and X, transferring ideas from an established US radical right to a growing UK movement.

In tandem with the far-right’s “traditional” opinions is their aggressive stance on immigration. A post-Brexit shift towards non-EU sourced migration poses a perceived threat to the status quo, framing Christian identity as a third rail being infringed upon by otherized immigrants. In 2023, protesters set fire to a van in objection to asylum seekers being housed at a local hotel in Knowsley. Similarly, claims that the 2024 Southport attacker was a Muslim asylum seeker triggered violence at local mosques. The same derogatory rhetoric rang out at both of these events—chants of “protect our women” and “save our communities”—which draw directly from white nationalist “Great Replacement” theory and xenophobic fear-mongering. This discourse indirectly invokes Christianity as the supreme symbol of Western society and British national purity, thus casting immigrants as the moral enemy and a direct threat to the Christian faith. 

These conspiracies would not be as prevalent in ultra-right circles if not for the globalizing nature of social media. Telegram, Facebook, and even LinkedIn are mobilizing tools in the spread of frequently misinformed and manipulated stories, working to amplify fear and anger. In particular, X has become a hotspot for anti-immigration sentiment since Elon Musk acquired it. His rebrand of the app as a “free speech haven” has reinstated previously banned accounts and boosted coordinated activity in the neoconservative realm. In that vein, September 2025’s “Unite the Kingdom” rally—led by Tommy Robinson—became the largest far-right march in recent British history. Musk’s active support through X and a virtual appearance at the rally were indispensable in facilitating online discourse and in-person action. 

As is the prerogative of a representative democracy like the UK, public sentiment informs parliamentary policies. The Tommy Robinsons and Andrew Tates (a fellow media personality with previous human trafficking and rape charges) of the internet are now seeking to transcend the online realm by pursuing legislative change, and they are achieving it. Pushback from parents and media outrage over the Relationship and Sex Education (RSE) curriculum in primary and secondary schools has led to the Ministry of Education announcing “re-analysis”of the curriculum. Meanwhile, backlash against the 2023 Online Safety Act has been dubbed “censorship” by some.

Concurrently, the Reform Party—co-founded by Nigel Farage as a right-wing populist party—has become a political powerhouse. As of September 2025, its cohort of over 250,000 members doubles the Conservative Party’s member total. Their platform echoes the ideologies of ultra-conservative voters, emphasizing anti-immigration and identity politics. 

With the next general election still approximately three years away, the UK finds itself at a fork in the political road. The rising appeal of cultural Christianity and its accompanying neoconservative messaging is putting pressure on mainstream parties to absorb or conform to these concerns, shifting the axis upon which British politics have operated for decades. If the past five years are any indication, the coming election will be an amalgamation of homegrown cynicism and increasingly interconnected international discourse. 

Edited by Liam Murphy.

Featured photo: “Tommy Robinson” by Shayan Barjesteh van Waalwijk van Doorn is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.