Suella Braverman’s recent statement on making hymn singing mandatory in English schools shows just how out of touch Reform is with modern British society.
Reform UK’s proposed “patriotic curriculum,” explicitly rooted in Christianity, raises a basic question: what does it mean to be British today?
Christianity is central to Britain’s history and cultural inheritance, shaping its institutions, architecture, literature, music and traditions. Children should learn about that heritage. But teaching Christianity’s role in national life is different from requiring children to take part in Christian practice. That is what the proposal would do: every school would have to make pupils sing Christian hymns regularly, backed by law and potentially monitored by Ofsted.
The policy would not reflect modern England. In the 2021 Census, 46.2% of people in England and Wales identified as Christian, down from 59.3% in 2011, while 37.2% reported no religion. Identification also overstates practice: the British Social Attitudes survey found that only about 5% of adults were both Christian and weekly worshippers, while about 9% attended at least monthly. Britain is also religiously diverse. NatCen found that around one in three weekly worshippers attend a mosque, mandir, gurdwara, temple or synagogue rather than a church, with the share higher among younger people.
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