Off Topic Political Debate

When she looks across the dispatch box at Corbyn she must think: Oh my God, who gave this guy a grown up job!!

 

Some interesting statistics about religious denomination and voting behaviour which I recently read up on. If the last election had been restricted only to people identifying themselves as C of E then this would have been a comfortable Tory majority. The Roman Catholic population would have given an even stronger Labour majority (45.3%). Scottish Presyterians would have been SNP (not surprisingly). The Methodist (belying their reputation) would have given a slender Tory majority (or possibly a continuation of the coalition). Baptists would have had Labour 4.5% ahead. United Reformed Church members would have given Labour a lead of 8%. The Jewish population would have given the Tories their biggest majority ever (possibly for pragmatic rather than ideological reasons). Hindus, Moslems, Sikhs or Buddhists would all have given enormous Labour majorities (Moslems at 73%). Those most likely to vote Tory were C of E. members, Jews and Methodists. Most likely to vote Labour were Moslems, Sikhs, Hindus, Roman Catholics and Baptists. Most likely to vote Liberal were United Reformed Church members, Methodists and Baptists. Most likely to vote Green were Quakers (apparently 10% of party members are from this denomination), Buddhists, and, again United Reformed Church members. Most likely to vote Ukip were C of E. members.
Naturally the figures include only those who identify themselves as being members of those religions - and not the population as a whole, but they still suggest that religion is an important criteria in assessing how someone will vote in the UK.

 

Ah at last some sophisticated political analysis on this thread

 

Of course i have always favoured a theocracy... but can never find the one to head it up

 

Oi - how about us atheists?

 

Is Britain partly a theocracy Yorkie ? I know that most people want to separate religion and politics yet the correlation between the 2 is still quite strong in the UK. stronger than you would find in most other West European countries. C of E members are a) More likely to vote Conservative b) More likely to have voted for Brexit and c) More likely to be Royalists. and finally d) More likely to sit in both houses of Parliament. The last is partly explained by the fact that new members have to swear allegiance to the Queen (and her successors), and to acknowledge her position as head of the Church in England. This is quite possibly difficult for members of other Christian denominations to do. The roots may lie in the distant past where the Tory party were the 'High Church' Party and eg. the Liberals grew out of the other denominations.

 

I did say that the statistics were only taken from members of those denominations BB. and were, therefore, not complete. Some were also taken from smaller sample groups than others.

 

How are these statistics arrived at? When I vote there is no box for me to specify my religion so it must be from some kind of poll.

 

There have been polls of this type Leo, done after the election. Some of the results were more reliable than others, based on sample size. One done on people identifying themselves as members of 'The Brethren Church' (an Anabaptist Church) had only 60 in the sample - so I discarded it - all the others were of reasonable size. I simply wrote them down after researching (googling) religion and voting behaviour UK. Because every time I try to import material it goes wrong !

 

OK - so not scientific or statistically accurate but interesting nevertheless. Fits in probably with what many of us might have guessed

 

I am not sure you can say much about CofE members - historically people put down they were CofE but were just as likely not to be practicing Christians at all. I am really doubtful that there is much correlation between church and voting - I suspect other factors are much more important. CofE and Brexit? Why - what link is there there? Royalist perhaps as the Queen is Head of the Church of England. I do not think many people would refuse to swear allegiance to the Queen if they wanted to be an MP. She IS the head of the Church of England so acknowledging that is no different to acknowledging that 25th December is Christmas day. I am sure MPs are people who want to represent their Party and few would be so concerned about either royalty or religion to let an oath of allegiance stand in their way - it is ceremonial and counts for squat. House of Lords of course will have more CofE due to bishops being there.

 

I agree that the figures are lacking in a bit of substance Leo, but these are all we have. There are thousands of statistics relating social class or education to voting behaviour - but very few on this. Also, they do not measure the 'depth' of belief of those asked. The lack of figures of this kind is rather a surprise when you think of the history of our major political parties, which is steeped in religious difference. How many people who now vote Liberal know that they are voting for a party which goes right back to the Whigs of the late 17th Century ? That the origins of the word 'Liberal' are not economic, but refer to the religious freedom of worship so much loved by Cromwell. Or that the Labour Party grew out of the Liberals of the 19th Century - a third of all Labour's first batch of MPs had been ministers in Protestant sects outside of the C of E. Harold Wilson is reported as having said that the history of the Labour party owed more to Methodism than it did to Marx. The present correlation between religion and voting behaviour is likely to be small, but it is still there - though nothing like as strong as in the USA. There are still some people whose political choice has something to do with their religious beliefs - I guess that I was one of them. The dream of communal living, with communal ownership, did not begin with Marx - it had had a very rich history before then encompassing parts of the Christian, Jewish and Islamic traditions. The first country to abolish private ownership was not a secular state, it was a Jesuit one. The first welfare state (including a basic unconditional income) was Islamic.

Religion can only really be completely separated from politics for the non believer (and I have nothing against him for that) - but for any strong believer they are intertwined because both determine a whole range of points of social contact.

 

Sorry to add to my last (rather long) text with another one but there have been no religion based studies of the Brexit vote - however, the percentage from the C of E sample (and we can presume this was one of the bigger samples) suggested that the numbers of them who voted for either the Conservatives or Ukip was 8.1% higher than the national figure for those two parties. So it's a fair assumption to presume that they were more likely to vote for Brexit. This is not surprising because the trend in European countries has been towards ecumenical forms of worship ie. between denominations, and the EU. supports this way forward. In fact, the presence of C of E bishops in the House of Lords is highly iffy when related to EU. laws. So the C of E may have had more than a disposition towards Brexit.

 

It is interesting to read this cologne as it is widely thought that Francois Fillon ran away with the nomination for President from his party because of his strong Catholic beliefs. It has been suggested that despite our secular state, over the past years church attendances have been rising. There is a strong ecumenical movement here, mainly I suspect because of the lack of candidates for the Catholic ministry

 

As I believe that many people will vote according to their values, it does follow that religious belief correlates with party preferences.


more importantly:
GT is Manager of the greatest football club in the universe
Yorkie is a supporter of said club
GT is God
GT said he could never vote conservative as they don't care for all of his planet and peoples equally ( personal telepathic communication)
Yorkie believes in the one God
Yorkie follows suit

 

I am sure how people vote is mixed up with who they are and how they think. That is almost an axiom.
However in the UK now religion is probably (I will make up a number) less than 5% of most people's identity so to correlate religion and voting is just not relevant. Probably of more significance would be the sports they followed, the films they watch etc.
My guess is that religion plays a stronger part in life in most European countries - and certainly in America.

 

People may not go to church... but a very high percentage have some sort of faith and identify with a religion to a greater and lesser degree.. so the correlation still will follow....

Mind you I am not sure who jedi knights vote for

 

It's very difficult to measure the level of religiosity in England Leo. England has the highest religious diversity in Europe. Here in Germany we just have a Catholic south (and the Rhineland), a Protestant north and east (and that means evangelist) and Moslems. In England you have a 3 way schism within Christianity (4 way if you include Greek and Russian orthodox) between Anglican, Dissenter (ie. all of those Protestant sects excluded from the C of E after the restoration) and RC. You also have a large Islamic population, a large Hindu one, Jewish, Buddhist, and even the largest Rastafarian population in Europe. This diversity, plus the fact that the largest group (C of E) is not particularly ideological, means that outward expressions of religion have become less common than in other countries - so, religion has become more of a private thing. It's difficult to take the C of E seriously - I mean a religion which started because some King wanted a divorce is not exactly steeped in ideology. And since then the C of E has stood for patriotism and royalism (and the preservation of a rural World of village duckponds) more than anything particularly spiritual - unless Morris dancing has any deeper meaning. As you say, C of E is something which many people put down when filling in forms. But, the connection is there, Church of England = patriotism = loyalty to the crown, this may be subconscious and have nothing to do with actual faith, but it's still there. For the other religious groups - all other Christian ones, and those of ethnic Britons, religion would have as much meaning as anywhere else.

 

I think you are right about a belief in perhaps something up there, a higher being etc, a general faith but not really strong on denominations etc now. Perhaps in Northern Ireland there is still a distinct difference between Catholics and Protestants but I bet if you ask in England you will be unable to identify a Catholic from Cof E except by asking. I have little if any idea what denomination if any my friends are.
I was a Jedi for some census or other (seemed fun at the time) and have voted Tory, Labour, LibDem, Green, Plaid Cymru and Independent. But the forece was with me.

 

If you have voted for 6 different parties Leo then you are something of a rarity. I would guess that floating voters make up no more than a third of the population. What we cannot measure from religious statistics is the level of belief - but if someones beliefs actually influence their interaction with others around them then their political choice will also be influenced. According to every statistic we have Catholics are more likely to vote Labour - but this may also have socio economic reasons, and may be skewed by cities like Liverpool and Glasgow. From what little we know about voting intentions (these were taken before the referendum), they were also less likely to vote Brexit - after all why would they want to separate themselves from Rome ? There is the other aspect that Catholics may be less likely to cast the blame on the individual for their own lack of material success - they may be less individualist, in this sense.