'Not really a vote winner'

The religious right and UK politics

- Peter Walker Senior political correspondent

Two distinctive heads could often be spotted in the front row of recent Reform UK press conferences: Danny Kruger, the party’s head of policy, and James Orr, now a senior adviser to Nigel Farage.

As well as guiding the policy programme for what could be the UK’s next government, the pair are both devout Christians who have trenchant views on social issues such as abortion and the family.

Kruger, an MP who defected from the Conservatives in September, and Orr, who is a Cambridge academic, also sit on the advisory board of a rightwing thinktank called the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC), led by Philippa Stroud, a Conservative peer who is strongly religious. One of the main shareholders in the ARC is Paul Marshall, the hedge fund millionaire who owns GB News and the rightwing Spectator magazine. Marshall is a devout Christian.

Religion, specifically Protestant evangelism, has in recent decades been one of the defining elements of rightwing politics in the US. Its adherents form the bedrock of Donald Trump’s support. Is the UK heading down the same path?

There are some links. Orr is close enough to JD Vance to have hosted the US vice-president at his family home. He is also involved in the National Conservatism movement, which has connections to US religious populism.