New polling shows Reform is winning over Britain’s Christians
When we look at how people vote in the elections and why they choose certain parties, the analysis often focuses on age, education, location or socioeconomic. It is less discussed in the UK. However, two-thirds of adults are still religious-or refers to a religious identity, have religious beliefs or participate in religious activities.
For an adult, a Christian in Britain, this identity continues to be an important impact on its political behavior. The new vote, which was first published here, shows how the reform has broken our previous understanding of how Christians voted in the British elections.
The relationship between Britain’s Christian communities and great political parties dates back centuries. The conservative party has been very close to British Anglicanism since its emergence in the middle of the 19th century. Catholics and Free Church Protestants (such as baptisms and methodists) turned to workers and liberal/liberal democratic parties. Even if England became more secular, these relationships continued.
For example, the Anglikans tended to vote, even when the party was in terrible troubles. In the 2024 elections, 39% of the Anglicans voted for Toray even if the national vote share of the party fell to 24%.
However, since the 1980s, and especially in the elections since 2015, we have begun to see changes in the Christian play. The traditional Catholic commitment for labor has worsening as Labour addressed other Christian communities such as Baptists, Methodists and Presbyteries.
Instead, as a determinant of political support, social values (immigration, social change and attitudes towards national identity) increased, and some Christians’ social conservative tendencies from all lines provided more support to the conservatives. And traditionally, those who do this – Anglikans – became even more supportive. The result was the stable unification of the Christian game behind the conservatives.
However, now, the new vote for Exeter University by Yougov (on June 23-24 2025) reveals that this reorganization is broken by the increasing popularity of Britain.
Instead of asking who will vote for people tomorrow, a national representative example of 2,284 adults was asked how much voting for each major party on a zero (unlikely) to ten (very likely) scale.
Although it is not the same as a direct question about how someone will vote in an election, the question of probability provides a much richer measure of its support for all major parties.
Among the Anglicans, labor remains in -depth popular: more than half gave the party 0. In contrast, conservatives still have strong support among Anglikans, 35% give them seven or higher votes – a type of support associated with voting in an election.
But the reform was caught. Despite the voting reform of only 15% of Anglicans in 2024, 38% considers the likelihood of voting for the party as high. This shows that the reform is the same as the ratio that is strongly opposed to the reform, while the reform can gain as much Anglican support as Tories in an election while polarizing the Anglicans more than the conservatives.
Catholics show a similar tendency. Labour’s traditional support is eroded: 40% of Catholics have the possibility of voting for labor for labor, and 29% are strong supporters. As with the conservatives for the Anglican vote, the reform emerges almost flat with 28%of labor for the Catholic vote. He even supported conservatives, powerful supporters of 22% of Catholics.
It is not yet clear why this happened. The distinction between Christian (and non-Christian) voting patterns is not a work of age-there are many studies proving that this is the case.
The attitudes of reform on issues such as migration may be echoed by the concerns of Christians to the extent that they are willing to put aside historical party loyalty. Or Christians can be as prone to other British voters to reform their disappointment with the performances of labor and the conservatives in the task.
Swing Voters and Party Competition
This data also shows the extent to which voters’ support overlaps or exclusively. In other words, voters are highly likely to have high voting for one side (and therefore, it does not have such high possibilities for any side (and probably will not vote at all) and with similar high probability for more than one side (and probably a selector, somehow or the other).
Among those who are not religiously connected, 29% are not strong supporters of any party. 26%for Catholics. However, Anglikans were more politically anchored in this category with only 20%.
Traditionally, we would expect this to reflect the tendency of Anglicans to support Tories, but only 17% of Anglicans are only strong supporters of this party, 21%. These shook voters; They changed edges.
12% of Anglicans have high voting possibilities for both Tories and reform. These are swing voters that two parties can expect to win realisticly.
Catholics were even more torn. Only 13% are only strong labor supporters with 12% and 17%, which are strong supporters of conservatives and reform.
A small number of Catholic between labor and other parties, but 5% of conservatives and reforms swing voters: Tories’s gradual winnings in the last 50 years challenges the appeal of the reform.
The party socially provided conservatives a conservative alternative, and as a result, the more disintegration of the Christian game. Tories is no longer the main beneficiaries of the Labor Party’s loss of traditional Catholic votes.
In addition, reform is as popular as labor between the conservatives and Catholics between the Anglicans. This shows that it is more successful than large parties during the division of traditional sect.
If there is only one party that attracts a large part of Britain’s Christian support, it is much more likely to reform at this point than anyone.
Stuart Fox He is a senior lecturer in the politics of Exeter University.
This article was re -published without speech under the Creative Commons license. Read Original article.
