It is possible to identify two types of politician.

1. those who want power and therefore they join a major party to help them to have it.
2. those who put their principles ahead of their politics and will speak and work for these principles even though they do not gain political power.

In the USA:

Joe Biden is an example of the former and Donald Trump is an example of the latter.

US President Joe Biden’s desperate attempt to hold on to power as the Democratic Party’s nominee for the upcoming US Presidential election shows a power-hungry politician who does not know when his time has come. At last the Democratic Party is being forced to call Time on him. Even Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and others are rowing back on their former support. It may be that Biden’s recent developing Covid-19 will be his escape route but hardly a solution for the Democratic Party.

In spite of the unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the Republican candidate for the US Presidential election, Donald Trump continues to fight on. It seems that for Trump, principle is as important or more so than life. Colin Powell did not run for the US Presidency although he would almost certainly have been the first non-white US President. Why not? For fear of assassination. Donald Trump continues to fight. He entered politics and remains in politics to recover America to its former Christian values and principles. This is not to say that Trump is a Christian Voice but that, like Nigel Farage, he understands what made America and Britain great in the past. He did not “join a Party” to get power for himself but rather he fought to make the Republican Party in his own image, at least for the present, to fight on the principles for which he stood.

What about Britain?

Those in the major parties will tell you that you should vote for them because to vote for smaller parties is “a wasted vote”. This shows their attitude to politics – it is power and not principles that prevail in their opinion.

Those who vote for minor Parties demonstrate that their principles are more important than political power.

What about Christians?

There are many Christians who put politics ahead of Christian principles. In the recent UK General Election campaign, the Christians in the Western Isles were clearly shown that they could have a Christian Voice in Westminster. However, the large number of Christians in the Western Isles did not vote for a clear Christian Voice but, as many of them said, they wanted to get rid of the Scottish National Party (SNP). However, 1. they could have also done so by voting for a Christian Voice in the Scottish Christian Party; 2. many of them had voted for the SNP for 20 years, showing that their SNP “support” was simply a protest vote rather than a principled opinion or position and 3. they were misled by the usual barter – it is “a wasted vote” to vote for smaller Parties and were encouraged to use “tactical voting” to stop the SNP.

Free Church of Scotland

An article in the June/July 2024 issue of The Record of the Free Church of Scotland, with significant influence in the Western Isles, told its readers: “… that Christians should get involved in politics but should avoid forming political parties.” This is a huge conclusion from a narrow base in the article, and a wrong conclusion at that.

It continued: “Christian political parties in today’s Scotland are unelectable because they lack intellectual coherence and are obsessed with identity politics. They fight spiritual wars with carnal weapons.” Notice that 1. the author writes in the plural – but there is only one Christian political party in today’s Scotland. 2. his reasons are pejorative and require proof. 3. as he has never spoken to the Scottish Christian Party about this issue, it may be that he is referring to the Scottish Family Party and its identity politics, but the leader of the SFP states that the SFP is not a Christian party. 4. an interview in The Monthly Record over a decade ago printed the opinion of Murdo Fraser, a Conservative MSP, that a Christian party was dangerous. The editor, the Rev. David Robertson, never contacted the Scottish Christian Party nor invited it to respond. Similarly with the current article, the SCP was not consulted nor invited to respond. Do we have to invoke the right of reply or will editorial oversight in The Record show even-handedness or at least some Christian principles? Will Free Church Christians or any other Christian in the Western Isles take this lying down? The need for a Christian Voice in public life is even more acute, which one might have gathered from the Moderator’s Address printed earlier in the magazine.

The article, by David Meredith, the Free Church’s Mission Director, continued: “Don’t be put off by the fact that your party of choice peddles bad policies and is run by suspect people. Esther didn’t run from the palace and Nicodemus didn’t resign from the Sanhedrin. … Jesus didn’t start a political party although his people lobbied him to do so. No. Jesus started the Church. If politics has changed thousands, the Church has changed its tens of thousands.” 1. this downplays the evidently antichristian policies of many political parties, classing them among “bad policies”. 2. the false antitheses are open to question, as well as the debatable biblical applications. Are Free Church Christians in the Western Isles convinced by this? Do any of them know how to respond to it?

This is not simply cancelling free speech, but it is cancelling political action.

A developing democratic deficit

Tactical voting, in practice and possibly by definition, draws all voters into voting for the major parties and perpetuates the two-party dominance of politics. There is always ‘an issue’ at each election which the major parties use to inveigle voters into voting ‘tactically’ for them.

Smaller parties pay no attention to this, such as the Greens and the Lib Dems, who vote for their party out of conviction. It is time for Christians to understand this and to vote according to their convictions. 

However, even this two-party dominance has been declining over the past decades creating the democratic deficit whereby almost 4 million people voted for the UKIP Party in the 2015 UK General Election with only one MP representing them in the House of Commons, similarly replicated in the results of the 2024 UK General Election – in which “never have we had such a mismatch between votes and seats.” There are now more calls for electoral reform.

The first-past-the-post system is being called into question and this is why so many countries have already begun to replace first-past-the-post with the D’Hondt system of voting now used in the Scottish Parliament and with the Single Transferable Vote (STV) used in Scottish local elections.

These various considerations demonstrate the importance of voting for the person whom you want to represent you in the House of Commons. Who will be your Christian Voice in Westminster? Whom can you identify as such among the 650 MPs?

If you think this is too categorical, contrast it with Jacob Rees-Mogg’s summary: “There are Parties that are cuddly and there are Parties that are competent.”

Links:

18 Nov 2023: not all politicians are self-serving.

3 Jul 2024: A 12-minute interview with me as a Scottish Christian Party candidate is here. The explanation how Christians in the Western Isles could have had a Christian Voice in Parliament is here.

Sat 20 Jul 2024: Joe Biden was determined to fight on in the upcoming US Presidential election. Late on Saturday night he examined fresh party polling data and began to draft his resignation letter.

Sabbath 21 Jul 2024: Joe Biden called Kamala Harris in the morning that he was withdrawing from the race, but his senior staff in the White House and those on the campaign trail got one-minute’s notice before he announced at 1:45 p.m. local time that he was dropping out of the Presidential race. Why did he suddenly change his mind? He will have given thought to his legacy. He endorsed Kamala Harris for the presidency, who was not yet endorsed by Barak Obama and Nancy Pelosi who had urged Biden to retire from the race, and he may be spiking their choice for candidate (Michelle Obama?). This may have worked because Nancy Pelosi fell quickly into line the next day. Bill and Hillary Clinton have endorsed Harris, possibly expecting her to lose and opening the pathway for Hillary’s return to the fray whether Harris wins or loses. Michelle versus Hillary?

22 Jul 2024: the failure of Gentile Christianity.

26 Jul 2024: at last Barak and Michelle Obama have come on board to endorse Kamala Harris. Did they have much choice?

12 Aug 2024: Trump says that he had a good life and he did not need to subject himself to the vilification he has experienced [at 2 hours 1 minute] but he has done so to turn America back from the abyss.

20 Aug 2024: the possibility of Donald Trump linking with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, is a dream ticket I suggested months ago.

24 Jan 2025: the folly of “the wasted vote” argument has been exploded by the rapid rise of Reform UK which now polls ahead of the ruling Labour Party and the main opposition Conservative Party. What Nigel Farage could see, the Christians in the Western Isles could not see.

20 May 2025: here is the result of what the Christians in the Western Isles could not see in 2024.

Reform UK in light blue is predicted to annihilate Labour according to the latest Polls with a solitary red blob in the Western Isles. Imagine the effect if this had been a Scottish Christian Party seat.

27 May 2025: Nigel Farage in a speech today drew attention to two types of politician, those who want “to be” something and those who want “to do” something. He accused Kier Starmer of wanting “to be” Prime Minister, whereas Nigel Farage wants “to do” something as Prime Minister.