{"id":2700,"date":"2024-07-25T11:42:05","date_gmt":"2024-07-25T11:42:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eastlondon.humanist.org.uk\/?p=2700"},"modified":"2024-07-25T11:42:05","modified_gmt":"2024-07-25T11:42:05","slug":"the-most-openly-non-religious-house-of-commons-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastlondon.humanist.org.uk\/?p=2700","title":{"rendered":"The most openly non-religious House of Commons ever"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Post 4.7.24 General Election piece published Romford Recorder; Docklands & East London Advertiser July ’24<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Its official. The UK has elected the most openly non-religious House of Commons in history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roughly 40% of MPs chose to take the secular affirmation instead of a religious oath during their swearing-in ceremony last week. That\u2019s up from 24% after the 2019 election. They include the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, half the Cabinet and all four Green MPs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Humanists welcome the House more closely reflecting the faith profile of the UK.  According to the British Social Attitudes Survey (2021) over half the population have no religion. We have come a long way since the election of the first openly atheist MP, Charles Bradlaugh, in 1880. His refusal to take the religious oath led to his arrest and imprisonment. He only finally took his seat in 1888 following a change in the law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Starmer is the seventh non-religious Prime Minister, so far as we can tell. The first was a Liberal, Lloyd George. Ramsay Macdonald (Labour) was the first PM to take the non-religious oath \u2013 exactly 100 years ago in 1924. He was active in the Union of Ethical Societies, the forerunner of Humanists UK. Next were two Conservatives, Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill. The latter, an agnostic, regarded religion as superstition. When contemplating death, he told his doctor he \u2018did not believe in another world, only black velvet\u2013 eternal sleep.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following WWII PM Clement Atlee (Labour) put his humanism into practice, establishing the NHS alongside other sweeping reforms.  James Callaghan is believed to have abandoned his Baptist faith. He was PM from 1976-79, over 50 years before Starmer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Labour pledged in their manifesto to modernise parliament. The pointless relic of different oaths for different religions and beliefs is itself ripe for reform. This matters. A 2023 academic study showed that jurors who took a religious oath were more likely to convict a suspect who took a non-religious oath. Humanists will be pressing the new ministers in the Ministry of Justice to act on this. Having just one oath puts everyone on an equal footing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another archaism is the right of Christian MPs to book a seat ahead of debates using their prayer card. This systematically discriminates against non-religious MPs in a commons chamber without enough seats to go round. Just a couple of examples of change needed to make institutions and practices across the board fit for a modern, plural democracy.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul Kaufman
Chairperson, East London Humanists<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Its official. The UK has elected the most openly non-religious House of Commons in history. Roughly 40% of MPs chose to take the secular affirmation instead of a religious oath during their swearing-in ceremony last week. That\u2019s up from 24% … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9c4oP-Hy","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastlondon.humanist.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2700"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastlondon.humanist.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastlondon.humanist.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastlondon.humanist.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastlondon.humanist.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2700"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastlondon.humanist.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2700\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2702,"href":"https:\/\/eastlondon.humanist.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2700\/revisions\/2702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastlondon.humanist.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastlondon.humanist.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastlondon.humanist.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}