Religion and Politics

Tuesday January 17 2023

Adam McPherson looks at the relationship between religious and political affiliation, and finds that the rise of the SNP has upended traditional voting trends.

When Joe Biden was elected President of the United States, commentators were keen to note that he had been raised Catholic. Donald Trump courted the evangelical Christian vote and won it despite his personal moral transgressions. The overturning of Roe vs. Wade by the US Supreme Court last year gave the Democratic Party a much-needed boost in the mid-term elections.

Despite its separation of church and state, religion and politics has been increasingly entwined in the United States. Is this a trend we might see on this side of the pond?

Using available data, James Tilley from British Religion in Numbers (BRIN) concludes that loyalty to a political party and religion are linked as a form of intertwined and intergenerational community identity.

An aggregate study of election polling between 1970 and 2017 found that in 1970 roughly 70% of Catholic voters in Scotland voted for the Labour Party. This vote share was declining before there was a sizeable drop-off in 2015, when only 35% of Catholics opted for Labour. The Rev Dr Doug Gay of Glasgow University notes that Alex Salmond went to great efforts to engage with the Catholic community as leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), making it clear that the party was not a threat to Catholic education, for example. Nationalism might be Scotland's new 'faith'.

Dr Lesley Orr of Edinburgh University's Centre for Theology and Public Issues highlights the correlation between declining religious support and growth in support of nationalism. An Ashcroft poll of 2,047 Scottish voters following the 2014 Scottish independence referendum concluded that “it was only the votes of Protestants which saved the United Kingdom”, the “vast majority” of which were affiliated with the Church of Scotland. Those who did not identify with any  faith were much more likely to vote for independence.

The Church of Scotland's links to the rest of the United Kingdom, most prominently in the role of the monarch, might appeal to unionists but act as a deterrent to agnostics. Recent polling data on Scottish independence by Britain Elects put the 'Yes' vote at 50.8% and 'No' at 49.2%. This follows the UK Supreme Court's ruling that it is not within Holyrood's remit to instigate a second referendum. 

Until 2010, the vote share for parties in general elections was remarkably balanced. In a report by Theos, published in 2014, Ben Clements and Nick Spencer calculated the average party vote share by religion for all general elections between 1959-2010. 37.9% of Church of Scotland members voted for the Conservative Party, compared to 37.3% for Labour and 13.3% for the Liberal Democrats.

The rise of the SNP has upended these traditional voting trends. By courting the Catholic vote, the SNP won a voting base that normally broke for Labour. Unionist parties could make similar overtures to Protestant voters but that involves three parties fighting a shrinking slice of the electorate. Is there even a 'typical' Protestant voter in Scotland?

So far, so statistical. Individual polls are contextual and data regarding Christian voting intentions are sparse compared to those exploring race or socio-economic background. What is becoming clearer is that the dominance of the SNP has severed some of the long-standing bonds between Christian denominations and particular political party.