Can Christians vote for Ukip?

The view that Christians should not vote for the UK Independence Party is not the official view of the Church of England but it is a view that is connived at by many clergy.

In fact on my Facebook feed one bishop stated that “Farage and his Ukip crew are simply unacceptable”, because, he explained later, they are racist. I’m just as likely to be guided when I cast my vote by a London Cabbie as I am by a bishop. But the question remains: is it somehow unChristian to vote for Ukip?

First of all, let me preface my remarks by saying that I have already decided to exercise a protest vote or spoil my ballot at all elections until after the next General Election in 2015. It was an abuse of democracy by all the main political parties to enact a fundamental change to marriage without manifesto commitments or a proper consultation. I don’t intend to give any of the main political parties my approval in 2015.

I’m sure I’m not the only Christian to be in this unusual position of protest when it comes to the ballot box. And if you are preparing to exercise a protest vote, the Ukip manifesto is neither here nor there. When a party doesn’t expect to get into power their manifestos are generally a pointless exercise full of schoolboy errors. Let’s not forget some of the radical guff that made it into Liberal manifestos for many decades when they were solely a party of protest.

Yet there are three main objections to Ukip policy that are worth looking at.

Firstly, is it racist to be opposed to uncontrolled European immigration? The former French President Nicholas Sarkozy has just called for the Schengen agreements on immigration to be ripped up because they were undermining the French system of social security. This supports the Ukip view that there is intolerable and unsustainable pressure from uncontrolled immigration on the infrastructure and welfare systems of the wealthier European nations.

Furthermore, every single party supports controls on immigration from outside Europe and this tends to lead to a much more racist immigration policy given that people from mainly white Europe will have uncontrolled access but Africans and Asians are likely to be stopped before they even reach the border.

Neither do I think that Nigel Farage is personally racist. He has tended to make remarks about Romanians based on criminality, discrimination and poverty. I don’t believe for one moment that he genuinely thinks all Romanians belong to criminal gangs, but just that