The Labour party’s complicated relationship with God | Letters

Andrew Copson of Humanists UK, Zaki Cooper, David Tutssel and David Cragg-James respond to an editorial about the party and faith communities

Like many histories of the Labour party, your editorial (31 March) overstates the emphasis on its Christian origins. Labour’s first leader, Keir Hardie, may have been a lay preacher, but its first prime minister, Ramsay MacDonald, was a paid-up humanist and an early president of Humanists UK. Many in Labour’s founding committees were humanists.

Many of the party’s most significant players – including Nye Bevan, Jennie Lee, Clement Attlee and Rhodri Morgan – were atheists and humanists. Keir Starmer seems to fit squarely in that tradition. If he becomes prime minister, he’ll be at least the fourth openly non-religious one, following MacDonald, Winston Churchill and Attlee.

Continue reading…