Why do Anglicans lean pro-Brexit, while atheists favor ‘Remain’?

Jun 1, 2016 by

by Sara Miller Lana and Alexis Xydias, CS Monitor:

Though rarely invoked in British politics, religious belief does present correlation with Britons’ positions on whether to stay in the European Union.

Religion is rarely invoked in British political affairs, and officially religious authority has remained neutral on the June 23 vote. Class, age, or education are much better indicators of voter preference. Ms. Goddard is the first to say she is not voting along religious lines but because of terrestrial politics.

But polls show Anglicans as by far the most likely “Brexiteers,” when compared to other religious groups and those who proclaim no religious affiliation at all. In a poll commissioned by the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data, and Methods (WISERD), 55 percent of Anglicans say they back the Leave campaign. That was the highest “out” vote among six Christian denominations in the survey.

While nearly split, Catholics on the other hand favored staying, by 43 percent to 42 percent. Other polls have shown much more support for Remain among the UK’s various religious minorities, including Muslims.

“There is nothing along the lines that you might see with the ‘religious right’ in the American vote; it is not as collective and cohesive as that as a voting bloc,” says Ben Ryan, a researcher at the London-based Theos, a thinktank that studies religion and public life. And while religious affiliations overlap with age and geography, history may be a driving factor, as are current politics that impact the various faith groups unevenly. “Religion does matter in this debate.”

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