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For the first time in a census of England and Wales, less than half of the population (46.2%) described themselves as ‘Christian’, a whopping 13.1% decrease from 2011. This was the headline finding from the latest release of data from the decennial mandatory household questionnaire, which started in 1801.
The stark result was mostly caused by an almost corresponding 12% increase in the number of respondents professing to have no religion, up to 37.2% from 25.2%. Contrasting the growth in the number of apparent atheists, those describing themselves as ‘Muslim’ rose to 3.9 million, up from 2.7 million in 2011. The number identifying as ‘Hindu’ also increased to one million from 818,000 a decade earlier.
The accuracy of the figures is variable since answering religion-related questions is voluntary. The responses produced a headline in 2001, finding that Jedi from the Star Wars movie was ranked as the fourth highest (0.7%) religion.
The same census reported that 13% of respondents had ‘no religion,’ roughly a third of the most recent figure 20 years later. Notably, there was also a 3.9 million increase in the number of respondents answering the religion question, rising to 94.0% in 2021, compared with 92.9% in 2011.
The profound shift in the national identity meant an array of angles for the media to present the data, with most of the media focusing on the country becoming a Christian minority. True to form, the Daily Mail brought out the race card, saying England and Wales were also becoming ‘less white’ based on ethnic descriptions. The Telegraph focused on ‘Satanism and devil worship’ being on the rise.
The left-leaning Guardian was accused of “race-baiting” by “intentionally mixing up its measurements” between numbers and percentage changes to make the increase in Muslims “look huge.”
The daily also had “dire takes on ethnicity figures” that were like the Mail. “Not only did the Guardian prop up right-wing narratives about, for example, ‘invasions’ of refugees—it then did what the liberal media do so well and covered its tracks by spinning it as ‘super-diversity.’
While the right sows seeds of division and bigotry, 40% of England’s Muslim population now lives in the most destitute fifth of local authority districts, a million more than in the previous decade, with just 4% living in the least impoverished councils.
A misleading depiction of the UK’s demographic patterns, one that appeals to right-wing excesses, and exploits Muslims as fodder for Islamophobic scare stories, risks turning the government’s ‘levelling up’ initiative into yet another Tory gimmick rather than a serious tool for equality.
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