The UK is one of the last western democracies with a state religion: the Church of England.
The Church's entanglement with the state is bad for both.
Join our campaign to disestablish the Church.
CAMPAIGN ALERT: Support the disestablishment bill
In November 2023, a private member's bill to disestablish the Church of England was selected in the ballot.
Please write to your MP and urge them to support this bill, to make the UK are more equitable and democratic country for people of all religions and beliefs.
Since our founding in 1866, one of our primary objectives has been disestablishment of the Church of England: its formal separation from the state.
More than 150 years later, census figures show most people in England and Wales are not Christian. Surveys consistently reveal a similar picture in Scotland. The case for disestablishment has never been stronger.
Disestablishment means the Church would no longer have privileged input into government - but also that government could not involve itself in the running of the Church. Both sides would gain autonomy. This is why support for Church-state separation can be found within the CofE itself.
There have been many proponents, religious and non-religious, for church-state separation, and there are a wide variety of motivations for supporting this reform.
The existence of a legally-enshrined national religion privileges one part of the population, one institution and one set of beliefs. Removing all symbolic and institutional ties between government and religion is the only way to ensure equal treatment to citizens of all religions and none.
The Church of England has enjoyed significant privileges relating its established status for many centuries. These privileges have remained largely unchanged despite the massive and continuing reduction in support for the Church in the UK. It is highly likely that this trend will continue for the foreseeable future, making the Church of England's continuation as the established church unsustainable.
- Christians are a minority in Britain. In Wales and Scotland the majority have no religion.
- Just 1% of 18-24 year olds say they belong to the Church of England.
- Less than 1% of the population regularly attend Church of England church services.
The Church of England is also out of step with the UK public on several key issues: it remains opposed to same-sex relationships and allows parishes to reject women as bishops and priests. These discriminatory positions cannot be reconciled with the Church's status as part of the UK state.
And no institution with the shameful historical record of the Church of England safeguarding and abuse should retain its privileged role in the British establishment.
The existence of a legally enshrined national religion privileges one part of the population, one institution and one set of beliefs. Removing all symbolic and institutional ties between government and religion is the only way to ensure equal treatment of citizens of all religions and none.
Take action!
1. Write to your MP
Ask your MP to support the separation of church and state
2. Share your story
Tell us why you support this campaign, and how you are personally affected by the issue. You can also let us know if you would like assistance with a particular issue.
3. Join the National Secular Society
Become a member of the National Secular Society today! Together, we can separate religion and state for greater freedom and fairness.
Latest updates
Pew survey: 60% support separation of religion and government in UK
Posted: Thu, 31 May 2018 10:56
Six out of ten adults in the UK believe religion should be kept separate from government policy, including a majority of moderately committed Christians, according to the Pew Research Centre.
According to survey data published in Pew's report Being Christian in Western Europe this week, 60% agree that religion should be "kept separate from government policies". Just 38% said "government policies should support religious values and beliefs".
Eighty-one per cent of the religiously unaffiliated supported separation, along with 59% of Christians with 'low levels of commitment' and 55% of Christians with 'moderate levels of commitment'.
The survey also suggested high levels of support for social policies traditionally opposed by religious groups. Almost eight in ten people in the UK support same-sex marriage, including more than 80% of the religiously unaffiliated and Christians with low or moderate levels of commitment. Just 41% of highly-committed Christians agreed.
More than eight in ten support legal abortion, including more than 80% of the religiously unaffiliated and Christians with low or moderate levels of commitment. Half of committed Christians agreed.
National Secular Society chief executive Stephen Evans said the data showed "comfortable public support for the most basic secularist principle".
"The people of the UK broadly agree that religion shouldn't play a part in public policy. That's encouraging. But meanwhile religion remains stubbornly entrenched within our public life. The Church of England is established, bishops retain places in the House of Lords as of right and, despite declining religiosity, the government remains committed to faith schools.
"We still see all too often that those who make public policy retain a deferential attitude towards religion. They should catch up with the public."
Last year the NSS called for a major rethink of religion's public role in its publication Rethinking religion and belief in public life: a manifesto for change.
Pew's findings are similar to those outlined in a YouGov poll on Christmas Day 2017, when 62% of British people said no religious clerics should have "an automatic right to seats" in the UK legislature. Sixty-five per cent said politicians should keep their political beliefs cordoned off from their decision-making.
The Pew survey found that just 18% of people in the UK are Christians who go to church services at least once a month but 55% are 'non-practising Christians'.
Survey data on the religious affiliation of the UK population has tended to vary depending on the nature of questions that are asked.
Last year the British Social Attitudes survey found that a majority of Britons had no religion. In that survey almost 3,000 people were asked: 'Do you regard yourself as belonging to any particular religion?' If respondents said yes, they were asked which one, without being given a list of religions.
The Pew study also suggested a slow rise in the number of people who are religiously unaffiliated in the UK, with a concurrent decline in the number of Christians. Six per cent more people said they were currently religiously unaffiliated than raised unaffiliated, with six per cent fewer saying the same thing about being Christian.
Those in the UK who had left the religion they were raised in cited the religious authorities' intransigence on social issues (55%) and scandals involving religious institutions (53%) as two of their three most important reasons for doing so. Sixty-eight per cent said 'gradually drifting away from religion' was an important reason.
Those surveyed in the UK tended to see religious institutions themselves relatively positively: 40% had more positive views of them than negative ones, whereas 32% had more negative than positive. Half of UK respondents agreed that "religious institutions play an important role in helping the poor and needy". Forty-two per cent said they "are too concerned with money and power".
Pew surveyed people in 15 western European countries. Majorities in all of them favoured separating government and religion: 60% agreed with this proposition whereas 36% disagreed with it. People in traditionally Protestant countries tended to be more in favour of separation than those in traditionally Catholic ones.
Across western Europe 18% were church-attending Christians; 46% were non-practising Christians; and 24% were religiously unaffiliated.
Pew also found that self-identified Christians – whether they attend church or not – were more likely than religiously unaffiliated people to express negative views of immigrants, Muslims and Jews.
Pew spoke to 1,841 adults in the UK, among 24,599 adults in total in the 15 countries.
NSS reiterates call for abolition of chancel repair liability
Posted: Thu, 24 May 2018 12:38
The National Secular Society has urged the Law Commission to recommend the abolition of a measure which requires certain landowners to pay for repairs to local Anglican churches.
The commission has recently announced it will look into chancel repair liability (CRL) in its forthcoming work programme. But it will mainly aim to "close the loophole" which leads purchasers of property to search and/or insure against the risk of liability unnecessarily, costing an estimated £20m each year.
The NSS wants the commission to go further and propose the abolition of CRL. The liability has its origins in Norman ecclesiastical law and was widely thought to have become a dead letter. But in the last fifteen years the Church of England has put pressure on parishes to register it against properties, a measure which was likely to have an adverse effect on value and saleability.
There are few reliable records relating to CRL and many of these registrations are also incorrect. But even where the registration is technically correct, adverse effects on value and saleability arising from registration are likely to be unjustified as the church has bowed to public pressure and practically ceased any attempt to collect CRL from residential property.
In 1985 the commission recommended that "[CRL] arising from the ownership of land should be abolished after ten years", in a report prepared in co-operation with the church. The commission's report was prescient, but the government did not act upon it.
CRL was revived 15 years later, when the Parish of Aston Clinton in Buckinghamshire made a £200,000 claim against a farm. As a result of the claim and the massive legal costs it prompted, the farm had to be sold and its owners went bankrupt ten years ago.
The 1985 recommendation included a draft bill, which was tabled in the Lords by Lord Avebury, in the 2014-5 and 2015-6 sessions, with NSS support. The church said it would only accept abolition if compensated.
Neither Lord Avebury nor the NSS accepted that compensation would be appropriate as the church had practically stopped trying to collect CRL on residential properties, meaning there was minimal loss of revenue for which to compensate.
Stephen Evans, National Secular Society CEO, said: "The Church of England, with its considerable wealth, is hardly in a position to make financial demands on individuals to pay for church repairs, so it's unfair that homebuyers are having to spend money on insurance against potential claims. Chancel repair liability is a medieval relic that should be abolished – and the sooner the better."
Image: Parish church of St Nicholas, Fisherton de la Mere, Wiltshire; © Chris Downer [CC BY-SA 2.0]
