Christian Peoples Alliance

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The Christian Peoples Alliance is a British 'Christian democratic' political party or a socially reactionary one veering in points close to moralistic Dominionism, depending on your viewpoint. Both agree that it is a very minor party, however (coming 24th in the 2019 General Election, being beaten by such heavyweights as the Monster Raving Loony Party). It is also the largest explicitly Christian party in the country, which says much about their decades-long fight against 'secularism', as it's never had a victory above a town council and has lost every deposit in elections for Members of Parliament, which suggests most Britons aren't that fussed about said secularism.

History

The party was founded in 1999, though stems from Christian pressure groups a decade previous. The main impetus appears to be the electoral reforms which used proportional representation for bodies like the London Assembly/Mayoralty and European Parliament. Throughout it's life, it has had significant political overlap with elements of UKIP, the moralistic end of the Conservative Party and long-running on/off hookups with even more minor Christian parties, such as the cunningly named 'Christian Party'.

Policies

Like many minor parties, its manifestos contain a mix of genuinely innovative ideas, common sense, and outright crankery, and like many Christian parties, has policies which defy the traditional 'left-right' political axis.

Socially, it is – unexpectedly – conservative, to the point of reactionary. It has most of the predictable touchstones; abortion, transgender youth, euthanasia, preserving/promoting 'the sanctity of marriage', being against 'indoctrination' in schools by the 'liberal agenda' (sic), advocation of conversion therapy, and so on. However, their official policies at least have the smell about them of a group which has enough self-awareness to realise it's on a serious losing wicket here – not a mention on contraception and little comment on LGBT rights in general. However, cynics with some justification comment that it's mere window-dressing for them to present themselves as more 'moderate' than they truly are.

On issues such as 'law and order', drugs, and antisocial behaviour, it has somewhat of an interesting mix; while it has the usual right-wing 'tough on crime' stance and is staunchly for continuing the War on Drugs, it also accepts the wider socioeconomic causes of much crime, that drug addiction requires treatment and prison needs to rehabilitate as well as simply punish. In a nod to reality which makes them slightly more tolerable than the current Conservative government, it also realises that actual funding is required for these things to happen. Similar nuance can be noted on the issue of 'illegal immigration' and asylum seekers; at least they notice that the country had a duty to accept the latter, as well as looking at some of the more spiteful elements of the immigration system, such as the ruling which has priced-out many people being able to bring their families to live with them in the UK.

Economically, it is clearly 'distributist' in nature, calling for not just higher taxes on the wealthy, but a significant changes of the system, including a 'turnover tax' to replace that on profits, higher minimum wage, a bump-up in the benefits paid for those performing 'unpaid work' (such as carers and stay-at-home parents) and a large social housebuilding programme. Just in case you nod too vigorously on this, it then advocates ending fractional-reserve banking (clearly inspired by the advocacy group Positive Money), clamping down on debt interest, and simply tightening the screws on said turnover tax whenever more revenue was required. It also advocated using the 'savings from Brexit' to invest in infrastructure, which becomes a bit of a head-scratcher when you wonder how you invest a negative number.

On some topics, the party's moralism creeps through; supporting the taxation of both sugar and salt in foodstuffs, restrictions on gambling, a stronger focus on health prevention campaigns, and a (perhaps surprising) strong stance on tackling climate change. Then their crankery creeps through to counter this, like their 'freedom to choose' stance on vaccinations and the idea that the UK could be protected from enemy nuclear attack by a theoretical 'ballistic missile defence' system instead of her traditional submarine-based deterrent of retaliation, which to the chagrin of CND, is at least actual.

Effects

For good or ill, the answer is 'almost zero'. The only two actual items of note of late was their doings in the harrassment of a pregnant Labour MP who dared to be pro-choice in the run-up to the 2019 election and claims that a local mayoral candidate was either sacked due to discrimination or fired for hate speech. It appears that currently, they have zero members in any tier of government.

External links

• Christian Peoples Alliance
• Their 2019 manifesto.