American, soon to be UK citizen. What is the political life like for UK Catholics?

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I’m a little worried that I’ll be starting a debate here but I’m American, and I apologise if this is on the wrong forum. I don’t know where to ask.

Assuming everything with my application goes well for citizenship, I will become a UK citizen soon.

What is it like voting as a Catholic in the UK? As a Catholic, I’m faithful to the Magesterium, genuinely try to live a truly good and meaningful life, be a good wife, living example, concerned with the sanctity of life, compassionate for the poor and vulnerable in society. Liturgically I’m not “Latin Mass/Extraordinary Form only” but prefer a more traditional mass.

Most American Catholics that are like me more often than not will vote Republican or more conservative third party. Maybe sometimes for a pro-life Democrat but they are becoming rare.

What is it like for faithful British Catholics? Do they tend to vote for one party? Obviously because the country is more secular at the moment than the U.S. in some respects, I’m guessing that certain moral issues like abortion or gay marriage aren’t usually on the table in the U.K. – so is the voting trend more across the boards?

I’ve seen some faithful Catholics politicians here in the U.K. who are also in the Conservative/Tory party. But are there also Catholics involved in other parties? What are the key issues that you wrestle most with when exercising your vote?

I will say as an EU spouse and “foreigner” I’ve had a really hard time with Brexit and I often feel very angry about many aspects of it. I feel angry about the way foreigners are starting to be treated here and people’s attitudes about them. It has changed for the worse since I first came here over 10 years ago. My husband is straight up furious about it and feels Brexit will be a disaster. So I sometimes feel angry about some of the things that conservatives want, like privatised health care. As an American I’ll never be able to return to the U.S. because of the state of health care there, so I don’t understand why anyone would want to go that route.

But again, I generally only hear one side because I discuss these things with my husband. He is also Catholic but he’s European, but not English, and I sometimes give him crap about being “too liberal” 😆 I’m the first to admit that I have a lot to learn here, it’s all still very new to me.

I guess the long and short of my question: British Catholics, what is the political life like as Catholics in the UK?
 
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Long term reader here but this query prompted me to sign up.

First of all, welcome to the UK and congrats on imminent citizenship! I hope you will love it here.

I’m British, cradle Catholic. Also fascinated by differences in perception between US and UK which is why I thought I would give this a go.

Quick answer to your question is - I have never heard that there is a group voting position for British Catholics. On abortion in particular, parliamentary convention is that it is not and never will be a party political matter. Any vote on abortion in Parliament is a free vote and MPs vote individually. There will never be a party line.

On politics and religion in the UK generally I understand it is quite different in the US. Alistair Campbell (Blair’s spin doctor) apparently tried to explain to the US media that, so far as the British electorate sees it, a politician who talks about religion is nuts. Religious faith may be deep and sincere and woven through how an MP or citizen votes. But religion is also intensely private. An MP who said that they voted X because they were Catholic (or Muslim or Jewish or Hindu or anything else) would be seen by the electorate as … odd. Possibly a little unhinged. Definitely not suitable to be running the country.

So where that leaves you? Doing a lot more work to think about what really matters to you when voting, and knowing your MP’s individual views. Jacob Rees Mogg, for instance, is known to be a faithful Catholic with 8 children and has publicly opposed abortion (one of the very few MPs to do so). He is also a hard Brexiteer. If he is your local MP, that leaves you to decide which of those matters to you more when deciding if you vote for him.

It is more work certainly, but more interesting as well I think.

Sorry if that got long. Welcome to the UK!
 
Thank you so much! Your response was very insightful and helpful, and exactly the kind of insight I’ve been looking for. From what I’ve seen, the political climate and how religion plays a part is very VERY different here than it is in the U.S. so it’s really helpful to get more specific insight about it.

I also very much appreciate you going through the effort to register just to answer the question. 😃
 
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I don’t think any mainstream party has a position on abortion, and as was stated above any vote in the House would be a free vote with no whip applied. I would point out that the government has recently extended abortion provision so that the NHS in England and Wales now provide abortion free at point of need to women from NI, and is coming under increasing public pressure to extend provision fully to NI. As a general rule of thumb religion is kept out of politics and the major parties “don’t do god.”
 
It just so happens that a long article on Catholic politicians (in the UK and elsewhere) is the cover story in this week’s issue of the Catholic Herald. Jacob Rees-Mogg is certainly the most prominent Catholic politician in the UK at the moment, and many Catholics on the conservative side see him as a future prime minister, though whether that’s a realistic prospect is open to question.
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/issues/july-13th-2018/the-trouble-with-catholic-politicians/
 
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Anecdotally I’ve known Catholics all over the political spectrum. I’m personally left wing but used to know some very far right Catholics. In Britain many Catholics have concerns about social justice and environmental issues which influences voting more than issues such as gay marriage and abortion.
 
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