There’s nothing unchristian about Ukip’s family values
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Version 0 of 1. According to many, I shouldn’t exist: I am a Christian member of Ukip. Surely by limiting migrants’ access to UK healthcare and benefits, Ukip strives to restrict the scope of our compassion, while Jesus urges us to widen it? But things are not as straightforward as some who rail against Ukip would have us believe. Living in Scotland, ever aware of a campaign to break up Britain, focuses the mind on issues of statehood and national identity. The way I see it is this. A state is a political entity organising a group of people in a territory, ideally providing vital services and protections for all citizens. National identity is a subjective sense of unity, solidarity and distinctiveness that arises among a people from a confluence of shared history, land, culture, religion and/or language. Ideally, national identity should be congruent with loyalty to the state you belong to. Scottish nationalists claim that for them it isn’t. For me, it is. That’s why I’m happy to pay taxes to provide healthcare for anyone from Surrey to Shetland, including myself and my family. My contribution benefits me directly enough to feel that I’m part of a great community of mutual support. But if, instead, my taxes were distributed equally to provide healthcare to every person on Earth, the sense of mutuality and shared risks and benefits would be diluted to homeopathic extremes and I would feel my contributions to be charitable donations rather than participation in my community. It’s not that people in different countries are less valuable than my compatriots, it’s that I stand in a different relationship to them and therefore have different responsibilities. Otherwise, why not campaign for the vast majority of the UK health budget to be spent overseas instead of on the NHS? In explaining why he “despises” Ukip, Giles Fraser stated that in Christ there is neither “English nor Nigerian. We are all one family.” Yes, we do indeed stand equal before God, but does that imply that UK taxes should pay Nigerians in Nigeria unemployment benefits identical to their British equivalents? The best way to provide care for populations is to bring about a system that benefits those in need at the expense of those who might, in less favourable circumstances, have needed comparable help themselves. This enlightened self-interest, underpinned by a sense of national solidarity, is a more reliable source of mutual support than charitable contributions. The family is analogous to the state in this way. All children are equally valuable, but I lavish particular care (and expenditure) on my own sons. All women deserve support, honour and encouragement, but my particular responsibility as a husband is to my wife. If, out of misguided egalitarianism, I only gave to my sons what I could give equally to every child, I would be failing in my special responsibility to them. I happily pay taxes that can be used to help other people’s children, but the special bonds of family cause me to give freely to benefit my own. The biblical message emphasises these ideals. Provision within families is the default mechanism of caring for the young, needy and vulnerable. National groups should implement systems to provide for those whose families cannot. These layers of communities help to move care for those in need out of the realm of fickle charity and into the realm of clear duty. By this stage you may be itching to remind me of the multitude of biblical passages that urge us to care for those beyond our family and national group. I am delighted to be reminded. When I give money to aid those overseas, my faith challenges me to give more. When we help out a local single mum by having her kids stay over in our family home, I remember that God would love to see us do more. The UK should give financial aid to benefit the citizens of countries that can’t properly provide for their population. We should play our part in offering refuge to those fleeing persecution or war. Ukip’s point is that if the state’s systems of mutual support, the bedrock of its provision for UK citizens, begin to operate more like charitable enterprises, benefiting people who have not entered fully into the UK community of shared responsibility, then people will be less willing to contribute their share, and the whole precious system will totter. I want reliable systems in Britain to protect the vulnerable, supported willingly by the taxpayer. I also urge generosity to people of every nation, responding liberally to need out of universal compassion. But it is dangerous to confuse the two. What’s so unchristian about that? |