Christian Peoples Alliance

The Christian Peoples Alliance (CPA) 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 - in the most recent 2024 General Election they came 30th in 'overall votes cast'Results for a UK general election on 4 July 2024 UK Parliament and got no more than 1.3% of the vote in the constituencies they stood inResults for a UK general election on 4 July 2024, Elections contested by Christian Peoples Alliance Party UK Parliament. Which makes them about as relevant as the Monster Raving Loony PartyResults for a UK general election on 4 July 2024, Elections contested by Official Monster Raving Loony Party UK Parliament. 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,Meaning they never scored more than 5% of the vote-share in a single constituency. which suggests most Britons aren't that fussed about said secularism.
==History==
The party was founded in 1999, through 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 UKIPUkip Defend Controversial Ex-Christian Party Leader Alan Craig Joining Party Huffpost, 7 October 2014, 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'A ‘Christian choice’ in a secular capital Nouse, 28 May 2008.
==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. And a general belief that there is a 'persecution of Christianity' going on, mainly because it's not the 1950s anymore and general British society doesn't automatically defer to them in every wayMarginalised maybe, but we aren’t persecuted The Times, 5 April 2010.
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',The party that wants to give you £12,000 for getting married Cambridge News, 7 December 2019 being against 'indoctrination' in schools by the 'liberal agenda' (sic), advocation of conversion therapy, and the usual barbs against 'cancel culture' and 'freedom of speech'You know, the 'if it's in the Bible it's not hate speech and there should be no comebacks' freedom.Christian Peoples Alliance Mid Beds candidate highlights importance of marriage and family Bedford Independent, 4 October 2023 etc. 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.Christian People's Alliance leader: 'Gay marriage could be to blame for winter floods' The Standard, 16 May 2014 ELECTION NEWS: Local residents “disgusted” over “harmful and upsetting” campaign messages from the Christian Peoples Alliance Erdington Local, 25 February 2022 
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 say, the Conservative Party, 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, mainly by introducing 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), simply tightening the screws on said turnover tax whenever more revenue was required before leaping into a soup of right wing fantasy Thatcherite economics by promising to 'balance the books' while cutting taxes and increasing public spending by 'cutting waste' such as abolishing all UK NGOsElection 2024: Hitchin candidate Sid Cordle interview Stevenage Comet, 24 June 2024Which raises the conundrum of how public services provided by said NGOs would be 'improved' if abolished, like healthcare and education.. 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.Brexit costs government £40 billion a year in lost tax revenue ITV, 20 December 2022
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 rather two-faced policy on climate change; one moment talking about investing in renewables and supporting recycling but then talking about 'climate alarmism' (trivialisation of the issue to delay actionThere are genuine climate alarmists, but they're not in the same league as deniers Skeptical Science, 9 July 2018) and then backing science woo such as carbon capture
Carbon capture has a long history. Of failure Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 1 September 2022 . Then their crankery comes in full force; 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 'effectively zero'. It barely got a splash in the 2019 election (harassment of a pregnant Labour MP who dared to be pro-choiceFresh police move on abortion group targeting Stella Creasy The Guardian, 16 November 2019 and claims that a local mayoral candidate was either sacked due to discrimination or fired for hate speechhttps://christianconcern.com/cccases/maureen-martin/ Christian Concern, April 2023..) and declined even further in the last election, quite possibly due to the fact the Faragist vehicle Reform UK was fully in-play and the openly odious Heritage Party was there to soak up the 'bigoted arsehole' demographicIain Dale on X 1 July 2024.
It appears that currently, they have zero members in any tier of government.
==External links==
*Christian Peoples Alliance - Their own site.
*Their 2024 manifesto (But is it pleasing to God?)
==Notes==
==References==
Category:British politics
Category:British political parties
Category:Christianity
Category:Homophobia
Category:Politics
Category:Religion