Theos Senior Fellow Nick Spencer unpacks what he saw at the “Unite the Kingdom Carol Service” in Whitehall over the weekend.

Central London is extremely busy when we arrive, on Saturday afternoon. It’s not with protestors or carollers though. Tourists and Christmas shoppers rule the pavements. After the September UTK rally, I had imagined swathes of Westminster cordoned off for legions of flag–waving nationalists, ordinary people waiting and cowering in fear and anticipation. This time, however, although there is a visible police presence, people in and around Trafalgar Square seem to be oblivious to whatever is about to happen.

We meander down Whitehall to be met by probably the most English sign we see all day. It’s not a George’s cross or an “Anglo–Saxon Freedom” flag but an electronic display telling us which direction to queue for whatever rally we want: left for Unite the Kingdom, right for (anti–)Digital ID. The latter has a large stage and very loud music. The former is much smaller, dwarfed by the Cabinet Office outside which it stands. It is more like the kind of thing you would find outside a town hall than on Whitehall.

The location is important. In his public communication about the event, Tommy Robinson had been insistent that this was about putting Christ into Christmas, and not about politics. But Whitehall is a strange location for a non–political carol concert, and e–mails that Robinson had sent to supporters had talked about this being an “assembly of dedicated patriots [singing] beloved carols that proclaim our enduring devotion to faith and homeland”, and how this “holiday [a curious word to choose] spectacle is set to become Sadiq Khan’s ultimate dread”. In other words, this looked like textbook Christian Nationalism stuff, a thin paper of Christian culture wrapping some very red nationalist meat.

The crowd is vastly smaller than the September event, perhaps 1–2,000 people at its max. It is largely but by no means exclusively white, and roughly equally mixed in terms of gender and age. There are a few families and younger people, some veterans, and a guy with a shofar horn, who really knows how to use it. Some people carry flags – there are perhaps 20 in total – mainly Union Jacks and St George’s Crosses, with a few ‘Jesus is King’ banners, plus, curiously, a Shropshire county flag and briefly, before it disappears, a Deus Vult banner. Aside from the guy I’m standing next to who is dressed in a Christmas onesie and drinking a can of Stella, I see no one consuming alcohol, drunk, or behaving anti–socially. (Interestingly, in a preparatory twitter post, Robinson had written “No face coverings, and no drinking please, as we have always done, let’s self police, behave respectfully and let’s make sure we honour our faith, our culture, and our heritage in the very best way we can.”) Perhaps most importantly, it feels like a more working–class crowd than you would get in most UK churches.

At first, when the event proper begins at 3pm, it feels rather low energy. People aren’t angry or even particularly animated (unlike at the digital ID rally 250 yards up the road) but they warm up as the event proceeds. The focus is relentlessly on Jesus throughout the whole thing – who he was and how he has saved people and can save your life and save our country. There are half a dozen readings from the gospels and prophets, a few short sermons, mainly from the (all male) clerics who assume the stage (Bishop Ceirion Dewar, pastor Rikki Doolan, Chris Wickland, etc) – and some heartfelt testimonies. The audience are led in familiar carols by a small band and three black women with impressive voices. A number of independent evangelists, male and female, black and white, ply the crowd handing out their tracts and leaflets. Ignore who is organising this and where we are, and you would mistake it for any evangelistic carol event in the country, albeit, as noted, with a lower–than–average middle class contingent.

There is pretty much no politics at all. Several speakers talk of “patriots” rather than, say, “believers”, “citizens” or “subjects”, and there are a few calls to renew the country, but other than that, you would be hard pressed to pin the event politically. The tone remains largely positive. There’s a bit of anti–elite rhetoric, some anti–liberal stuff, but pretty much nothing on wokery or on Islam, which is mentioned only once, in passing, by a minister from Pakistan who was exhorting the crowd to pray for the persecuted church in Pakistan and Nigeria. On a few occasions the audience, encouraged by the stage, breaks out in a chant of “Christ is King”, which feels (to me at least) both aggressive and unnecessary. The crowd is also animated by periodic references to how Jesus can save the nation, showing their approval by cheers or, more usually, applause. For the most part the audience seems happy to listen quietly and join in when the band strikes up.

One or two younger speakers talk about mental health problems and how Jesus rescued them from depression and suicidal feelings. Several advise the audience that their Christianity should be a seven–day–a–week thing, and that they should also find a church to go to (though they seem to draw the line at Church of England churches, which they consider to be pusillanimous and too liberal). A few speakers complain about the commercialisation of Christmas obscuring its true meaning. Most talk as if they are preaching to the unconverted but, in as far as I can tell from the singing and handwaving, the majority of the crowd are already in the flock.

All in all, it feels like an old school revivalist meeting, Primitive Methodism c.1820 mixed with a bit of Billy Graham c. 1960, with just a pinch of patriotic Rudyard Kipling thrown in. Perhaps the only notable difference is that there is not much mention of sin, with Robinson himself being pretty much the only one to talk about it. He is most notable on account of his absence throughout (again I sense the crowd wanted more of him: “Where’s Tommy?” a woman behind me shouts, when it’s beginning to look like he won’t appear at all). He comes on stage but only in the last five minutes, during which time he calls himself a sinner, several times, although straightaway softens the self–accusation by saying that everyone is a sinner. The crowd is certainly enthused by his presence, and it is doubtful whether as many would have turned up had he not organised it, but at no point does the event turn into a personality cult, which it so easily might have done. It’s all over by about 4.45 and people drift away, leaving a relatively litter free street.

What is one to make of this? Well, anyone (including researchers) coming for some full–blooded Christian nationalism, will have been disappointed. The political location; the (false) premise (“this is purely about putting Christ back into Christmas”, Robinson had tweeted, despite the fact that 50,000+(?) church carol services already had Christ at their centre); and much of the peripheral language (“our beloved country faces grave threats from those intent on undermining our cherished Christian traditions and national pride”): all of this would have led you to expect some obvious and unapologetic Christian nationalism. That was the frame.

But the picture was different. “I want to remind everyone this is a religious celebration,” Robinson had tweeted, “this is not a political event, it’s not about Islam, immigration, or the useless communists in control of our government.” That may be a rather comical way of announcing that something isn’t political, but the fact is that the event was not really political. On the contrary, it was tightly and insistently focused on Christ, more so than some other (carol) services you might attend. The people who spoke, including, it seemed, Robinson himself, were genuinely moved by, and passionate about Jesus. The audience was varied, respectful, enthusiastic, and sober. For all that some waved Union Jacks, there were rather fewer than on the Last Night of the Proms. Jesus got more applause than England did.

The fact is that everyone will be able to find something in this that will confirm their existing opinions. There’s enough here, especially in the way it was framed, to confirm, for those who are already convinced, that this was straightforwardly the far right weaponizing Christianity for invidious and divisive political ends. But there is also enough, in the picture, to suggest that this was simply ordinary people, tired of being dismissed as bigots, who want to be proud and public about what Jesus has done for them and what he could do for their country, and who don’t feel particularly heard or welcomed in more institutional settings.

So, frame or picture? Or perhaps both?

Nick Spencer is Senior Fellow at Theos