Memorandum by The National Secular Society
(VOT 33)
SECTION A—INTRODUCTION
WHO WE
ARE
Founded in 1866 by radical MP Charles Bradlaugh,
the National Secular Society is the most prominent organisation
in Britain supporting the rights of the non-religious and campaigning
for an end to religious privilege and the separation of church
and state. The Society is not aligned with any political party.
OUR SUBMISSION
Advantages of individual registration compared
with the existing system of household registration
Recommendation 1: We recommend
individual registration as it enhances the freedom of conscience
of the individual and the independence, by reducing the likelihood
of interference by others.
Our remaining comments are principally
directed to:
Issues of geographic and ethnic variations
in levels of voter registration,
Basis for individual registration eg address-based
or on personal criteria such as NI number or birth date
As an integral element of our democratic
process, electoral procedures should treat everyone identically.
Recommendation 2: We therefore
recommend strongly that there should be no ethnic and especially
no religious identifiers of individuals on the electoral roll.
Citizens should be able to keep their religious
affiliations—or lack of them—as a private matter.
It is therefore totally inappropriate to ask such information,
and especially to make it public. Individuals could also be targeted
or victimised because of their stated religion/belief. We would
also have concerns about some other uses to which this information,
having been gathered, could be applied.
CONCERNS ABOUT
RELIGION IN
PARTY POLITICS
We acknowledge that it is everyone's right to
identify themselves and organise themselves in any way they wish
and note the growing trend to identity politics. As part of this
trend, ethnic minorities are increasing identifying themselves
in religious terms and are being addressed as such by the Government.
Evidence of this comes in the setting up of the Government's Religious
Working Party chaired by Home office minister Fiona Mactaggart
and in the publication of Working Together published by
the Home Office Faith Communities Unit in February 2004. In this,
Government departments are encouraged to address the electorate
through religious bodes even though only 7% of the population
attend church on an average Sunday[68]
and only 44% of respondents to a poll[69]
believed in God. This fell to 37% for 18-34 year olds.
We are becoming increasingly concerned about
the potential dangers to democracy arising especially where voters
are acting in concert as a religious group and/or are being targeted
as a religious group. This gives them an unfair advantage over
those who are not organised as a belief group. The unfair advantage
is heightened because of the erroneous assumption that all of
those in a particular community subscribe to the dominant faith.
The minority faiths have a similar problem as Christianity with
young people being much less inclined to toe the religious line.
Addressing ethnic minorities as religious groups also gives those
leading such groups, a disproportionate amount of power. The leaders
are often not appointed democratically, and may therefore not
be representative of those they seek to represent.
68 UK Religious Trends 2003/2004 Ed Dr Peter Brierley
Pub 2003 Christian Research. Back
69
YouGov poll in December 2004. Back
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