On November 4, 2025, two major developments underscored the United Kingdom’s ongoing debate over social values, human rights, and the influence of imported political movements. New research from the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen), published by Humanists UK, revealed a broad liberal consensus across the UK on issues such as reproductive rights and same-sex relationships, spanning both religious and non-religious communities. Simultaneously, the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland (the ALLIANCE) joined nearly 300 organizations in a joint statement led by Liberty, defending the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) against mounting political and media attacks.
These events come amid a backdrop of heightened activism and polarization, with attempts to import the US-style ‘Christian Nationalism’ movement into the UK and growing concerns about the erosion of established human rights protections. Both stories, while distinct, reflect a society grappling with the boundaries of liberty, inclusion, and the role of tradition in public life.
According to Humanists UK, NatCen’s report, titled UK and US attitudes: Two sides of the same coin?, compared public opinion in the UK and US on a range of social issues, including immigration, racial equality, same-sex marriage, abortion, and the rights of transgender people. The study replicated a US survey conducted before the 2024 election, allowing for a direct comparison between the two societies.
The findings were clear: the UK demonstrates a far more liberal consensus on key social issues than the US, and this consensus cuts across religious and non-religious lines. For example, 59% of UK respondents said that legal same-sex marriage is good for society, compared to just 34% in the US. Similarly, 60% of people in the UK viewed the increasing visibility of gay, lesbian, or bisexual individuals as positive, while only 30% of Americans shared that view. NatCen suggested that same-sex marriage is largely a ‘settled’ issue in the UK, which may account for the broader acceptance.
When it comes to reproductive rights, the gap between religious and non-religious respondents was strikingly narrower in the UK than in the US. Among non-religious people, support for widely available contraception was high in both countries—86% in the UK and 77% in the US. The numbers were similarly strong for abortion rights, with 92% of non-religious Brits and 86% of non-religious Americans agreeing that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. However, religious respondents in the UK were significantly more supportive of both contraception (70%) and abortion (78%) than their American counterparts (52% and 53% respectively). Once again, NatCen attributed this to the ‘settled’ nature of these issues in the UK context.
Yet, the UK was not uniformly more liberal than the US. On questions of immigration and transgender rights, the UK lagged behind. NatCen speculated that this could be due to the intense media focus and politicization of transgender issues in the UK, and the nation’s relatively homogenous demographics compared to the US, where the narrative of being a ‘Nation of Immigrants’ is more deeply entrenched.
These findings arrive at a time when the UK has witnessed several high-profile incidents involving Christian Nationalist slogans and intimidation tactics. In recent months, a far-right rally in London drew more than 100,000 people, where Christian preachers dramatically tore up a flag reading ‘Secular Humanism’—the American term for ‘humanism’—and blamed liberal social attitudes, LGBT rights, abortion, and multiculturalism for society’s ills. Just weeks later, a group calling itself the ‘King’s Army’ organized a march through London’s Soho, the heart of the city’s LGBT+ community, shouting homophobic and Christian Nationalist slogans at passersby. These incidents, while headline-grabbing, appear to stand in stark contrast to the prevailing attitudes reflected in NatCen’s data.
Responding to the report, Richy Thompson, Director of Public Affairs and Policy at Humanists UK, stated, “NatCen’s new report shows that there is a liberal consensus in the UK on most major social issues, from abortion rights to same-sex marriage, that cuts right across the religious and non-religious sections of society. The data also underlines that while some groups and individuals are now actively involved in trying to import an aggressive conservative ‘Christian Nationalism’ into our politics, their agenda doesn’t have much of an organic foothold in the UK.”
While the debate over social values continues, another front in the battle for rights and inclusion emerged as the ALLIANCE joined a broad coalition in defense of the European Convention on Human Rights. Nearly 300 organizations signed a joint statement, coordinated by Liberty, warning against what they described as “inaccurate and scaremongering” political and media attacks on the ECHR. The statement highlighted the “devastating real-world consequences” such attacks could have for marginalized communities, including victims of sexual violence, mental health patients, and those affected by historic injustices like the Hillsborough disaster and the Windrush scandal.
The ECHR, the statement argued, is fundamental to democracy, accountability, and dignity in the UK. It protects individuals from abuses and ensures that everyone, regardless of background, enjoys the same basic rights. The ALLIANCE’s participation reaffirmed its strong support for the existing human rights framework and called on the government to go further by incorporating additional international human rights treaties into domestic law. The coalition’s message was unequivocal: “No one has human rights, unless we all have human rights.”
The joint statement also took aim at the argument that human rights are to blame for the UK’s social and economic challenges. Instead, it asserted, “Human rights are not the cause of the challenges facing our society, but part of the solution.” The coalition emphasized that too many people still struggle to access their rights to housing, education, health, employment, and social security. A human rights-based approach, they argued, would help ensure resources are used to improve people’s lives and address inequalities.
These parallel stories—one about the UK’s liberal consensus on social issues, the other about the defense of human rights protections—reflect a society at a crossroads. On one hand, there is evidence of resilience in the face of attempts to import divisive culture wars from abroad. On the other, there is a recognition that the struggle for rights and dignity is ongoing, and that vigilance is required to protect hard-won gains from being eroded by political or media campaigns.
As debates over identity, rights, and national direction continue to play out in public squares, parliaments, and the media, the message from both Humanists UK and the ALLIANCE is clear: the UK’s core values of tolerance, inclusion, and respect for human rights are not easily shaken, even in turbulent times. The data and the activism suggest that, for now, the liberal consensus remains strong—and the defense of universal rights, undiminished.
