Reform UK has unveiled a proposal it says would safeguard Britain’s Christian heritage by preventing churches from being converted into mosques if the party forms the next government.
The party announced it would automatically grant listed status to churches throughout Britain, a move it argues would preserve the country’s Christian heritage and restrict alterations to historic buildings.
According to The Telegraph, home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf intends to frame the policy as part of a broader effort to maintain Christianity’s role at the heart of British national life.
The proposal would confer immediate listed status on approximately 40,000 churches, limiting structural changes that could alter their historical character and significantly curbing their potential reuse.
In addition, Reform UK plans to establish a distinct planning classification for churches that would prevent their conversion into worship spaces for other faiths. Currently, many religious properties in England fall under the F1 use category, which allows certain changes without requiring full planning approval.
Party officials have described the initiative as a response to public concern that churches are increasingly being repurposed as mosques.
Yusuf, who is a practicing Muslim, said Reform would “end the incendiary practice of converting churches into mosques or any other places of worship by granting listed status automatically to all churches and prohibiting that,” according to The Times.
While there is no comprehensive national record of church-to-mosque conversions, The Telegraph reports that roughly 40 confirmed cases have been documented in recent years.
Data cited by The Times indicates that since the late 1960s, only two Church of England churches have been sold directly to other religious groups for worship, both of which became Sikh gurdwaras. Most closed churches, the paper noted, are converted into residential properties, offices, cafés or are taken over by other Christian congregations.
Ben Sims of the National Churches Trust criticized the proposal, telling the newspaper that granting blanket listed status would “make a mockery of the heritage system,” noting that church authorities already exercise considerable control over former properties. In some instances, the Church of England has used restrictive covenants in sales agreements to prevent conversion for non-Christian worship.
One recent controversy involved St. John’s Church in Hanley, Staffordshire, a Georgian-era building that became the subject of debate after local planners approved its transformation into a mosque. Church officials later intervened by invoking a covenant attached to the property when it was sold in 2009.
Reform UK’s proposal emerges amid a sustained decline in church attendance and a growing number of building closures across the country.
Over the past decade, more than 3,500 churches have closed in the United Kingdom, largely due to shrinking congregations and mounting maintenance costs. The National Churches Trust estimates that between 3,000 and 5,000 churches are either permanently closed or only used occasionally without a resident vicar.
