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Reform-led Kent County Council’s decision to recite the Lord’s Prayer and sing the national anthem at every full meeting has been branded “virtue signalling” and a “farce” which will cut the opposition’s speaking time and eat into crucial council business.
Groups including the National Secular Society (NSS) and Humanists UK have expressed disappointment that a Kent council has voted to “impose” Christian prayer at meetings.
Amendments to have a moment of silent reflection instead, or for the prayers to be said prior to the official agenda beginning, were defeated last Thursday. Prayers have not been said at Kent County Council meetings since 1987, according to the NSS.
The changes were put forward by Reform UK councillor Christopher Hespe. It is the latest attempt to introduce Christian prayers into council meetings by Reform. Farage’s councillors also imposed prayers on Derbyshire County Council last year after the party took control of the council.
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Opposing the amendment to have a silent moment of reflection, Council Leader Linden Kemkaran said she wanted the lord’s prayer to “take up the space” of that silence. She claimed the lord’s prayer was a “profound unifier”. And Reform councillor Spencer Dixon called the opposition to the plans “fake outrage”.
Fellow Reform councillor Terry Mole said that while he does not know if he’s a Christian and he doesn’t go to church, he does pray to win the lottery and said that councillors who do not want to listen to the lord’s prayer should just ‘bow their head’.
Cllr Mole said: “We are Christians at the end of the day.”
He went on: “Am I a Christian? I don’t know. I don’t go to church. I don’t pray every morning…But when I do the lottery, I still say, well, please God, let me win, okay?…I’m sure we all do it. Where are we going to get buried when we die? We’re going to be buried in a church, okay?”
In fact, 78% of people in Britain are now cremated.
The proposal was even controversial among Restore Britain councillors. One of them, Cllr Oliver Bradshaw, gave a conflicted speech noting that as a practising Anglican who supports the prayer, he was worried his own side was turning his religion into a political tool – the Lord’s Prayer being an act of worship and not about signalling or drawing political lines.
Conservative councillor Bill Barret said he “wasn’t elected to say prayers in this chamber”, adding that as an atheist, imposing prayers made him feel “slightly uncomfortable”.
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And Lib Dem councillor Mike Sole pointed to the potential bureaucratic absurdities of compulsory singing of the National Anthem. “Will scrutiny committees investigate insufficient enthusiasm? Will there be an anthem KPI [key performance indicator]?”
He told fellow councillors: “The resident waiting for the pothole to be fixed is not lying awake at night thinking, ‘I just wish my councillors would sing a bit more’. They are thinking, ‘could someone please stop my [vehicle] crashing into a crater?
“Our meetings are already theatrical enough. When the meetings end with a member of the Royal Family present, I will gladly stand up and sing with gusto. But until then, let’s finish with dignity, efficiency and the traditional British custom of quietly gathering our papers, nodding quietly to one another and muttering about the weather on the way out.”
The vote at the council’s annual meeting on 21 May saw 48 councillors back reciting the Lord’s Prayer and 45 back singing the national anthem – while approving a cut to all opposition leaders’ response time to make way for it. Opposition time will be cut by a minute each, leaving Labour’s Leader with only two minutes.
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The Green Group suggested that any reduction in speaking time be reflected in the Leader’s speaking time, reducing from 16 minutes to 14, but that suggestion was rejected by the administration as unreasonable.
Many councils have stopped holding prayers before meetings to make them inclusive of people of all religions and beliefs. This includes St Albans, which voted last year to end prayers because they may “exclude or alienate individuals of different faiths or those without religious beliefs”. The prayers will be introduced at the next Kent council meeting on July 16th.
‘A Regressive and Divisive Move’
NSS head of campaigns Megan Manson said: “This is a regressive and divisive move which sends entirely the wrong message to the people of Kent.
“It places Christianity on a pedestal above all religions and beliefs, contradicting values like tolerance, inclusion and equality.
“It also serves a Christian nationalist agenda which seeks to equate Christian identity with Britishness, and further break down the separation of religion and state. This is not the way to foster community cohesion or equal citizenship.”
Karen Wright, Director of Human Rights and Advocacy at Humanists UK, told this outlet the move was a “step backwards” for inclusive local democracy.
“Council business should not exclude people on the basis of religion or belief. Kent is not a Christian county. The Council’s own Census analysis shows that fewer than half of residents identify as Christian, while more than four in ten have no religion, alongside significant Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jewish, and other belief communities. That diversity should be reflected in how the Council conducts its business.”
Paul Pettinger is a former councillor who never stood up for prayers when they were compulsory on Exeter City Council from 2004 to 2008. He now chairs Green Humanists, the Green Party’s secularist wing.
He told Byline Times: “I was threatened with expulsion if I so much as discussed the issue at a full council meeting. It was really quite unpleasant and nasty.
“Prayers are no longer part of formal business at Exeter. That’s what makes it strange that Kent County Council are now trying to reintroduce them. Most councils don’t have prayers; Exeter was one of the minority that did, and even they no longer do. I do find it sinister, and I worry that it’s also sectarian.
“I’d have thought Reform Party members would appreciate religious freedom. Jesus was a refugee, according to the New Testament — he fled repression from King Herod. So I see a real irony in them trying to privilege one particular religious worldview when their own views are so heretical.”
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Prayers Over a ‘Water Catastrophe’
The meeting also saw what the Greens say was an urgent debate on water shortages in the county, delayed by two months. The Green Group’s motion on Water Resilience was deferred at least until July, on a procedural technicality. Around an hour was spent debating the introduction of the Lord’s Prayer to full council meetings at the Reform-controlled authority.
Kent Greens have raised repeated concerns about the “water catastrophe” at their district councils as South East Water has confirmed demand from new development will outstrip supply.
Green councillor Mark Hood (Tonbridge) said: “We are talking about full council, not the Last Night of the Proms. If people want to sing songs, then, by all means, sing the songs elsewhere. If this is going to eat into the time allocated to the democratic processes being undertaken in this room, then it’s absolutely unacceptable.”
Cllr Rob Yates (Green, Cliftonville) added: “This chamber is not a place of worship; we are here to serve all of our residents in Kent regardless of their beliefs.
“We are not elected to pray to God in this chamber or to sing to the King, although many of us are happy to do that, so let’s keep our focus on serving residents rather than serving the political aspirations of Nigel Farage or Rupert Lowe”.
The Reform UK group took control of Kent County Council in May 2025, winning 57 of 81 seats. The party has since lost ten members, largely through suspensions and defections to Rupert Lowe’s far-right Restore Britain party. In April 2026, Green candidate Rob Yates won the Cliftonville by-election in Thanet, taking a seat off Reform with 39 per cent of the vote.
Cllr Stuart Heaver, Green member for Whitstable West, added: “The Green Group was hoping to put forward a really pragmatic sensible action plan to sort out Kent’s fragile water infrastructure, we’ve got a real problem with wastewater treatment and water supply and we’re building more houses and the climate is changing and nobody is addressing it so we are sleep walking into this water catastrophe.”
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‘A Moment of Unity’
Cllr Linden Kemkaran, Leader of Kent County Council, defended the move, saying: “Beginning a full council meeting with the Lord’s Prayer is, for me, a pause and a rare moment of unity and peace in the Council Chamber. A moment to remember that we are accountable – not just to voters at election time, but for every word we say and every vote we cast in that room.
“Whether you are a person of deep faith, a casual cultural Christian, or someone who simply respects the ancient traditions of this country, I think most people can understand the value in that kind of moment. It grounds us. It reminds us why we are there, and it reminds [us] to always try to act for the greater good.”
She called the Lord’s Prayer “one of the most widely known texts in the English language,” “recited in councils, courts, and Parliament for centuries.” The Kent Reform leader claimed that saying the Lord’s Prayer at the start of meetings and the national anthem at the close are “small acts in the grand scheme of running a county council.”
The Gospel is fairly clear about not being ostentatiously holy in front of others for the sake of appearances.
Matthew 6:1 states: “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of people in order to be noticed by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.”
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