There is little doubt that David Cameron’s promotion of legislation permitting gay marriage in 2014 was part of his attempt to “detoxify” the Tory brand and wipe the slate clean of the murky legacy of Section 28. And there are signs that he is already reaping the rewards. A recent poll by Pink News showed that the Conservatives are now on equal ranking with Labour among LGBT voters; for the Conservatives this represents a five per cent poll rise since 2010. But, just as Kinnock struggled to keep his core working-class voters onside over Section 28, so Cameron has found that in supporting gay marriage he has alienated loyal Anglican Tory voters. These are voters who would not classify themselves as homophobic but do not believe that a homosexual union should be given marriage status and resent even more a feeling that they are unable to voice their objections. In a recent ComRes poll commissioned by Premier Christian Radio, more than a third of respondents claimed that gay marriage had put them off voting Conservative.

This disaffection with the moral direction of the Conservative party is something that UKIP’s Nigel Farage has seized upon in a quest to broaden his party’s appeal beyond Euroscepticism. In UKIP, the old Thatcherite cries of moral and national degeneration are finding their voice once more. Ex-Tory voters are attracted to UKIP because of the party’s promotion of a nostalgic view of England, of which social conservatism and faith are a key element. UKIP’s wooing of Christian voters has in truth been half-hearted, not least because its leadership tends to take a libertarian view of personal morality and, like Margaret Thatcher, considers such issues as a diversion from the main cause. There is, however, a small but dedicated band of what are known as “UKIP Christian Soldiers”, although they are said to number only 1,000, and are no match for the Conservative Christian Fellowship, which works hard to ensure that the party keeps in touch with the grass roots in the pews. On gay marriage, Cameron took a political gamble; time will tell whether his decision to trade a band of hitherto loyal Christian Tory voters for socially liberal and secular floating voters will pay off.

On the surface, the politics of Scotland appear to represent a unique case, although the rise of the SNP too reflects the overall UK downward trend in old denominational identities. The recent surge of the SNP is one that can in part be explained by religion. Sectarianism, which for a long time cast a dark shadow over Scottish society and dominated its politics, has declined rapidly over the last 20 years, creating a void which has been replaced with a secular nationalism. Depending on how you see it, the Scots have either embraced national victimhood or national self-determination as their new religion, which in many respects is as unedifying and hysterical as the sectarianism of yesteryear. For a long time, the Tories and Labour in Scotland lazily fed off the sectarian divide within Scottish society while it has been the SNP which has capitalised on its decline.

This is a remarkable turnaround for the SNP, once dubbed the “Tartan Tories”, who were typified by their romantic, parochial and essentially conservative ideology and whose growth had long been stunted because of their inability to win over Catholic voters. The 1970s may have seen a limited surge in the SNP but not among Catholics. In the words of John Curtice, Professor of Politics at Strathclyde University, “At that point the concern among Catholics was that an independent Scotland might become a replica of Ulster.”