Nigel Farage: Cameron is "imitating" UKIP over defence of Christian values

UKIP leader says Prime Minister's recent comments are attempts to claw back voters

UKIP leader Nigel Farage has said that Prime Minister David Cameron is copying UKIP’s “muscular defence” of Britain’s Judeo Christian culture in a bid to win back disaffected voters.

The comments come after the Prime Minister has displayed an increasing emphasis on his own Christian beliefs and the significant role religion should play in British society over the past couple of weeks.

Earlier this month, Cameron said that the Conservatives' “Big Society” idea was continuing the work of Jesus, and this was followed up by an article from the Prime Minister, published in the Church Times, in which Cameron said that Britain was a “Christian Country” and should be evangelical about its Christianity.

Speaking this morning on ITV’s Daybreak, Farage said that Cameron’s recent religious declarations were the Prime Minister trying to win back voters that the Conservative Party had lost to UKIP.

He said: “What Cameron is doing once again was really mimicking what Ukip have been saying for years, in an attempt to win back the voters that he has lost, but those voters are not going to go back to Mr Cameron.”

He added: “We have been saying for years that we should be more muscular in our defence of Judeo Christian culture, and after all we have a Christian constitution. The Church of England is the established church of this country.”

The leader of UKIP has regularly promoted UKIP as a party that stands up for “British Christian values.”

The recent comments from the Prime Minister have seen him receive a lot of criticism from those that feel governance and religion should be separate.

A letter signed by 55 public figures including artists, writers and comedians was sent to The Daily Telegraph on Monday, and said that Cameron’s recent comments about the place of religion in British society were divisive and could make some British citizens feel alienated.