On Friday 3^rd May, people will gather in a religious building to thank God for weapons. Not any weapons, but weapons designed to kill thousands of innocent people.

The building in question is not, as some might imagine, a fundamentalist mosque. It is not a way-out church in the USA calling on its members to bomb abortion clinics. It is Westminster Abbey, a prominent Christian church in the centre of London and at the heart of the British establishment. It is one of London’s most prominent landmarks and a leading tourist attraction.

The Abbey is holding “a service to recognise fifty years of continuous at-sea deterrent”. In this context, “deterrent” is a euphemism for nuclear submarines. 

Each warhead on the Trident nuclear submarines owned by the UK government has about eight times as much destructive power as the atomic bomb that flattened Hiroshima in 1945. There are five warheads on each Trident missile, and each submarine carries up to eight missiles. There are four Trident submarines.

In other words, the UK’s Trident nuclear weapons system is about 1,280 times as destructive as the Hiroshima bomb. The Hiroshima bomb killed at least 140,000 people.

This is the weapons system that Westminster Abbey will be thanking God for on Friday.

The Abbey’s spokespeople have insisted that this is not a service of “thanksgiving”, although it has been alleged that invitations for the service originally used this word. Instead, the Abbey describes the service as:

“A service to recognise the commitment of the Royal Navy to effective peace-keeping through the deterrent over the past fifty years and to pray for peace throughout the world.”

With this statement, the Abbey has adopted a clear political position in favour of Trident. The use of the word “deterrent” implies a belief in the dubious claims made by apologists for Trident. The Abbey claims not only that the Royal Navy is committed to peacekeeping but that this peacekeeping has been “effective”. 

I recognise that there are arguments in favour of Trident, unconvincing though I find them to be. But these arguments make no sense in Christian contexts. As Christians, we can all too easily fall back on the habit of reaching conclusions on the basis of the principles that dominate in the secular world. I admit I have fallen for this trap at times, as have many other Christians. However, surely our aim is to begin with a different starting-point, to seek to base our decisions and choices on Jesus – his teachings, actions, life, death and resurrection.

Fundamental to such a faith – and shared with many other religions – is the notion that our ultimate trust is in God, not in earthly institutions and inventions that promise to protect us if we submit ourselves to their power. Such submission is the essence of idolatry: putting our ultimate trust in things that we have made, rather than in the God who made us. As Jesus said, no-one can serve two masters. We can either trust in God or in the powers of weapons, money and nation-states. We cannot worship both.

Jesus’ practice of active nonviolence is, I suggest, linked to this principle. I accept that in the Hebrew Bible (which Christians tend to call the Old Testament) there are several examples of God endorsing violence. But Jesus taught something different. Furthermore, even in the Old Testament, the Israelite armies are instructed to trust God, not their own might. Gideon was even told to reduce the size of his army so that they would not think they had won through their own strength. I am guessing that passage won’t be read in Westminster Abbey on Friday.

The service is “by invitation only”. The idea of an invitation-only act of worship angers me almost as much as the fact that the service is celebrating nuclear weapons. The Christian Gospel is fundamentally at odds with “invitation only”. Jesus did not preach to people by “invitation only”. The Kingdom of God is not open only to the rich, powerful and important people who attend by “invitation only”. It s difficult to imagine anything more contrary to the essence of Christian worship than “invitation only”.

I respect many people, including many Christians, who reach different conclusions to mine on a variety of subjects. I appreciate that many Christian churches differ from my own outlook and preferences, and I am glad that such churches are worshipping God and proclaiming the good news of Jesus.

This service at Westminster Abbey is different. By promoting weapons of mass destruction, by encouraging trust in military might, by proclaiming loyalty to a nation-state ahead of the Gospel and by excluding those who are not invited from an act of worship, Westminster Abbey will be championing outright blasphemy and idolatry on Friday 3^rd May.

I am glad that there will be many protests going on near the Abbey, as well as alternative acts of worship and genuine prayers for peace. As a supposedly Christian church champions military idolatry, I cannot help but conclude that to nonviolently challenge, prevent, delay or disrupt this service could be a profoundly moral and Christian act.

A few days ago I spent some time looking back through the voting records of the MPs who are now part of so-called “Change UK”. I found that they had nearly always voted for the more militaristic of any two options placed in front of them.

As a result, I wrote an article that appeared in yesterday’s Morning Star. You can read it on the Morning Star website.

Recent days have seen a succession of ex-MPs, commentators, absurdly posh people and people-who-used-to-be-famous unveiled as candidates for the forthcoming European elections. They range from Rachel Johnson and Annunziata Rees-Mogg to Stephen Dorrell and Anne Widdecombe.

These candidates are all standing for either the Brexit Party or Change UK, both of which have been launched only in the last few weeks.

On the surface, these two parties might seem very different. The Brexit Party was founded by Nigel Farage, former UKIP leader, privately educated stockbroker and man of the people. They insist that leaving the European Union is more important than any other issue.

Change UK on the other hand was founded by former Labour and Tory MPs who like to describe themselves as “moderate” and “centrist” despite their support for welfare cuts, fracking and the renewal of the Trident nuclear weapons system. Change UK’s interim leader Heidi Allen described her party as the “natural home” for remain voters. She talks as if remaining in the European Union was more important than any other issue.

Despite being respectively strongly pro-leave and strongly pro-remain, these two new parties have much in common.

Firstly, they both talk as if Brexit were the only issue that mattered. They want us to put aside other concerns in order either to achieve Brexit or to stop it.

Secondly, neither of them are interested in any fundamental change to the social and economic structures of the UK. Both the Brexit Party and Change UK are firmly committed to capitalism.

Nigel Farage’s right-wing views and love of Thatcherism are well-known. Change UK have said they would back Theresa May in a no-confidence vote. They may be to the left of Theresa May on economic issues (which isn’t saying much) but they have all to some extent accepted austerity and consistently voted for pro-war policies (the four who were MPs at the time of the Iraq invasion all voted for it, with Joan Ryan acting as a teller for the Ayes in the crucial vote).

A glance at the candidates announced this week reveals that Change UK and the Brexit Party are united in their loyalties to the interests of the wealthy.

Anne Widdecombe once called for anti-capitalist demonstrations to be banned. Rachel Johnson’s vile quotes include the line “a house without an aga is like a woman without a womb”. Annunziata Rees-Mogg defended massive bankers’ bonuses just after the financial crash on the grounds that “if people cannot earn the big money here, they will simply move to where they can,” (is she unaware that the vast majority of people cannot “earn” this sort of money anywhere?). Change UK had to drop Joseph Russo as a candidate for saying “black women scare me”.

Another Brexit Party candidate is Claire Fox, hilariously described as a “left-wing activist” in some of the media coverage this week. Back in the day, Fox was the sort of Trotskyite who refused to condemn IRA murders. She now spouts equally vile, but far more right-wing, views on Radio 4. When I appeared on The Moral Maze some years ago, Fox suggested to me that young unemployed men should be deprived of literally all benefits. She justified this by claiming that her comment was merely a “thought experiment”.

It’s no surprise that people who think that Brexit is the only issue that matters are also people who don’t want to change anything else.

I’m in favour of Britain remaining in the EU, and am opposed to a hard Brexit in particular. But I have nothing in common with those whose reasons for supporting EU membership are about making it easier to manage the international movement of finance and people in the interests of capitalism. I am as far away from right-wing remainers are as I am from right-wing leavers. And while I may profoundly disagree with socialist leavers, I probably have more in common with them than I do with the sort of remain-voting MPs who cheer austerity, fracking and arms exports.

Thankfully, I can vote for a left-wing anti-Brexit party by voting Green. But if forced to choose, I’d choose a left-wing leaver over a Tory remainer.

Any claim that a particular issue is “the only thing that matters” involves doing nothing about other issues. As such, however radical the people who make such a claim, they tend in effect to be people upholding the status quo. The left needs to resist any party that offers no challenge to the injustices of capitalism – whatever their position on Brexit.