British Supreme Court declares that Northern Ireland religious education is a form of illegal indoctrination – thecanary.co

In a landmark ruling, a judge at the Supreme Court in London has ruled against how religion is currently taught and practiced in Northern Ireland schools, a decision that will likely prompt a major shift in the curriculum. The matter relates to participants who the ruling describes as:
…a young girl, anonymised as JR87, and her father, anonymised as G…
They argued that the:
…Christian religious education given and collective worship provided in [the girl’s primary school] is contrary to religious freedom protections guaranteed by article 2 of protocol 1 (“A2P1”) to the European Convention on Human Rights…
The parents involved did not profess “any religious beliefs and they were not Christians”. Despite this, they found their daughter was displaying signs of religious indoctrination. In a 2019 letter, they informed the school that their daughter:
…now believes that God made the world, and she repeats and practices a prayer/grace that she was taught at school at snack-time.
The father G expressed concern:
…that his daughter is learning Christianity and not learning “about” Christianity in a school context that effectively assumes its absolute truth and which encourages her to do the same.
This matches a 2022 Belfast High Court ruling on the matter which determined a failure to convey religious education “in an objective, critical and pluralist manner”, and that children were seeing the “inevitable consequences” of the four main churches creating the syllabus when:
All…seek to promote faith in Christianity as an absolute truth rather than knowledge about Christianity.
Justice Colton on that occasion ruled in favour of G and JR87, on the basis of the above and a view that the opt-out privilege afforded to the child was overly burdensome on the parents, and put the child at risk of being stigmatised.
However, at a Northern Ireland Court of Appeal hearing in 2024 Lord Justice Treacy ruled against the family, contending that:
The existence of [the right to op-out] does not sit easily with the allegation that the State is pursuing the aim of indoctrination. One asks rhetorically if that was the aim of the State why would it have legislated as it did by creating the very mechanism that could avoid the alleged objective?
In other words, if the state really wanted to indoctrinate you, why would it let you dodge it by withdrawing from religious education whenever you feel like it? Treacy did uphold the High Court’s ruling that the teaching on religion and collective worship were not objective, critical or pluralistic.
This latter point was key in the Supreme Court overturning the Court of Appeal’s verdict, as Lord Stephens’ judgement cites a case in Norway in which the concepts of objectivity, criticism and pluralism were considered alongside indoctrination as “simply different sides of the same coin”. That is to say – if you’re not conveying information in a properly balanced and complete way, you are by definition indoctrinating those you are teaching. Stephens also found various errors with how the Court of Appeal dealt with the question of opting out, including placing an undue burden on the parents to prove their concerns of stigmatisation for their daughter.
The fossils at the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) have predictably expressed their displeasure at the ruling. Calling them that may seem unkind, but given some of the cranks to have recently occupied their benches believe the world was created in 4000 BC, the reference to fossils will likely be lost on them anyway. MP for Upper Bann Carla Lockhart said:
Disappointing news today at the Supreme Court, but we remain steadfast. Christian teaching and values have long been part of school life in Northern Ireland, and we will continue working to ensure they are protected.
She is quoted by the Belfast Telegraph placing her faith in the man who has recently appeared more interested in acting as the stooge of a genocidal foreign state than doing his job as Minister for Education. She said of Paul Givan:
We are very fortunate in Northern Ireland to have an Education Minister who understands the importance of those Christian foundations and who is committed to safeguarding them within the framework of the law.
Jim Allister, leader of the Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) party, echoed Lockhart’s views, saying:
As someone who has consistently defended the role of Christian faith in our schools, I am deeply disturbed by the recent judgment on Religious Education. The language used — particularly the inflammatory term “indoctrination” is an affront not only to teachers and parents but to the Christian foundations upon which our education system has long rested.
I reject entirely the suggestion that Christian teaching in our schools amounts to indoctrination. That word has been weaponised to belittle the sincere Christian ethos that shaped our society, our laws and our moral compass. It is an insult to the thousands of teachers who faithfully and honourably deliver RE.
This moral compass has apparently been so effective that it has encouraged the TUV and DUP to enthusiastically back a modern-day holocaust carried out by Zionists in Gaza. Therein lies a clue to the necessity of more pluralistic religious education in schools – it would be much harder to spread dehumanising myths about Muslims and other faiths if people were actually taught about these beliefs rather than being Clockwork Orange’d full of Christian dogma from infancy.

Declarations about being a “Christian country” are invariably paired with exclusivist sentiment designed to malign those of other religions or ethnicities, with a striking example at a recent far-right rally in Belfast. Racist God-botherers in Britain are holy-rolling their way to the promised land of an ethnostate at one crucifix-strewn shitshow after another.
At least some local politicians backed the ruling, with the Green Party NI saying:
Children don’t inherently hold a faith; they need space, time, and education to explore the world through science, reason, and diverse beliefs. The old “right to withdraw” is no longer enough. Northern Ireland’s schools must reflect our diverse society
Of course, not even science is presented as the “absolute truth” that Christianity is apparently being dispensed as in schools. Properly taught, findings in the likes of biology and physics are given as theories, ready to be usurped whenever a new set of propositions is borne out by stronger evidence. The fact that unsubstantiated faith is being presented as unambiguously correct serves to undermine the entire principle of instilling rational thought in learners generally, so the damage goes beyond the religious education classroom. Curriculum reform is urgently needed for the future of critical thought more broadly, though such a capacity is the key thing the likes of the DUP and TUV rely on voters not having.
Featured image via Unsplash/K. Mitch Hodge
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