Will Labour Ban Christmas Carols Next?

If Christmas songs fall foul of the ‘banter ban’ under Labour’s new employment rights law, Christmas carols are even more likely to. Because of their abject failure to adhere to neo-Marxist dogma, traditional Christmas carols are surely very liable to censure for causing offence in the workplace.

A publican who receives a request from a local group of carol singers to come to his or her pub over Christmas would therefore be advised to conduct a risk assessment on the following carols in particular:

‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’, ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’, ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’ and ‘In the Bleak Mid-winter’.

This stanza in ‘In the Bleak Mid-winter’, with its clear statement of the divinity of Christ, could be perceived as Islamophobic:

Our God, heaven cannot hold Him
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty,
Jesus Christ.

‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’ was banned by a vicar in 2008 because “it did not represent the modern-day reality of the war-torn city”. But under the new workplace regime, this stanza, with its clear statement that human beings are sinful, could well attract a complaint from a member of staff that it had damaged his or her self-esteem:

O holy Child of Bethlehem,
Descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin, and enter in,
Be born to us today.
We hear the Christmas angels
The great glad tidings tell:
O come to us, abide with us,
Our Lord Emmanuel.

‘Hark the Herald’ is even more liable than ‘In the Bleak Mid-winter’ to the offence of Islamophobia. This stanza categorically contradicts the Koran’s teaching that Jesus Christ was not God Incarnate:

Christ, by highest heaven adored,
Christ, the everlasting Lord:
Late in time behold Him come,
Offspring of a Virgin’s womb.
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see,
Hail the incarnate Deity!
Pleased as man with man to dwell,
Jesus our Immanuel.

The reference to the “offspring of a Virgin’s womb” might also be perceived as homophobic. By drawing attention to the uniqueness of Jesus’s birth, it would appear to be suggesting that heterosexuality is the norm in human reproduction.

And what about this stanza in ‘In the Bleak Mid-winter’, with its failure to use gender-neutral language about Mary’s maternity?  

Angels and archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air,
But only His mother
In her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.

Transphobic perhaps?

But arguably ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’ is liable to cause the most offence because it packs such a powerful punch for countercultural Christian truth in this stanza in particular:

God of God, Light of Light,
Lo! He abhors not the Virgin’s womb;
Very God, begotten not created: O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
Christ the Lord.

According to the Telegraph’s report last Sunday on the threat to Christmas singalongs:

Toby Young, General Secretary of the Free Speech Union, said he had previously warned that the ‘banter ban’ would lead to the “policing of harmless fun in pubs, bars and restaurants, giving the scolds and finger-waggers another pretext to stop people enjoying themselves”.

He added: “The Government didn’t listen, insisting we were being alarmist, but a ban on Christmas music and carol singing will be the least of it. Prepare to live in a country in which every hospitality venue is a micro-managed ‘safe space’, overseen by lanyard-wearing banter bouncers. Welcome to Starmer’s Britain.”

It is important not to underestimate how offensive traditional Christmas carols could be to people determined to be offended for their ‘protected characteristics’. So, any publican wanting to take the risk of carol singing in his or her pub would be well advised to give themselves FSU membership as a Christmas present.

Julian Mann, a former Church of England vicar, is an evangelical journalist based in Lancashire.