Extremists like Tommy Robinson are trying to pervert Christianity for their own political ends, disgracing the good that Jesus represented, argues Our Writer at Large Neil Mackay

Some years back, I was travelling through Switzerland and wanted to get high into the Alps to see the mountains up close. I’m an inveterate city boy: born in London, raised in Belfast, live in Glasgow. The countryside, to me therefore, is beautiful and awe-inspiring, but also dangerous and unnavigable. So I treated this excursion into the Alps the way I would a trip to Mars: I needed a guide, lest I die.

In my guided group, there was a handful of other travellers. One was an evangelical Trump-supporting Texan. I pride myself on being able to talk to anyone, and an ability to find something in common even with folk my polar opposite. Being born into a Northern Irish family, where one side was Irish Republican and the other British unionist, cultured this temperament.

Trump-chap wanted to talk right-wing politics and fundamentalism. I politely explained my own politics – leftie-liberal – and atheism. I made clear, though, that I liked chatting to him and to save any arguments we didn’t need to talk religion and politics.

He tried, but this guy had only two interests: his beloved political leader and his church.

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