The UK has its first Catholic PM – but don’t expect a US-style religious culture war to follow

Andy Burnham at The Passage, the Catholic-founded homeless charity in Westminster. He promised to end rough sleeping in his first pledge as prime minister. Photograph: Simon Dawson/No 10 Downing Street

With the appointment of Britain’s first lifelong Roman Catholic prime minister, the faith is now in a prominent political position on both sides of the Atlantic.

But while Donald Trump’s administration, in particular the vice-president, JD Vance – a Catholic convert – has placed Catholicism at the heart of its culture wars and repeatedly clashed with the Vatican over the US’s hardline stance on social issues, Andy Burnham has been shaped by a British Catholic tradition with a different set of political priorities.