Andrew Copson

"Many humanists, and I would certainly count myself among them, don’t even care about the question of god one way or another. I wouldn’t even go so far as to say I’m an atheist. The question of whether there’s a god or not has no meaning or relevance in my life whatsoever."

As of 2018, Copson is a trustee of the following organisations:

Copson is a regular contributor to New Humanist magazine, has written for The Guardian, New Statesman, The Times and The Independent, and has been interviewed on BBC News, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky for non-religious opinions on topics such as religious symbols in the workplace and euthanasia. He was one of the editors of The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Humanism, a collection of essays that explore Humanism as the way of life. He also contributed a foreword to Filling the Void: A Selection of Humanist and Atheist Poetry, edited by Jonathan M.S. Pearce in 2016, and contributed to The Case for Secularism: A neutral state in an open society, a collection of essays from the Humanist Philosophers Group in 2014.

On the subject of his own non-religious beliefs, Copson has expressed unease with the way Humanism is often defined negatively by what one does not believe in, for example a lack of belief in god or gods and in 2016 said:

In 2015, Copson was elected as President of the International Humanist and Ethical Union, taking over from the award-winning Belgian Humanist Sonja Eggerickx.

In the past, he has been on the executive committees of the Labour Humanists, Religious Education Council of England and Wales, Oxford Pride, was chair of the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association and has been a trustee of many organisations including All Faiths and None, the National Council for Faiths and Beliefs in Further Education, European Humanist Federation, Conway Hall Ethical Society (stepping down at the AGM on 10 November 2013) and the Values Education Council.

In 2011, Copson entered into a civil partnership with Mark Wardrop.

In 2010 he became Humanists UK's youngest ever Chief Executive at the age of 29, having been appointed to the Board of Trustees the previous November; a position which he described at the time as "obviously a daunting one", saying that he felt "a huge responsibility to build on the BHA's many successes."

In 2005 Copson started working at Humanists UK, known at the time as the British Humanist Association (BHA) as director of education and public affairs. In December of the same year he won an award at the 2005 UK Young Education Programme, an organisation which promotes communication skills and rewards open debate on issues affecting society. In his role at the BHA he was responsible for campaigning for a secular state and promoting awareness of Humanism in schools and colleges and to the wider public.

He attended Balliol College, University of Oxford, graduating with a first class Bachelor of Arts degree in Ancient and Modern History in 2004. He first joined the British Humanist Association in 2002 while at university: his mother had already been a member for some time. This was in response to a campaign the BHA was running at the time against the increase in the number of state schools run by religious organisations, or creationist academies. He began volunteering for both the British Humanist Association and the Citizenship Foundation, an organisation which aims to address democratic inequality on social, moral and political issues, after graduating from Oxford.

Andrew James William Copson, FRSA, FCMI, MCIPR (born 19 November 1980) is a humanist leader and writer. He is the Chief Executive of Humanists UK and the President of Humanists International.

Copson was born on 19 November 1980 in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, to David Copson and Julia Heather Cunningham. He was educated at the independent school King Henry VIII School, Coventry which he describes as secular in its outlook. From a working-class background, he went to the school as part of the government Assisted Places Scheme. He was brought up entirely without religion; as well as having non-religious parents, neither his grandparents nor his great-grandparents were religious and never had been. At secondary school, he first encountered Christianity, but rejected it when he did not see any truth in it.