In UK atheists considred more moral than theists.

[robvalue]

What is an athiest's moral authority? What puts them on the same moral page?

Huggy. How do you know that you have chosen the right moral authority if you cannot decide for yourself what is morally right or wrong?

Many atrocities have been committed throughout human history by people who have outsourced their morality to a higher power like you. Whether that higher power is a government or a religion. Many people have used the excuse that they were 'just following orders'. Your religion is not the only one. Nor is the culture that you were raised in. There are many other religions and cultures, like the Taliban in Afghanistan who follow different moral codes and commit what the rest of the world consider atrocities but which they consider moral because their holy book tells them to. Or look at any fascist, proto-fascist or authoritarian government that use exceptionalism to make people think that conquering other lands to steal their resources is a morally good to the point where they give their lives to do so (e.g. the British empire, currently the US, WWII Germany etc).

How do you know that your moral authority is not lying to you?

By outsourcing your moral authority you are at best amoral and just blindly following orders. At worst using it as an excuse to be immoral.

Right. Theists do what atheists do. They decide what they consider to be moral and immoral. It's just that they justify their choices differently. Repeating what someone else told you is moral, and their justification for it, is still a choice.

Even if you removed all the atheists, you'd be left with millions of theists who disagree to smaller and larger degrees on morality.

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PS: Is it a good idea to let some authority tell you what is moral and immoral? I'd say no, but again that's a personal choice. The positions can either be defended through reason or they can't; "so and so said so" is just a vacuous appeal. Especially since we don't know what "God" actually thinks, even if there is one, because he is conspicuously absent. I wouldn't care what his edicts were any more than I'd care about any humans. They still require justification, or I'm going to ignore them.

But then, morality to me isn't about scoring points or pleasing an authority.