Britain isn't lurching towards civil war, it's just a mess

Britain’s problem, other than a complacent and entitled public sector leadership, is that nothing much works any more and lots of things that were once nice aren’t so nice now

“I now fear Britain is heading for open sectarian conflict, possibly war, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it.”

These were the opening words in an article by Daily Telegraph journalist, Tim Stanley written last April. It’s fair to say that things in Britain haven’t noticeably improved since then and also that talk of imminent collapse into some sort of ghastly violent dystopia hasn’t gone away. Here, by way of example, we have Connor Tomlinson, the far right commenter:

“On the twentieth anniversary of the 7/7 Bombings, I received a call warning about the imminent likelihood of an Islamic terror attack in Britain. My contact stressed this information comes from a credible intelligence source.

They predict a small group will arm themselves with homemade explosive devices, Molotov cocktails, and machetes, and attack critical infrastructure and dense civilian housing. Whole cities could be set ablaze.

This source also suggested that practice attacks have already happened.”

It is worth noting that I have some doubts about the authenticity of Tomlinson’s source (and it should be said that the far right is much easier for the security services to infiltrate and influence than, say, Islamist extremism) but also that his words strike the same chord as the altogether more moderate Tim Stanley to suggest that Britain is “lurching towards civil war”. Although much of the focus from these two observers is on immigration and especially Muslim immigration, there are other signs that Britain is heading towards a profound and change-making crisis. And that violence may form a part of that change, but probably not.

The source of credibility for claims of imminent civil war come from David Betz, Professor of War in the Modern World in the Department of War Studies, King's College London in two articles and a you-tube video. Betz contends that there are at least ten and perhaps 15 countries in Europe “where the conditions which scholars consider to be indicative of incipient civil war are present” meaning that:

“Let us assume, based on the existence of recent statements to that effect by credible national political or academic figures, that there are at least ten countries in Europe that face the prospect of violent civil conflict. In Appendix 1, I provide fifteen such examples—readers may dispense with whichever five of those they deem less credible. The chances then of it occurring in any one of these countries over five years is 87 per cent (or 95 per cent if you include all 15 of the sample).”

Scary stuff (and a reminder that you can do all sorts of things with statistics) made scarier by Betz’s second assertion; that if civil war starts in one European country it will spread to other European countries. Indeed, with some further statistical legerdemain, Betz tells us the chance of civil war “occurring in one of ten Western states and then spreading to all others is about 60 per cent (or 72 per cent with all fifteen of the sample included) over five years”.

The question here is whether we need context to understand Professor Betz’s assertions? When we look at his list of countries in Europe that face the prospect of violent civil conflict what we discover is that the ‘warning’ in all but one case comes from a political, indeed a right wing political, source. This doesn’t by itself mean that warnings of civil conflict are invalid but we should not take this very limited evidence base as sufficient to conduct some creative calculations as to the likelihood of civil war. Stripped of its polemic, Betz’s contention (like that of the right wing leaders he cites as evidence) is that mass immigration into Europe, especially from Muslim nations, threatens the coherence of society and, because of that disruption, the stability of government. And an unstable government is one notable precursor to civil war.

My instinct here is to, in the manner of Harry Enfield’s scousers, shout ‘calm down, calm down’ to people saying we’re heading to civil war. Especially the ones who, like Connor Tomlinson, claim that Muslims are stocking up on guns:

“My source warned that smuggling gangs have also trafficked arms across the Channel: “They’ve been floating in arms shipments, basically”.

On 28 June, the National Crime Agency discovered a shipment of 20 firearms, 320 rounds of ammunition, and drugs valued at £4.9 million inside a lorry at the Port of Dover, crossing from France.

Where are these militants and their weapons now? My contact explained that foreign intelligence fears, as in the Gaza strip, that they are hidden in the homes, mosques, and madrassas of Britain’s Muslim enclaves.”

It is clear to me that a questionable anonymous source, the busting of a drugs smuggling operation and the tactics of Hamas do not, as Tomlinson suggests, amount to Muslims planning civil insurrection. Nor is there any evidence of widespread civil unrest in Britain but rather of violent protest relating to criminal incidents or state actions that people (with some justification) believe are the consequence of deliberate government actions. The disturbances in Harehills, Southport, and Ballymena all fit this condition far more closely than they do more polemical claims of societal collapse and imminent civil war. The overreaction to the Southport riots came about because Britain’s police and security forces have convinced themselves (and many politicians) that there is a real and credible threat from far right extremists. The reality is that most of the far right extremists have more in common with Jimmy Anderson (the character from Reggie Perrin not the cricketer) than they do with anything that looks like an actual terrorist.

This doesn’t mean that there are no threats from far-right groups (indeed we have clear evidence of this threat) but, compared to Islamist terrorism, the threat is very small. Our problem, or rather a problem created by public authorities, is that our security services in dealing with the far bigger threat of militant Islam, have forgotten Mao Tse Tung’s adage that the guerilla must move among the people as the fish swims in the sea. Everyone recognises that Islamist extremists represent a tiny part of the UK’s Muslim population but we also know that those extremists use Muslim communities as protection by projecting shared concerns about attacks on Muslims, the imagined suppression of Islam and religious sensitivities such as reverence for the Qur'an as a physical book and veneration of Mohammed.

Behind worries about civil war lies a different concern that is, perhaps, the real issue. Across Europe people are concerned that Muslims arriving here seem to demand special treatment or attention. Worse that these demands for a sort of parallel culture are made using a combination of voting bloc power and implicit threats of violence. The principle driver of, for example, concerns about ‘islamophobia’ isn’t actually irrational fear of Islam but that Muslims see identification as de facto a racial minority offers more protection, especially if aspects of Islam as a faith can be encompassed in the definition of that identity.

Muslims in Britain are not planning a violent uprising to impose sharia law and they are not undermining society in the hope of collapse. But many Muslims in Britain are using the multiculturalism that emerged in the 1980s to create a separate cultural space and use equalities legislation (as well as its gold plating by large public and private organisations) to prosecute challenges to that separate cultural space. While this process isn’t new, it has been made more powerful by the increase in the Muslim population as a result of large-scale immigration since the early 2000s. And this separate development cultivates the extreme anti-woman attitudes that we see in terrible attacks like the Manchester bombing and the Southport murders - it is no accident that many Islamist terrorists target events featuring women and girls dancing and singing. Nor is it an accident that attacks across Europe target outdoor festivals where men and women freely mix. And it is no surprise, given the behaviour of too many Muslim men, that Muslim local councillor Maheem Kamran wants less ‘free mixing’ and more safe female spaces.

“There’s a big aspect of free mixing,” she said. “Muslim women aren’t really comfortable with being involved with Muslim men. I’m sure we can have segregated areas, segregated gyms, where Muslim women don’t have to sacrifice their health.”

The violence following Southport and Ballymena began in response to in the first case the brutal murder of little girls and in the latter allegations of the rape of young teenagers. There’s a sense, not without foundation, that people see recent immigrant groups as not only less respectful of women’s rights but also more likely to engage in sexual crime, often violent sexual crime. Of course, not all of these recent immigrants are Muslim but there’s a sense in the wider population that Islam’s common treatment of women is a factor driving sexual violence and bad behaviour.

But without other conditions, Muslims trying to live parallel lives would be less of a problem. And those other conditions including poor housing, rising crime, cost of living and changes attendant on immigration should be a priority for the government but aren’t because the media and politics is fixated on sustaining the ‘free stuff’ culture and conducting spiteful attacks on private education, health and property.

British society isn’t collapsing, we are not heading for civil war. But our public authorities, as witnessed by the official response to some people cleaning graffiti on the London Underground, refuse to accept that they no longer seem to care about things like fare dodging and vandalism, preferring instead to tell those who want to help to get back in their lane. But at the same time we’re seeing a gentle recovery of civility as people challenge little annoyances like loud music or conversation of trains, littering and queue jumping. While it makes me feel old, it is lovely that on three separate occasions recently younger people (all women as it happens) have either offered me a seat or some help.

Britain’s problem, other than a complacent and entitled public sector leadership, is that nothing much works any more and lots of things that were once nice aren’t so nice now. It’s not just litter, dirt and mess or even that broken things don’t get fixed, it is a sense of cheapness and laziness all filled with excuses. Nearly everywhere under the aegis of the state looks unkempt (‘No Mow May’ is an abominable idea as is modern park bedding) and, as that Muslim girl in Burnley noticed, full of drunks, layabouts and clumps of bored immigrant men hanging about. Street crime, shoplifting and theft has made people fearful of public spaces while mayors, police chiefs and civil servants pretend that everything is fine. We are able to jail a woman for a bad tweet but are unable to prevent ‘Just Stop Oil’ blocking the roads or the brother of Kirklee’s Labour leader from leading a mob to hound a teacher from his job. Every weekend, entitled, keffiyah-bedecked people obstruct the public, insult Jews and wave offensive posters without anything being done to stop them.

But still claims that civil war is a breath away are wrong. Things will just get a little less pleasant and ordinary people will get a little less happy. Political leaders will make grand statements and announce new schemes to deal with immigration, with rising crime and antisocial behaviour. But this headline grabbing covers up the British state’s failure. One day it might break, not with violent revolution or conflict but with a new order. That new order could be the radical libertarianism of Javier Milei, it could be populist socialism like Hugo Chavez, or (and Tim Stanley rightly fears this most) an anti-democratic, authoritarian like, say, Augusto Pinochet. Or maybe we’ll just elect Nigel Farage and realise he hasn’t a clue either?