Sarah Ingham is author of The Military Covenant: its impact on civil-military relations in Britain.
Decades before TikTok, a news clip shocked the world: in March 1988, a car carrying two plain-clothed British soldiers was caught up in a funeral cortege near Milltown cemetery in Northern Ireland.
It reversed at speed before its path was blocked and a crowd set upon it, pulling the men from the car. One eyewitness stated it was like watching hyenas which had got their kill. The bodies of corporals Derek Wood and David Howes were later found on waste ground.
By then, the Northern Ireland “Troubles” – sometimes a euphemism for near civil war – were in their twentieth year. Troops were deployed in August 1969 as the province descended into sectarian violence between its Catholic republican and Protestant loyalist factions.
They soon became the target of extremist terrorists, whether members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army or of loyalist paramilitary groups. Meanwhile, the IRA’s terrorist bombing campaign on Britain’s mainland in the 1970s and 1980s ensured that those on this side of the Irish Sea could not dismiss Northern Ireland as a faraway country of which they knew little.
Fast-forward to today, and while Northern Ireland forges an ever-brighter future, mainland Britain seems to be hurtling backwards into toxic faith-based division.
In what could have become an echo of the January 2020 invasion of the Capitol by Trump supporters, last week a mob gathered around Parliament. Slogans including “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” were projected onto the Elizabeth Tower. Inside the Commons, to protect MPs’ safety, Speaker Hoyle subverted Parliamentary convention. Democracy itself appeared under siege.
And since? Once again, policymakers have subjected Middle Britain to gaslighting. Instead of frankly acknowledging the longstanding problem of Islamist extremism – an issue which the 2023 EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report (TE-SAT) does not duck – MPs have indulged in petty point-scoring over the term “Islamophobia” (and been given a handy £30m of protection).
Events in Parliament Square, and the blockade of Tower Bridge last weekend, are simply the latest manifestation of extremism on display since 7 October attack on Israel.
It hardly needs stating that very few ever took to the streets to protest about, say, the siege of Mariupol or the Saudi-led war on Yemen. As anyone inadvertently caught up in the weekly demonstrations in London can testify, motivating many to take part is not love of Palestinians but hatred of Israel and of Jews. We are expected to tolerate calls for jihad, and chants of “From London to Gaza, we’ll have an Intifada”.
Performative acts of collective prayer, which turn Whitehall into an open-air mosque, sends a message about who controls the streets. Always eager to crack down on trivial Non-Crime Hate Incidents, the Police seem reluctant to pursue extremists who call for genocide. Little censure has befallen the judge who liked an anti-Israel tweet… and then gave a suspended sentence to three women who signalled their support for Hamas and the October atrocity.
Repeated discrimination in favour of miscreant Muslims, including the Batley bullies who forced a teacher into hiding, helps no-one.
“Diversity is our strength” is a favourite mantra of many politicians. They should ask themselves if our strength is reinforced by the administration of Sharia law through Sharia councils (examined in a 2018 Review led by Prof Mona Siddiqui). Or by the special arrangements made by HMRC for Sharia finance.
A parallel legal and taxation system surely undermines social cohesion. Are all those asking us to celebrate “diversity” certain it’s not a cousin to “division”?
Decades of dogma about multi-culturalism have led to our disunited kingdom. Reactions to 7 October have revealed the nation’s social fractures. These won’t be healed by the left exaggerating the threat from the “far right”.
Too many are excusing protestors and their calls for genocide on the grounds of free speech and the right to protest.
Such apologists are far less keen on free speech being extended to Danish cartoonists, Charlie Hebdo employees, or Salman Rushdie. The 2021 census points to Britain being an increasingly faithless country: almost 40 per cent stated “no religion”. Why should Islam or Rastafarianism or Wicca not be criticised, even parodied? Respecting differences of opinion should be mutual, not one-sided.
In a bid to appeal to a faith-based vote, candidates in yesterday’s Rochdale by-election had plenty to say about Gaza, but apparently much less about the 40 per cent of local children living in poverty – one of the highest rates in the UK.
Back in the late 1960s, along with the intense tribalism of the two communities in Northern Ireland, the deprivation across much of province was a source of radicalisation. Few male terrorists on either side were from the affluent, educated middle classes.
The soldiers’ murder at Milltown was part of a chain of events that began in Gibraltar with the SAS shooting of three IRA operatives. Three days earlier at their funeral, also held in Milltown, a self-styled “freelance” member of the Ulster Defence Association launched a grenade and gun attack, killing three mourners and injuring dozens of others.
Ulster University’s CAIN archive provides a chronology of the Troubles, along with the political and social context. More than 3,600 people were killed, half of whom were civilians. Some 1,400 British service personnel lost their lives, along with 319 RUC officers.
Given the death, destruction and trauma caused by decades of terrorism, it is miraculous that Northern Ireland is today at peace, let alone able to inspire the comedy series Derry Girls. This did not come about because the hard men eventually swapped their Armalites for the ballot box.
Hard-won, perhaps not yet quite perfect, peace was not arrived at by politicians trying to keep the lid on a box marked “Troubles”, crossing their fingers, and hoping the divisions in Northern Ireland would somehow heal themselves. There’s a lesson in that.