The British Civil War(s) 1984–1986

Two long years of preparations

James G

Gone Fishin'
Two long years of preparations

Tebbit had only been in the Cabinet for seven months. Before that he had served as a junior minister of state for a year and a half. His government experience was rather limited to say the least. He was the first to admit that yet didn’t see it necessarily as something to hold him back. He had drive and determination in him. Tebbit had his beliefs too, knowing what was right and what was wrong.

A journalist and a fighter pilot with the RAF before entering politics, Tebbit had made a name for himself in the mid- and late-Seventies speaking out against ‘social fascism’ and the ‘Marxist collectivist totalitarians’ when it came to unions. When Thatcher had appointed him to the Department of Employment, Tebbit had worked hard on union legislation to roll back what he saw were the worst excesses of undemocratic practices. His thinking had never been to disband unions or restrict their membership, just limit their influence. This carried on the moment that he was in Downing Street. Within a week as prime minister, Tebbit gave a series of speeches on the further trade union legislation he would bring in which would add to the Employment Act (1982) which he had already introduced to the Commons back in February. Tebbit only went into broad outlines rather than detail because he had a new Employment Secretary in the form of Tom King who would do all of that. The new prime minister believed that he was being fair in what he was saying.

Strangely enough, not everyone thought so. The trade unions didn’t like Tebbit and saw him as a threat to their members’ employment rights. His proposed reforms were nothing more than a destruction of their unions too. They would oppose his ideas with every means available including strikes and using their considerable political influence. It was to be a long, drawn out battle of wills.

In Parliament, Tebbit’s new government faced Michael Foot’s embattled Labour Party. The two men had clashed before and it was Foot who Tebbit had called a fascist… along with suggesting that Foot didn’t have the wit to see that he was. The planned additions to the Employment Act were one issue, the second was the Falklands. Foot had denounced the Argentinian invasion and also the circumstances leading up to it. Now, the Falklands were being surrendered to the nationalists in Argentina who he quipped at Tebbit were actually fascists and was the prime minister able to understand the real meaning of the word?

Throughout the rest of the year, national politics concerned trade unions and the fallout from the Falklands War. A son was born to the heir to the throne, there was a major IRA bombing in London and the Social Democrat Party gained a new leader in the form of Roy Jenkins. Still, the clashes in the Commons between Tebbit and Foot on those two important matters dominated affairs of state. When Parliament reopened after the Summer Recess, the two men were back at it again with what King proposed as amendments to union practices strongly opposed by Foot and defended by Tebbit. Argentina had officially annexed the Falklands and British civilians were complaining that they were being forced from their homes there. At times, other events such as the unemployment rate and the state of the economy came into the debates as well, yet those two events defined the rest of 1982 politically. Tebbit felt secure in his position and many of his colleagues were in awe of how he handled himself in the Commons. He defied the expectations of many though reinforced the belief in his capabilities as others had thought when they had voted for him to replace Thatcher.


An explosion ripped through partygoers at the New Year’s Ball of the Conservative Monday Club at the end of the year. Sixteen people were killed by the blast and the partial collapse of the building where the Ball was in full swing; dozens more were injured. It was an act of political terror.

The Monday Club was a group of right-wing politicians and political activists. Tebbit was a member though he hadn’t been at the event. Three Conservative MPs were among the injured and while the rest of the injured and those killed weren’t politicians, they were connected to the Conservatives in official roles, as activists and the wives of those as well. There were shock and outrage at such a thing and answers were demanded as to who was responsible. A little-known group called Red Action was found responsible for the bombing. Red Action had previously committed acts of violence in combatting racists such as the National Front and the accusation against the trio of men arrested as being behind the bomb was that they considered the Monday Club to be a better-heeled but just as wrong as the National Front. The bomb used in the attack was rather sophisticated though, thought by some to be far too much for a group such as Red Action to use. Moreover, those who expressed such doubts also pointed to a bombing being not the modus operandi of Red Action.

Less than a week later, Michael Foot was shot. The Leader of the Opposition was hit by two bullets fired by a lone gunman who fled the scene of the shooting in Foot’s constituency in South Wales. Foot was taken to hospital and his injuries weren’t life threatening. Political rancour was put aside in the face of a clear assassination attempt against a Member of Parliament and Leader of the Opposition. The police were joined by MI-5 in hunting for the gunman and they soon arrested Antony ‘Tony’ Malski. Malski was a figure from the far-right known to have a big mouth with nothing behind it. He led a breakaway faction from the National Front grandly-titled the National Socialist Action Party. He was a former soldier in the Territorial Army and a Nazi fanboy. Straight after his arrest near to the Welsh-English border, he tried to escape from a police vehicle. He was shot while trying to escape – Special Branch officers had him in their custody after clashing with Welsh police over control of Malski – and, unlike Foot, his attempted assassin didn’t survive his injuries.

The Monday Club bombing and then Foot’s shooting were a wake-up call for many in the security services. There were those out there all of a sudden willing to commit political violence in Britain. Where had such ideas come from? The ideological battles in Parliament must have brought about this came the thinking and that had spilled out into the actions of madmen radicalized by them.

When the latest round of violence broke out in Northern Ireland, orders came from London to crackdown hard. That was done. Provisional IRA and INLA terrorists were moved against harder in response to acts of violence; there was less emphasis against combatting Loyalist groups also committing terror despite Tebbit sending word to Ulster that their acts weren’t to be tolerated either. There in Ulster there were always allegations of collusion between elements of the security services and Loyalist groups and oftentimes that looked true. At home in Britain, when striking industrial workers in the North East and the West Midlands were judged to be troublemakers, the police were ordered against them. Tebbit’s government wanted to cut out growing political violence by cracking down hard upon it in its infancy. Unfortunately, such actions only brought about more of it.

Selected urban riots – nothing to do with politics – were soon being treated as political violence. 1983 saw youths in economically distressed areas commit acts of violence. Tebbit had no patience for them. Personally, as prime minister, he couldn’t directly interfere as that was a matter for the local police but he had pressure exerted from the Home Office. Whitelaw pushed back, arguing that the situation was only being made worse by the extremes being pushed for to stop rioting and told Tebbit it had nothing to do with politics but unemployment and police overreaction to sensitive communities. The Home Secretary was replaced by Leon Brittan. Brittan was given the task of dealing with such troublemakers – violent flying pickets and rioting youths – ‘more harshly’ than Whitelaw had failed to do so.

Tebbit refused to accept that there were those who wouldn’t obey the rule of law.


The next general election didn’t have to take place until May 1984. A few months into 1983, Tebbit decided that he would wait until then before going to the country rather than call an election this year either in the Spring or the Autumn. He had his own allies and a growing power base within the Conservative Party but he still didn’t think himself secure enough to run a successful campaign with some of the others who he wasn’t so sure of still aboard his government. He needed more time. This issues over his colleagues went alongside those he saw elsewhere with the domestic situation arguably becoming worse since he had taken over. The economy showed some signs of recovery and there was the hope that by next year it would be in a better shape. The urban troublemakers would have been dealt with by then, his thinking went.

Then there was the Labour Party too. Foot’s opposition was still chaotic despite their leader’s often effective performances in the Commons. The party had yet to effectively respond to the breakaway Social Democrats and showed no sign of doing so as Jenkins’ party rode high in terms of favourable views from the public alongside the Liberals in their electoral Alliance. Tebbit put his faith in Labour being destroyed from within before he battered them at the polls. His senior adviser in Downing Street, Michael Dobbs, said to the prime minister that Foot couldn’t control Militant and those on the hard left were going to continue to do irreparable damage. Foot was too conciliatory to them and another year of internal strife could bring the Conservatives a landslide at the polls.

Labour had been preparing to see a general election in 1983. They had the outline of a manifesto planned and that would bring together all of their party to present their vison to the voters. ‘A New Hope For Britain’ it was to be called; some others gave it less charitable names. It included a lot of renationalisation of industries and public services recently privatised, nuclear disarmament & a withdraw from the EEC, the abolition of the House of Lords and higher taxes. There were recent additions of rolling back union legislation to the manifesto as well. Having Britain leave NATO as well as changes to police activity in relation to industrial disputes hadn’t made it into the planned manifesto yet with the voices of many calling for those in the future. Militant was still causing trouble within the party and so too was the effect of the Social Democrat–Liberal Alliance which had won by-elections threatening the Labour vote. Would Labour have won on such a platform in 1983 when put to the voters? Some gave an emphatic yes, others were of the opinion that it would be suicide for the party to run on this platform in 1983 and even more fatal the next year.


So, the country didn’t get a general election during Tebbit’s second year in Downing Street. Violence continued across the nation. There were no more dramatic acts of terrorism – Irish Republican attacks aside – though there were some worrying signs of things to come. MI-5 did warn Brittan that there was some evidence that extremists on the left and the right gaining access to weapons and preparing for ‘something’ but there was no firm evidence of that presented to the Home Secretary. The bombing of the Monday Club and the shooting of Foot (which hadn’t slowed him down for long) were seen as exceptions.

There were riots and more industrial disputes; both of which brought a harsh reaction but not what was feared in terms of massive outbreaks of nationwide violence. Behind the scenes, small groups of troublemakers were making preparations and plans for if things didn’t turn out the way that they wanted it to yet there was no spark for major disturbances to occur. The full scale of their activities hadn’t been detected and neither was the situation ripe for them to act. That situation could change.

On Thursday May 3rd 1984, the country went to the polls. Tebbit believed the he would win reelection. Foot hoped to lead his party to victory. Jenkins and Liberal leader David Steel aimed to make a strong showing, even overtaking Labour. By the next morning the country would find out the results.
 
Last edited:
1984 Election fallout

James G

Gone Fishin'
1984 Election fallout

Unexpectedly, the Labour Party won the general election. There were different degrees of winning though.

Foot’s party ended up the biggest party in the Commons with the most seats. Behind them were the Conservatives in second place with the Social Democrat–Liberal Alliance behind them. Labour didn’t have enough MPs to achieve a working majority in the Commons though. They could only form a minority government with what they had and would need the support of the Alliance to be able to do anything and even then, such a deal between the two parties – or three if one was to look at the Alliance as two separate parties in an electoral agreement rather than as one solid element – would only just be enough. The Alliance was needed by Labour for what was called ‘confidence and supply’. The mathematics didn’t work for a Conservative-Alliance deal due to other, smaller parties present with seats in the Commons.

What had happened to the Conservative lead and the rise of both Labour and the Alliance?

Fingers would afterwards be pointed at Tebbit. The prime minister was never popular on a personal level but he was running as leader of a party of candidates aiming to be MPs. In theory, the voters voted for them, not him. In practice, he was a figure of hate for many. Reacting against him and his government’s policies, the voters gave their votes to others. The Alliance siphoned off some Labour votes but more so Conservative ones giving many seats to Labour, albeit with countless instances of small majorities for the Labour candidates who won their contests. The Conservatives hemorrhaged support nationwide and especially where it counted too in key marginals that the Alliance ran strong in: Labour often slipped through the middle and ended up with the largest number of votes in those key contests. The hatred for Tebbit had been detected by Conservative activists on the ground towards the end of the campaign but it had been far too late to do anything about that; Social Democrat and Liberal activists also picked up those signs and aimed to increase their vote-share by campaigning harder on an anti-Tebbit message. When it came to vote-share, the Alliance came out of the election with seats won not equating in any fair manner to the number of votes they gained. Such was the way of first past the post though.

Labour as the biggest party prepared to form a new government but first they needed the support of the Alliance. Steel’s Liberals were ready to do so in a repeat of the Lab-Lib Pact of the late 70s yet there came instant opposition to the idea from elements of Jenkins’ Social Democrats. They had broken away in reaction to Foot’s leadership of Labour and the insanity witnessed within the party: now they were just expected to join with the Liberals in supporting a Foot-led government as a matter of fact by their so-called allies.

Many Social Democrat MPs – there were fifteen MPs overall among the thirty-six Alliance candidates elected – gave an emphatic no to such an idea.


The election hadn’t been kind to the Social Democrats. They had lost half of their number of seats despite hopes of increasing what they had gone into the general election with. One of the original Gang of Four, Shirley Williams, had lost her seat and so too had many other Labour defectors to the party launched in 1981. Jenkins, David Owen and Bill Rodgers (the others from the Four) retained theirs though. The millions of votes nationwide for the Alliance hadn’t been concentrated where it mattered for the Social Democrat candidates to take enough seats while their Liberal partners had done far better in terms of seats where their candidates capitialised on distaste for Labour and hatred for Tebbit more than the Conservatives.

Almost half of the Social Democrat MPs including Owen refused to enter a confidence and supply agreement with Labour as the Alliance position was to do so causing the Conservatives to be out and the Alliance having a major position of influence in the next government. They didn’t want to be part of what Labour was to bring for the country. Steel and especially one of his MPs Cyril Smith – MP for Rochdale who had long ago called for the Social Democrats to be ‘strangled at birth’ because he saw them as threatening the Liberals – raged against this. They told Jenkins and Rodgers to fix the problem. The numbers didn’t work without the Social Democrats. Foot would talk with the smaller parties such as the Scottish Nationalists and Plaid Cymru to get their votes in the Commons if the whole of the Social Democrats weren’t onside as a whole. In such a rainbow coalition, the voice of the Alliance – whatever members joined in supporting Labour in the Commons – would be diluted rather than effective as a whole.

Liberal chief whip Alan Beith was influential in meeting with Owen and getting him and the ‘rebel’ MPs whose support he had in holding their noses and sticking to the Alliance agreement. Owen was reminded how the public saw the Alliance as a whole rather than two parties in an electoral pact. The calm, reasonable Beith also pointed out the benefits of being in a position to restrain the worst elements of the Labour left. Outside Owen and his supporters were nothing, inside they were important. There were concessions to be won form supporting Labour as well in the form of opening talks on proportional representation and single transferable voting.

Owen and his cohorts saw the way the wind was blowing and back-pedaled.


Tebbit was a believer in parliamentary democracy. The Conservatives had lost the election and there was a new government to be formed from what was once the opposition. The initial dread of a Labour government in Britain, with Foot being led around by the nose by Militant, weren’t going to turn into a reality: there were only five of them elected. He was aware of the content of the Social Democrat position when it came to how they reunited themselves with the belief that they could rein in the worst ideas put forth in the Labour manifesto.

He went to the Palace to see the Queen and step down as prime minister. However, Tebbit didn’t resign as the leader of the Conservatives. Large numbers of his colleagues were aghast at the idea of him remaining yet he had the notion that the Labour–Alliance agreement was sure to fail in the months ahead and there would be another election before the end of the year or early next year. He intended to lead the Conservatives back to power then. So many Labour majorities were wafer-thin and in a new election, those seats would return to the Conservatives en mass. If his party wanted him gone, they would have to force him out and he still had many supporters despite just losing a general election.

Foot went to the Palace and then with the State Opening of Parliament and the Queen’s Speech, Britain had a new government. Labour led a minority government with the Social Democrat–Liberal Alliance as partners in the Commons only for confidence and supply votes.

How would Labour deliver upon its manifesto promises?
 
Last edited:
Was Heffer a member? From what I gather he was a staunch defender of their right to be in Labour, but not actually a part of militant.

Maybe I could see Tebbit having the profile to run for leader after Thatcher in 1982, but in the circumstances you identified, with the loss of the Falklands, my main concern is with how he might win. After all, he was staunch disciple of Thatcher, who was elected as party leader in the first place mainly because of Heath refused to go rather than because she had enough ideological support, and now she has been majorly discredited. So you could probably thrown in a factor that swings it for him, rather than one of the wets, or one of the less offensive dries, like Howe. Other than that, it is a very good start in my book.

Heffer was not a member of militant. He was a staunch and true Socialist though. I find it fascinating that so many comments on this site are so dismissive of the Labour left, especially in light of the election this month.
 
1984 Election fallout

Unexpectedly, the Labour Party won the general election. There were different degrees of winning though.

Foot’s party ended up the biggest party in the Commons with the most seats. Behind them were the Conservatives in second place with the Social Democrat–Liberal Alliance behind them. Labour didn’t have enough MPs to achieve a working majority in the Commons though. They could only form a minority government with what they had and would need the support of the Alliance to be able to do anything and even then, such a deal between the two parties – or three if one was to look at the Alliance as two separate parties in an electoral agreement rather than as one solid element – would only just be enough. The Alliance was needed by Labour for what was called ‘confidence and supply’. The mathematics didn’t work for a Conservative-Alliance deal due to other, smaller parties present with seats in the Commons.

What had happened to the Conservative lead and the rise of both Labour and the Alliance?

Fingers would afterwards be pointed at Tebbit. The prime minister was never popular on a personal level but he was running as leader of a party of candidates aiming to be MPs. In theory, the voters voted for them, not him. In practice, he was a figure of hate for many. Reacting against him and his government’s policies, the voters gave their votes to others. The Alliance siphoned off some Labour votes but more so Conservative ones giving many seats to Labour, albeit with countless instances of small majorities for the Labour candidates who won their contests. The Conservatives hemorrhaged support nationwide and especially where it counted too in key marginals that the Alliance ran strong in: Labour often slipped through the middle and ended up with the largest number of votes in those key contests. The hatred for Tebbit had been detected by Conservative activists on the ground towards the end of the campaign but it had been far too late to do anything about that; Social Democrat and Liberal activists also picked up those signs and aimed to increase their vote-share by campaigning harder on an anti-Tebbit message. When it came to vote-share, the Alliance came out of the election with seats won not equating in any fair manner to the number of votes they gained. Such was the way of first past the post though.

Labour as the biggest party prepared to form a new government but first they needed the support of the Alliance. Steel’s Liberals were ready to do so in a repeat of the Lab-Lib Pact of the late 70s yet there came instant opposition to the idea from elements of Jenkins’ Social Democrats. They had broken away in reaction to Foot’s leadership of Labour and the insanity witnessed within the party: now they were just expected to join with the Liberals in supporting a Foot-led government as a matter of fact by their so-called allies.

Many Social Democrat MPs – there were fifteen MPs overall among the thirty-six Alliance candidates elected – gave an emphatic no to such an idea.


The election hadn’t been kind to the Social Democrats. They had lost half of their number of seats despite hopes of increasing what they had gone into the general election with. One of the original Gang of Four, Shirley Williams, had lost her seat and so too had many other Labour defectors to the party launched in 1981. Jenkins, David Owen and Bill Rodgers (the others from the Four) retained theirs though. The millions of votes nationwide for the Alliance hadn’t been concentrated where it mattered for the Social Democrat candidates to take enough seats while their Liberal partners had done far better in terms of seats where their candidates capitialised on distaste for Labour and hatred for Tebbit more than the Conservatives.

Almost half of the Social Democrat MPs including Owen refused to enter a confidence and supply agreement with Labour as the Alliance position was to do so causing the Conservatives to be out and the Alliance having a major position of influence in the next government. They didn’t want to be part of what Labour was to bring for the country. Steel and especially one of his MPs Cyril Smith – MP for Rochdale who had long ago called for the Social Democrats to be ‘strangled at birth’ because he saw them as threatening the Liberals – raged against this. They told Jenkins and Rodgers to fix the problem. The numbers didn’t work without the Social Democrats. Foot would talk with the smaller parties such as the Scottish Nationalists and Plaid Cymru to get their votes in the Commons if the whole of the Social Democrats weren’t onside as a whole. In such a rainbow coalition, the voice of the Alliance – whatever members joined in supporting Labour in the Commons – would be diluted rather than effective as a whole.

Liberal chief whip Alan Beith was influential in meeting with Owen and getting him and the ‘rebel’ MPs whose support he had in holding their noses and sticking to the Alliance agreement. Owen was reminded how the public saw the Alliance as a whole rather than two parties in an electoral pact. The calm, reasonable Beith also pointed out the benefits of being in a position to restrain the worst elements of the Labour left. Outside Owen and his supporters were nothing, inside they were important. There were concessions to be won form supporting Labour as well in the form of opening talks on proportional representation and single transferable voting.

Owen and his cohorts saw the way the wind was blowing and back-pedaled.


Tebbit was a believer in parliamentary democracy. The Conservatives had lost the election and there was a new government to be formed from what was once the opposition. The initial dread of a Labour government in Britain, with Foot being led around by the nose by Militant, weren’t going to turn into a reality: there were only five of them elected. He was aware of the content of the Social Democrat position when it came to how they reunited themselves with the belief that they could rein in the worst ideas put forth in the Labour manifesto.

He went to the Palace to see the Queen and step down as prime minister. However, Tebbit didn’t resign as the leader of the Conservatives. Large numbers of his colleagues were aghast at the idea of him remaining yet he had the notion that the Labour–Alliance agreement was sure to fail in the months ahead and there would be another election before the end of the year or early next year. He intended to lead the Conservatives back to power then. So many Labour majorities were wafer-thin and in a new election, those seats would return to the Conservatives en mass. If his party wanted him gone, they would have to force him out and he still had many supporters despite just losing a general election.

Foot went to the Palace and then with the State Opening of Parliament and the Queen’s Speech, Britain had a new government. Labour led a minority government with the Social Democrat–Liberal Alliance as partners in the Commons only for confidence and supply votes.

How would Labour deliver upon its manifesto promises?

Could we have party numbers please? I think that you're right that the British public would not support Tebbit's authoritarianism. Btw, are you familiar with Chris Mullin's Avery British Coup?
 

James G

Gone Fishin'
Could we have party numbers please? I think that you're right that the British public would not support Tebbit's authoritarianism. Btw, are you familiar with Chris Mullin's Avery British Coup?
I drove myself mad on seat number calculations. Working out party numbers from the top three then the SNP and PC plus Northern Ireland minus SF's absentee status plus the speaker... it was all too much so as to get the numbers right. I think what I have works in terms of making sense but I gave up with the calculations: I wanted to write instead. If someone wants to add my Alliance figures into an overall seat tally I wouldn't object.
Oh, yes, ive read A Very British Coup several times as well as Mullins' book How to become a MP as well.
 
I drove myself mad on seat number calculations. Working out party numbers from the top three then the SNP and PC plus Northern Ireland minus SF's absentee status plus the speaker... it was all too much so as to get the numbers right. I think what I have works in terms of making sense but I gave up with the calculations: I wanted to write instead. If someone wants to add my Alliance figures into an overall seat tally I wouldn't object.
Oh, yes, ive read A Very British Coup several times as well as Mullins' book How to become a MP as well.

How about:

Con 289
Lab 300
Lib 21
SDP 15
SNP 5 (Dundee E, W. Isles, Moray, Banff and Buchan, Angus E)
PL C 3 (Merioneth, Caernarvon, Anglesey)
SDLP 3 (They pick up Down S. and Newry and Armagh)
Ind SDLP 1 (Gerry Fitt beats Gerry Adams)
SF 1 (Mid Ulster)
OUP 9
DUP 2
UPUP 1

That way you have 13 who would never support the Tories from the minor parties and 12 unionists who probably would, at least the OUP. Tony Benn would hold Bristol E. It doesn't really work though unless you increase the Alliance numbers which might well happen.
 
Heffer was not a member of militant. He was a staunch and true Socialist though. I find it fascinating that so many comments on this site are so dismissive of the Labour left, especially in light of the election this month.

One of the differences being that in 1984, the Labour Left was in a different place than today. For a start, in the early 1980s, we had recent memories of the Winter of Discontent, the endemic strikes (places like Longbridge Car Plant in 1976 lost something like 30% of production due to strikes). There were situations like Grunwick, and a pretty strong Us versus Them conflict. Race riots were not uncommon, the National Front had only just passed their peak, and still carried out marches. Northern Ireland was a bit of a mess, and a lot of the Labour Left were not endearing themselves to the public in this area.

Different circumstances.
 
One of the differences being that in 1984, the Labour Left was in a different place than today. For a start, in the early 1980s, we had recent memories of the Winter of Discontent, the endemic strikes (places like Longbridge Car Plant in 1976 lost something like 30% of production due to strikes). There were situations like Grunwick, and a pretty strong Us versus Them conflict. Race riots were not uncommon, the National Front had only just passed their peak, and still carried out marches. Northern Ireland was a bit of a mess, and a lot of the Labour Left were not endearing themselves to the public in this area.

Different circumstances.
The strikes were simply ordinary people trying to protect their standard of living. I agree with you about the us vs them attitude though. It wasn't wise. You might also throw in the Cold War as a factor. Anyway, the left from that era had relevant ideas, but they're not taken seriously and there is a narrative, based on the '83 result, that they were electorally disastrous. '83 was lost largely because of disunity. All I'm saying is that the caricatures of the Labour Left from the 70-80s on this site should be rethought. It's fine for people to disagree with them, but their rationale should be examined seriously and respectfully in rather the way that you have done with Gerry Adams in your timeline on 70s Ulster.
 
As I stated earlier civil wars in industrialized western nations post 1945 are immensely difficult to imagine.

I am greatly interested in this to see how the author pulls it off.
 
You mean Northern Ireland-well that falls under a very iffy definition of industrialized and or modernized. Also Northern Ireland was in a very different set of circumstances than say west Germany in 1970. Or the US in 1968.

Also Northern Ireland despite its peculiarities and storied often tragic history is not a country.

About the only few countries-where my imagination can comprehend civil war-France 1968, Spain-1975-1985, and Portugal 1974-1975. And maybe Greece-though they were backwards and only semi modernized.
 
You mean Northern Ireland-well that falls under a very iffy definition of industrialized and or modernized. Also Northern Ireland was in a very different set of circumstances than say west Germany in 1970. Or the US in 1968.

Also Northern Ireland despite its peculiarities and storied often tragic history is not a country.

About the only few countries-where my imagination can comprehend civil war-France 1968, Spain-1975-1985, and Portugal 1974-1975. And maybe Greece-though they were backwards and only semi modernized.

Northern Ireland not modernised or industrialised? Really? So I suppose the industrial sites such as the Harland & Wolff shipyards, the GEC generator manufacturing plant, the car factory were just figments of the imagination. Like many places, it had rural bits and urban bits and industrial bits, and stuff in between. Not modernised? It was as modernised as mainland Britain. To say otherwise is nonsense on stilts. Not industrialised or modernised? Seriously? Still, I must defer to your greater knowledge of The Troubles.

If you're limiting the definition of civil wars to involving an entire country, then I'm not sure there has ever been a civil war in all of history. The English Civil War wouldn't, because large tracts of it saw no violence. Ditto the ACW, the Russian, and the Spanish.

Given the rather large number of riots and violent demonstrations in the UK in the early-mid 1980s, be they race riots or things like the Miners' Strike, I have no problem in seeing these grow significantly. Maybe not to Beirut levels, but sufficient to warrant the application of Civil War on the reverse nomenclature that the situation in Northern Ireland could be labelled "The Troubles."

And to think, if a few more people were murdered, they could have upgraded it from The Troubles to The Really Quite Miffed. World War 2 was, of course, a bit of a barney.
 
Northern Ireland not modernised or industrialised? Really? So I suppose the industrial sites such as the Harland & Wolff shipyards, the GEC generator manufacturing plant, the car factory were just figments of the imagination. Like many places, it had rural bits and urban bits and industrial bits, and stuff in between. Not modernised? It was as modernised as mainland Britain. To say otherwise is nonsense on stilts. Not industrialised or modernised? Seriously? Still, I must defer to your greater knowledge of The Troubles.

If you're limiting the definition of civil wars to involving an entire country, then I'm not sure there has ever been a civil war in all of history. The English Civil War wouldn't, because large tracts of it saw no violence. Ditto the ACW, the Russian, and the Spanish.

Given the rather large number of riots and violent demonstrations in the UK in the early-mid 1980s, be they race riots or things like the Miners' Strike, I have no problem in seeing these grow significantly. Maybe not to Beirut levels, but sufficient to warrant the application of Civil War on the reverse nomenclature that the situation in Northern Ireland could be labelled "The Troubles."

And to think, if a few more people were murdered, they could have upgraded it from The Troubles to The Really Quite Miffed. World War 2 was, of course, a bit of a barney.
Well okay NI was industrialized.

My definition of civil war is "armed conflict taking place within a state or nation or significant territory thereof."

The south was a key region of the US and the conflict was one with national repercussions

The Spanish and Russian civil wars were politically and ideologically charged conflicts that covered large swathes of territory and involved significant combat.

Now definitions get iffy when talking about insurgencies-modern Pakistan for example it has three or even four smouldering insurgencies yet it isn't in a state of civil war.

Same with India, Mexico, parts of Russia, western China, and so on.

But that's where the definition of civil war itself becomes a very charged and political debate.

If you can pull off a civil war in 1980s Britain with troops fighting from Scotland to Arundel, five or more factions and and fragmentation all around I will be very impressed.

Of course any country can fall into civil war given proper conditions but that's the catch with having them in western nations post 1945-the conditions are very hard to meet.

However all of this is just my opinion I am really interested in how the author pulls this off.
 
Top