The British Civil War(s) 1984–1986

A pair of Exocets and what they wrought
  • James G

    Gone Fishin'
    Part One

    I – Beginnings


    A pair of Exocets and what they wrought

    It was on the morning of May 4th 1982 that HMS Hermes, the aircraft carrier which formed the flagship for the British Task force in the South Atlantic, which was engaged in the effort to retake the Falklands from the Argentinians, was hit and burnt out.

    Two Argentinian Super Étendard strike aircraft managed to avoid the attention of escorting warships such as the destroyer HMS Sheffield and turn the protective flank around the carrier to attack from the south. They had been flying low and getting radar information from a Neptune maritime surveillance aircraft operating at distance which led them on a semi-circular course and avoiding Sea Harrier fighters flying from Hermes. At the last moment, they made a pop-up manoeuvre, activated their radars to acquire targets and then launched a lone missile each. The Super Étendards turned sharply away and headed for a distant refuelling tanker; the Exocet missiles launched by the attacking aircraft raced onwards under their own guidance just above the waves.

    The Exocet was a sea-skimming missile. The pair of them flashed over the water and towards a target detected by the now-departed launch aircraft. There was a reaction ahead as the Royal Navy had watched the Super Étendards suddenly appear on radar screens and then caught the echoes of targeting systems on their electronic warfare displays. The British were unaware if the Argentinians had launched missiles, were still approaching on a bomb-run or had turned away. They didn’t detect those Exocets and were preparing to engage incoming aircraft. Warnings were sent to several ships though right ahead of the projected line-of-attack including both the Hermes and the frigate HMS Brilliant acting in the goalkeeper-role: brace for impact just in case. Chaff wasn’t fired to confuse missiles with false returns because incoming missiles hadn’t been detected and that would interfere with the guidance of defensive missiles planned to be used against attacking aircraft.

    With seconds to spare, the Exocets were spotted closing-in upon the flagship. Brilliant tried her best and opened fire with her guns but those old Bofors-40 guns were no good against modern Exocets. Hermes had a Sea Cat missile system for point defence yet the guidance system couldn’t acquire the incoming missiles until it was too late. The most-important and most-defended ship within the Task Force was the one hit by the pair of missiles. The first Exocet hit the aircraft carrier on the starboard rear quarter above the waterline and penetrated the hull before exploding deep within Hermes amidships. The second Exocet again reached its target to starboard and from behind though a little higher than the first; it went into the ship’s hangars below the flight deck and a third of the way down the ship. There was no second explosion from that missile though as its warhead failed to detonate. Yet, its unspent rocket fuel went up and so too did several aircraft.

    Either impact against Hermes was survivable alone. Yet, there were two of them. The well-trained crew moved to undertake damage control at once but they were suddenly faced with a bigger fire than they expected and one which was spreading fast. The damage from the first missile had been bad enough but the second had started an immense fire spread over some distance. Thick, poisonous smoke poured out of the aircraft carrier into the morning sky and also spread throughout the ship as well. There was panic in places, especially when there came explosions in the hangars from fires reaching aircraft and the belief was that the Hermes was under further attack. Men were killed trying to fight the fires and also overcome by smoke when they were caught by it. Internal power went out and there was darkness inside the ship. More and more of the aircraft carrier caught alight despite the very best efforts to stop that from many of those involved in damage control.

    The order came to abandon ship when the Hermes was alight from bow to stern. A hundred were known to be dead by that point, probably far more. The heat of the fires was melting parts of the ship. The flight-deck was collapsing. Men couldn’t fight the fires effectively, some men just wouldn’t either due to the danger. Those fires higher in the ship could have been better dealt with if it wasn’t for the ones from below – which no one could get to – adding to them and releasing so much heat and smoke like they were. That was what doomed the Hermes: the separate seats of fire from where the Exocets ended up inside. Lifeboats went into the water and helicopters hovered nearby trying to pull out some of the worst of the injured. The island superstructure went up in flames and that was the sign of the end for so many of those watching their ship burn.

    The Task Force flagship had been lost along with almost all of her air wing aboard: Sea Harrier fighters, Harrier ground-attack aircraft and Sea King maritime helicopters. The casualty count afterwards showed just over four hundred dead, missing or badly injured: a fifth of her crew. Argentina had gotten revenge for the sinking of the General Belgrano two days beforehand. The abandoned ship remained afloat but kept on burning throughout the day and later efforts to try to get near her to see if there was anyone left alive aboard were discovered to be impossible due to the heat and the smoke. The Task Force as a whole had been mortally wounded yet was still active. There was another carrier – the smaller HMS Invincible – along with other warships and the vessels laden with troops to recapture the Falkland Islands. Defeat had yet to come on the battlefield.

    However, that defeat was to come from the reaction at home.


    The news of the destructions of the Hermes, including the immense loss of life aboard, reached London soon enough. Admiral Woodward followed the correct chain of command in informing his superiors of the situation. He had transferred himself to the Invincible and stated that the Task Force could fight on but he awaited further instructions on how best to proceed. The Argentinians had shown a capacity to wipe out an aircraft carrier and he wanted to move the remaining one back. Furthermore, Woodward also wanted news on when the Invincible’s sister ship HMS Illustrious would arrive in the South Atlantic: two aircraft carriers were needed.

    There was a meeting of the War Cabinet in Downing Street early in the afternoon. The number of two hundred dead had been sent to them and when the Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Lewin spoke to the politicians he told them that such a figure was likely to rise. Lewin was a man of sturdy character though was with those who suddenly found lost their nerve.. most of them anyway. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was keen for the operation to continue onwards in recovering the Falklands and liberating them from the illegal Argentinian occupation but others weren’t so sure. The implication of the loss of a vessel such as the Hermes along with the aircraft she carried were discussed. Could the planned invasion be supported from the one remaining aircraft carrier? Would the Invincible alone be able to protect the rest of the fleet from the air? How would the Task Force manage if it had to wait until the Illustrious (being commissioned early and with hasty work being done to complete the ship) showed up therefore leaving the war to continue in the worst of the coming South Atlantic winter? Foreign Secretary Pym and Defence Secretary Nott were joined with Attorney General Havers in doubting that the operation could continue. Deputy Prime Minister Whitelaw and Conservative Party Chairman Parkinson called upon their colleagues to wait until more was known about the casualty numbers – they could be overstated – yet that wasn’t really the point. Neither of the two men, loyal to the Prime Minister, expressed such determination to fight on as she did. Lewin caught wind of this but his job was not politics: the British Armed Forces were what he had to consider, not which way the wind was blowing politically.

    That evening saw a statement released by the Ministry of Defence and that was broadcast on the airwaves for the British public. The Task Force in the South Atlantic had suffered an attack and the aircraft carrier Hermes was damaged with a loss of life whose numbers weren’t specified. Such news came alongside unofficial leaks that the BBC, among others, broadcast. ‘Senior government figures’ were saying that the war couldn’t be won now because the Hermes was more than damaged, she had been destroyed instead; there was also wild speculation on the number of dead, missing and injured.

    The newspapers the next morning were a little more restrained. There had been some negative backlash against the headline in The Sun the day before – ‘Gotcha’ – but there was still a feeling of patriotism among most of Fleet Street for the war that Britain was fighting. The headlines following the official news that the Hermes had been damaged and the unofficial remarks that it had been destroyed were more careful in how they spoke of the reports about the attack the day before against the flagship. Yet, inside those same newspapers, the editorials of some displayed some handwringing over whether the Falklands War should be continued. It appeared that hundreds might have died on the General Belgrano when she was sunk by a Royal Navy submarine and now that attack might have been mirrored in terms of significance by what could have occurred to the Hermes. Was the war really worth it?

    Admiral Woodward was the on-scene commander in the South Atlantic yet he reported to Admiral Fieldhouse at the Northwood command centre with the latter officially heading the operation to liberate the Falklands. Fieldhouse offered his resignation during a meeting he attended with the War Cabinet after presenting the news that the casualty count now stood at three hundred and he believed it would reach four hundred. Thatcher refused to accept it by informing Levin that she was against such a sign of weakness. Chancellor of the Exchequer Howe and Employment Secretary Tebbit were at the same meeting due to additions being made to the War Cabinet; there was nothing to stop the prime minister from asking anyone whom she wished to attend. The two of them joined with Thatcher and Parkinson (who had met with his prime minister overnight alone) in pushing for the war to continue. The requisitioned civilian ship Atlantic Conveyor was on its way to the Task Force carrying aircraft that would be added to the air wing on the Invincible. It was regarded as possible to fight the war with just one aircraft carrier carrying a strong air wing, so ran the argument, and the recapture of the Falklands was a national priority. Pym, Nott and Havers all disagreed and did so openly: Whitelaw joined them and told Thatcher that the fighting needed to stop to allow chance for a renewed international settlement in the place of further mass loss of life.

    The fallout from that fateful War Cabinet meeting came over the next few days. It was confirmed to the press and therefore the public that the Hermes had been destroyed by fire and that she later sunk due to weather when unmanned. Disagreements within the War Cabinet turned to arguments between members of the government and the ruling Conservative Party. Fieldhouse eventually resigned but that did little good. Down in the South Atlantic, Woodward pulled back the Task Force just a little but that was something overblown back home by those who used that secret military maneuver for political point scoring. Statements made in the Commons and editorials in the newspapers turned against the war. There was a small demonstration in Whitehall near the Ministry of Defence from relatives of sailors aboard the Hermes… it was later discovered that such an event had been hi-jacked by those who didn’t have family at war but wished to make a political point. There were talks with the Americans where there were queries about whether one of their marine assault carriers could be transferred to the Royal Navy for use to replace the Hermes; cold water was poured upon this by President Reagan’s UN ambassador who crowed in her own self-importance stating that it was time for international mediation. Moreover, Levin first and then politicians – from the Government and the Opposition – asked who was going to crew such a vessel in addition to pointing out how long such a thing would take. The Commons Defence Select Committee wanted to hear from the departed Fieldhouse and also Pym as well. There were concerns expressed from General Bramall as Chief of the General Staff about the troopships laden with Paras and Royal Marines being attacked before or during landing operations on the Falklands with inadequate air cover, remarks which were leaked and twisted to suit political ends.

    The men in grey suits came for Thatcher. She had never been popular within the Conservative Party and during her premiership unemployment had risen sharply and the recession was biting hard. They asked her to compromise: she refused. When they returned, they asked her to consider her position: she once again refused. Conservative backbenchers were uneasy when they were told of the steadfast or arrogant (it depended upon your point of view) outlook from their prime minister. They heard that neither Whitelaw or Havers were at the next War Cabinet meeting while the views of Pym from the Foreign Office and Nott who headed the Ministry of Defence were drowned out by others present. It had become personal for Thatcher and she saw it as a battle of wills. Others declared that they were thinking of the country rather than their leader. The men in grey suits went back to Thatcher again.

    On May 14th, Thatcher resigned. She had been betrayed and wouldn’t forget it yet stood down with as much grace as she could muster.


    Whitelaw stepped in as acting leader for a short period and served as Prime Minister. Britain had no constitutional requirement for a Deputy Prime Minister to take over upon the fall of a superior (the position of deputy was only sometimes used) but Whitelaw had the support of his fellow ministers. He relinquished his Home Office duties while in Downing Street though on the condition that when the Conservatives chose a new leader he would return to the role of Home Secretary not a deputy prime minister though. He wasn’t running to replace Thatcher, others were.

    Following rules from the 1922 Committee of backbenchers, a short contest commenced. Norman Tebbit was an outsider and seen as a continuation of Thatcher. He went and won though, surprising many; Geoffrey Howe, Nigel Lawson and Jim Prior fell by the wayside. Whitelaw stepped aside and Tebbit entered Downing Street as prime minister.

    Away from the political drama in Westminster, a United Nations agreement on the Falklands was reached while Whitelaw was holding the fort. Negotiations took place between Britain and Argentina first through intermediaries then face-to-face with the United States acting as a middleman… or middlewoman in the form of Jeanne Kirkpatrick. Both sides agreed to withdraw military forces and there would be a diplomatic settlement when it came to the islands’ future. Whitelaw stuck to the agreement and the Argentinians appeared to do so at first. The junta in Buenos Aires quickly stopped abiding by the terms and announced delays that weren’t their fault in the pull-out of the last of their troops; British ships had long sailed home. Those last troops never left the islands and in the months ahead more arrived. Tebbit’s government complained to the UN yet the Falklands were no longer the issue that they had been. Nothing was done in the end and Argentina ruled over the Falkland Islands: now the Islas Malvinas.

    Britain’s new prime minister by then had another enemy to fight: trade unions in Britain and the fascist, undemocratic principles that he saw in many of their practices. Tebbit had stated that belief in the past and during his tenure as Employment Secretary. Now he was prime minister and determined to take them on to put things right.
     
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    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.
     
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    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?
     
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    Betrayal after betrayal
  • James G

    Gone Fishin'
    II – Chaos, then bloodshed


    Betrayal after betrayal

    Tony Benn.

    The name was enough to infuriate many, those on the right but also those who saw themselves as centralists, even soft-left. When he spoke, what he said, would drive many to distraction and they would rage against him and everything that he stood for in addition to what they misbelieved about him too. He was a polarising figure to rival Thatcher or Tebbit.

    After two recounts, Benn had been elected in the constituency of Bristol East. It had been a close-run thing indeed but he had managed it. Time spent on the ground there in his constituency, softening his tone some, along with mistakes from his leading opponent had seen him elected to the Commons. A strong run from the Alliance there in the form of their Liberal candidate could have hurt him but instead votes were taken from the Conservative candidate. The closeness of the vote mattered little in the end: Benn was in the Commons.

    During the 70s, Benn had been a minister and learnt some harsh lessons about the business of government. Civil servants, the big industrialists & the banks and the media: they ran things in Britain. The management team – an elected government – would change but things would stay the same with the establishment looking after itself. In 1980, Benn was regarded (fairly or not) as having driven away the Gang of Four and the others that followed them to form the Social Democrats a year later when he spoke of what a Labour government would do in its first days and first weeks in office to change the status quo. That was his hope; though he feared also what he had seen when he was in government would happen again upon Labour being elected with those in the establishment opposing the democratic will of the people.

    He warned of betrayals being made.


    Benn wasn’t one of Foot’s shadow ministers and neither was he appointed to a ministerial role by the new prime minister. Most of those who held shadow roles kept them with only a few yet key changes made after the election. Those ministers went to their ministries to implement Labour policies laid out in their manifesto and ran into immediate issues.

    At the Home Office, Roy Hattersley was made aware of the growing threats to democratic security in the nation from extremist groups arming themselves. He had been made aware of some of this as shadow minister when information was shared with him following Privy Council rules yet he had underappreciated the scale before. Now he was being told about some missing weapons from official stocks but more than that illegal foreign imports of arms and reports of military training being undertaken by those on the far left and the far right. He endeavoured to do something about that. There would be no more watching this happening; something would be done to stop it: these radicals would be combatted. However, a key focus for him was on the changes to be made to policing. In places, the reaction of the police to urban rioting was over the top and unnecessary. The rule of law must be kept but what had been occurring was wrong and the deaths at police hands were to stop. Tebbit had also sent – through his personal intervention with Leon Brittan’s tenure as home secretary – the police against striking workers. There was a right to picket, as long as it was done lawfully. The police hadn’t been acting lawfully. Hattersley wanted to see changes made, reasonable changes. Civil servants had objections and explained how these matters weren’t as simple as portrayed but Hattersley was insistent. He had a fight on his hand at the Home Office.

    Denis Healy had retained his foreign affairs brief. At the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, he wanted to start implementing Labour policy when it came to the European Economic Community (EEC): leaving that organisation as per the manifesto with his own personal feelings put aside. The newspapers were calling it ‘British withdrawal’, a clever double entrée. There had been members of the party calling for giving support to the ANC in South Africa and leaving NATO whose demands hadn’t made it into the manifesto but a planned new take on the country’s international relations especially when it came to the United States – the invasion of Grenada late last year was still rather contentious – was what he wanted to see undertaken. Again, it was the civil servants who spoke out in opposition… as Benn had said they would. What about treaties and international agreements with the United States and other allies in the Cold War stand-off? What would all of this cost in terms of trade and jobs when it came to pulling out of the EEC? They were employed to serve the elected government and would do so, but this hadn’t been thought through and the objections were valid.

    Peter Shore at the Treasury as the new Chancellor of the Exchequer had more success there yet, again, there were questions asked and objections put as to the practicalities of those tax rises for the rich and the cuts for the poor… the definitions of rich and poor were questioned. The markets had already taken a tumble due to the Labour victory and weren’t going to recover; the flight of capital aboard was another concern. Yet, the Treasury was more adaptable than other ministries to the desires of new ministers. Civil servants nodded their heads rather than argued with the knowledge that their new Chancellor and his ministerial team would learn quick enough the realities of the situation.

    At the Ministry of Defence, John Silkin was a man with experience of government. He understood civil servants. The facts from him were laid out clearly for them: the government had new policies and would implement them. Silkin would see the unilateral nuclear disarmament of Britain, the removal of Cruise from the country and a renegotiation when it came to American military presence in the nation more than just their nuclear-armed missiles: he spoke of their multiple air bases and the nuclear submarines in Scotland. The cruise missiles – the road-mobile GLCM weapon which had arrived at Greenham Common in late 1983 – were first on the agenda then everything else. He wanted to see other changes made to the British Armed Forces as well which following manifesto ideas and the will of the Labour Party. Silkin was informed like Hattersley about missing weapons and was more alarmed than the home secretary was especially as they were from Territorial Army stocks because there was the notion of strengthening that reserve force to cut back on regular forces elsewhere, yet his focus remained on the key issue of Cruise. There were agreements, the civil servants said. We’ll make new agreements, the new Defence Secretary told them.

    Merlyn Rees had been made Northern Ireland Secretary in a post-election change of responsibilities. The situation in Ulster had been an outrage under Tebbit and Rees’ history there – he was a former Northern Ireland Secretary so he returned to the role he had held from 1976 to 1976 – was well-regarded by Foot. Collusion between the security services and loyalist terrorists would cease and those involved would be prosecuted. All terrorists, all law-breakers, would be treated the same. The Republicans would get nothing from a Labour government unless they respected democracy. There was a manifesto commitment (another late addition) to talking with the Republic of Ireland though again, there was no talk of overriding the will of the people in Ulster despite what many of Rees’ colleagues might have wanted. Civil servants at the Northern Ireland Office were sceptical of how this all might work and let him know. Rees was in-charge though and would make sure that the will of the democratically-elected government trumped the desires and prejudices of civil servants with vested interests.

    Neil Kinnock and John Smith had gained new positions from what they held in the shadow cabinet to those they had in government. The former was now the Employment Secretary and the latter held the post of Energy Secretary. The two were seen by many as young modernisers. They had manifesto promises to honour though were not as passionate about them as others would have been. Each was wary of how far the hard left of the party had got such pledges into the manifesto. Kinnock and Smith both met with union leaders like Foot wanted them to. What was regarded as Tebbit’s war on the unions and the working man was over with. Smith had an especially personally unpleasant meeting with Arthur Scargill from the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) where Scargill was insistent that Tebbit was due to come after them next and made demands on the Energy Secretary for his members. Kinnock talked with the trade union bosses and they were eager for the roll-back to start of recent legislation first then move to renationalisation of so much which had been privatised under Conservative rule. The two secretaries of state put a lot of blame on their civil servants when things didn’t go as fast as planned. Much of that was true as laws needed changing and agreements needing renegotiation… yet each slowed things down so as to not let matters get out of hand with all that the unions wanted. Kinnock and Smith didn’t see that they were betraying anyone, just thinking of the country.


    Overnight, Britain didn’t change too much. There were a lot of people that hoped that it would and others that dreaded the consequences of a Labour government but there were far too many sensible people involved. None of Foot’s senior cabinet members could ever be described as being from the loony left.

    The new prime minister was relaxed about the slowness of things. He didn’t want to act too fast, there was plenty of time. He also didn’t want to upset people either. Foot had a minority government propped up by the Alliance whose votes he needed in the Commons to get anything done. He also didn’t want to upset his own party colleagues so didn’t pick fights. A just, fairer Britain was to be built under his leadership. That would take some time though. Where was the rush? Some comments were made about him personally when it came to these actions. There were whispers that he was still affected by the shooting the other year. He had officially only been lightly injured – ‘winged by a coward’s bullets’ – and recovered quickly. Questions were raised on whether he was fit to be a prime minister with the toll that perceived to be taking on him because he wasn’t as active as before he entered Downing Street. Those remarks ignored how busy he was as prime minister though, especially with running a government built upon the need to appease so many as he had to.

    Militant hadn’t gone away. They had five allied MPs elected as Labour candidates. Those MPs had friendships and connections as well. They dreamed of a bigger role but were wholly frustrated in being of any importance. At first that was the case. However, things changed.

    Owen from the Social Democrats crowed at the ‘moderating’ influence he and his supporters claimed to have over the government. There were those on the right of Labour who did the same. Whispers came that civil servants were to blame from Benn and his allies as well. A narrative started to form that the left was being blocked from doing what it had been elected to do and there were those who were going to stop what the people had voted for. It was a betrayal! There were rumblings of severe discontent and anger was brought forth.

    An outlet was needed for this, but where was that to come from?
     
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    A popular movement
  • James G

    Gone Fishin'
    A Popular movement

    The Peoples Front was formed the day after the result of the election was revealed. It should have been nothing more than a pipe-dream for those behind it who wanted to keep the progress they saw as having been made with a Labour victory ongoing. The hope given with the new government was feared early on to be in danger of slipping away if there weren’t those calling for it to continue.

    Two small, electorally-insignificant parties were behind the Peoples Front at the outset: the Revolutionary Democratic Group (RDG) and the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP). Who an earth were they? They were tiny organisations in terms of political significance who rarely contested elections and faced what everyone else would see as humiliation but they regarded as trying their best. In the past few years, they had turned to grassroots efforts in helping people in Tebbit-led Britain. The unemployed and the disaffected were shown how to get help in their situations and offered advice in troubling personal situations. Politics remained a part of each party yet they were less dramatic than other, bigger parties who attracted attention: those such as the interfering Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and the insane Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP). Where there was often despair in the big cities of London and Birmingham in the main – through elsewhere too – there would be small parties like these two on the ground and working to increase their profile by helping people rather than making a show of themselves.

    The Labour Party manifesto contained many ideas that the RDG and especially the RCP liked. There were other parts, naturally, which they didn’t but the benefits were seen as outweighing the negatives for now. Those people they worked with in some communities were offered much by the new government and those who formed the People’s Front wanted those promises to come to fruition. With no money and no real organisation alone, they worked together. They planned for a series of marches to remind the new government of the people who had voted for them and the expectations of them. Marches occurred in mid- & late-May. Marchers turned out, far more than the Peoples Front had planned for. They wanted what was promised to them and were vocal but peaceful in calling for that. An end to despair had been offered and they didn’t want to see it taken away.

    Jealous and wanting to make an impact themselves without previously being able to, the Peoples Front was hi-jacked by the end of the month by the SWP and the WRP. They had the organisation and the bigger presence if not deeper appeal. With political events such as the – natural – delays occurring to implementing Labour policies where their effects would be felt, and seen to be felt, the Peoples Front got bigger. They had more marches, in more places across England and Wales though with little success in Scotland. There was no real violence within the marches as event stewards were present. The new steering committee for the Peoples Front was quickly SWP and WRP dominated – they quickly put aside most difference for the time being – though with token contributions elsewhere from other figures who saw the Peoples Front as being a just organisation and only calling for what was right and nothing unreasonable.

    A favourable opinion was gained by many and the Peoples Front was rather popular as a movement among those who usually didn’t play an active role in politics nor had a voice that was listened to. There were the unemployed on the marches but the employed too; the young & the old & the middle-aged were there with family groups attending. It was ordinary people. The Peoples Front grew fast and with that, many of the initial ideas it had were pushed aside for a more pressing agenda than just reminding the government on its promises and stopping a betrayal but demanding the impossible too. The first founders floundered in their attempts to regain control of the agenda. Within weeks, what they had started had metamorphosed into something else. The lunatics had taken over the asylum.


    The Peoples Front was dismissed as ‘a bunch of unruly Trots’ by many influential figures on the left when notice started to be taken of it. Attention was focused upon the loud activists and the professional protesters. When groups such as Stop The City and then War On Want became involved, the first a group of unruly anarchists and the second seen recently as a vanity project for its outspoken leader, joined and open demands were being made by the Peoples Front there was a lot of rejection from some.

    Benn wanted nothing to do with it. He wasn’t alone. Through early June, it became a seemingly chaotic organisation with the public face of its leadership unappealing to those in Parliament and in the top tiers of politics of the Left. There were accusations levelled that such critics were jealous of the appeal that the Peoples Front had to the ordinary people; to counter this, the millions of voters who democratically elected MPs were pointed to. When the Peoples Front demanded jobs for all and an immediate redistribution of wealth – the impossible – rather than just the government keeping its promises and making Britain fairer, it was seen as out of control.

    The Peoples Front would run out of steam, it was said. It had no real agenda laid out in any organised fashion, detractors continued, and those who attended the marches would soon realise they were being taken for fools and manipulated. There was no democracy in the leadership and those who were running it, those from the SWP and the WRP, really didn’t care about the people they claimed to lead only their own, selfish agendas to gain attention. What mattered was the real struggle to keep Labour to its manifesto promises and that wouldn’t be done by shouting in the street.

    Those such as Benn might have dismissed the Peoples Front as Trots who were going nowhere fast, a car crash happening right now and exploiting the reasonable wishes of people being betrayed, but others saw it as an opportunity. The SWP and the WRP had taken over the Peoples Front for their own ends but they wouldn’t be alone in joining and seeking to gain serious influence over the organisation which was holding marches that were attracting a larger turn out of ordinary people each time.

    Militant MPs – those five who stood as Labour candidates had been elected against the wishes of the party leadership – joined the Peoples Front with a significant part of the organisation they belonged to following. They didn’t like many ideas of the movement yet embraced some others. This was a popular movement and they wanted part of it for what it was capable of becoming.


    One of the leading figures within the Peoples Front was Gerry Healy, recently re-established as leader of the WRP due to internal politics. The Workers Revolutionary Party was a high-profile organisation yet with little influence before. Healy himself was divisive and had distasteful personal behaviour that was excused away by his followers. The WRP was fractionised though despite its leader with other key figures such as Michael Banda having ideas of their own.

    Groups like the RDG and the RCP might have spent the past few years engaged in hard work locally, but the WRP had been thinking bigger. They hadn’t helped people with the troubles in their lives, they had instead caused people trouble. Those who had looked for hope and an end to the seeming despair of their lives – millions were unemployed and the Tebbit government gave the impression that it really didn’t care – came upon the WRP like they did others of all political shades and were often caught up in the movement and its extreme ideas. It was a party of chaos and also recent radicalisation. When Tebbit had taken action against urban rioting and also seemed to declare war on the unions – the latter which he certainly hadn’t done so –, the WRP had stood up to him… or claimed to anyway. They had held noisy protests and gained attention without doing anything. They certainly didn’t speak for the unemployed youths in the city nor striking industrial workers. Doing so would mean working hard to address those problems and create a solution: it was easier to make a fuss and be seen doing so.

    The WRP had managed to financially survive for as long as it had with such demands as were caused by its many activities by help from many sources. Those included the support from certain rich backers and also what came from foreign donations. Those foreign donations being regimes in the Middle East such as Iraq but more so Libya. There was a price for the fraternal assistance when it came to the WRP monitoring opponents and exiles in Britain for those countries and the WRP was heavily-involved in identifying those. Foreign money, especially that from Libya, was put to use. A pre-Tebbit idea to run training centres for youths to teach them how to combat police activities (evade capture, block deployments even fight back: not serious violence against them) using Libyan money was put into practise when riots in first Liverpool then Leeds in mid-1982 occurred. Just a crazy idea became a reality. Industrial workers on strike had their unions, who had the Labour Party behind them, so they told the WRP where to stick their foolish Trotskyist ideas, but the WRP did manage to attract support from many urban areas. They protested at police stations after arrests were made and made a scene of doing so. There was a message of hate with the WRP though, not one of hope that others had: hate filled many who became associated with them too.

    Healy liked being the leader of the WRP because it gave him publicity… and also access to young women. Those such as Banda (who had been witness to the strong police reaction to a riot in Birmingham in late 1982 and was said to have been hardened afterwards) and some others around him – new additions to the party – wanted more. The ability to defend themselves and others were sought, that being weapons. The Libyans were approached, the Iraqis too. There was a no to that. What could the WRP provide in exchange? Where they going to offer to return some of the money given to them by those regimes back to each in return for arms? The two countries weren’t going to do that. They also didn’t want the blowback of flooding Britain with guns traceable to them. It was not in their interests to do so. Those who had first floated the idea of weapons became obsessed with the idea of being armed. They created reasons to have them: to fight for the people, to smash the racists & fascists etc. They went elsewhere if their fraternal allies abroad couldn’t, wouldn’t help them. There were other far-left extremist groups out there and Banda’s WRP faction – not always doing everything with his full knowledge, what could be attributed to him anyway – approached some of them. Barter agreements were made with the anti-fascists from Red Action, those who bombed the Monday Club and been hit hard by the security services afterwards but survived to grow; the Maoist English People’s Liberation Army wanted cash, thank you. These small groups had been arming themselves too without doing anything major and they could provide weapons directly or through suppliers. There was another issue though: having weapons was one thing, knowing how to use them was another. More links were made with such other groups so training could be given. There became a tipping point where eventually the WRP armed faction was dependent upon others with far more radical agendas than their own. Their pool of potential recruits was exploited. Some dreamed of a Red Army… an impossible, stupid idea.

    This all took place before the 1984 May general election and before Healy left behind his lifestyle of a cult-leader enjoying the spoils at the WRP mansion in Derbyshire and went to London to take a major role in the Peoples Front. He was never in control of his party like he would never been in control of the Peoples Front either… but he believed that he was.


    The Peoples Front with its popular appeal and one cult-like but radicalised non-important political party were not seen by most as important. Other things were meanwhile going on that was seen as more important. There were defining political events occurring in June 1984 and outbreaks of extreme violence elsewhere within Britain; the former in Parliament and the latter in The Province.
     
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    House of Cards
  • James G

    Gone Fishin'
    House of Cards

    Through early June and towards the middle of the month, the business of Parliament continued. The Queen’s Speech had been voted for with Labour supported by Alliance votes and the government was getting underway trying to fulfil its election promises and running into problems as they did so. The growing Peoples Front was no more than a nuisance and there wasn’t that much attention being paid to Northern Ireland either. Parliamentarians were busy and party politics continued.

    Amendments to the Queen’s Speech were put forward in the Commons concerning several matters though quickly a Conservative amendment was tabled when it came to the EEC and British Withdrawal which attracted attention. There was enough support gained for a vote to be scheduled on the issue and this became rather contentious. The tabled motion put before the Commons was for there to be a referendum on whether the country should pull out with the voters having a say on the matter. Labour had given the people a vote in 1975 when they were last in government and wanted to leave the trade bloc and the Conservatives wanted that done again. The intention behind the amendment wasn’t fully honest though; there was an eagerness from Tebbit to be seen to doing something important and to maintain his position after his election defeat. Furthermore, it was realised that such a vote, which could go either way if some of the whispers about the Social Democrats were true, was going to cause serious problems for Labour in the Commons and bring embarrassment. The Liberals and the Social Democrats weren’t formal coalition partners in any shape or form; there were also possible Labour rebels to the government whip as well with the EEC not something that Labour MPs were united on. The public might not have shared the excitement in Parliament over the EEC but that didn’t really matter.

    The Liberals were firmly wielded to voting with the government on the issue and the number of Labour rebels was thought to be very small. Promises were made to those who might rebel on other issues and reminders made that they as Labour MPs would be voting with Tebbit’s Conservatives. When it came to the Social Democrats, their views on Europe were well-known but it had been the decision of the party leadership, pushed by their parliamentary partners with the Liberals, to vote against the amendment. The Conservatives were causing trouble and angling to strike a blow against the government. Moreover, the talk within the Social Democrats was remaining with Labour in the Commons to influence events from inside rather than be left impotent outside: British Withdraw could be moderated, even stopped, at a later date, there was no rush.

    On the evening of the vote, which took place on June 11th, Labour was focused on their Militant MPs and making sure that they turned up to vote with the government. In addition, attention was paid too in trying to gain extra votes from smaller parties such as those with the SNP, Plaid and the SDLP whose views on the EEC were similar to that of Labour. Several Labour MPs were committed to rebelling or abstaining – the latter was better than the former for the government – but the measures elsewhere were hoped to work. The Liberals were all onside and the Social Democrats were meant to be as well.

    The government lost the vote. Even with SNP votes, they failed to defeat the tabled amendment due to their own rebels and also a total of eight Social Democrats (more than half of the MPs with that party) either abstaining in the case of two or outright voting for the proposal for a second referendum put forth by the Conservatives by the other half a dozen.

    The immediate fallout were two resignations from the Social Democrats while Labour was still in shock. The chief whip resigned for he had failed to keep his MPs in-line and then Jenkins announced that he couldn’t continue; the former president of the European Commission was no fan of British Withdrawal but he had been humiliated and his parliamentary party was out of control. Owen and those others who didn’t toe the party line stated afterwards that they believed in the right of the people to choose either a pull-out from the EEC or continuing membership. They were not tied to the government in anything more than confidence and supply and this vote had been on neither. There was talk too of how the economy had taken a hard hit upon the result of the general election and British Withdrawal would doom the country to poverty as a result of an end to free trade with Western Europe. There was no explanation given on why they had been as deceiving as they had been though in how they had acted like they had; they didn’t want to talk about how they had lied to John Cartwright, the departed chief whip, nor not told their party leader or allies either what they were going to do. Labour rebels were just as culpable as the faction of the Social Democrats that Owen now led but they had not deceived their party whips or leadership beforehand. They weren’t making dramatic public statements afterwards nor holding press events or desperate to get media interviews.

    Christmas had come early for the Conservatives. They got an immediate morale boost. Tebbit still had those with their knives sharpened and ready to be drawn for his leadership but he had kept his MPs in-line – well… his whips had – and afterwards there was a feeling that the party was on the path to return to power. There was talk of bringing about a vote of no confidence in the government soon enough and seeing how that would turn out. The infighting within the Social Democrats, the Alliance and Labour (less so with the latter but still present a little) all pointed to a good chance of success with such a strategy. A victory there would be far more significant than one of the EEC and the now stalled British Withdrawal: Labour’s one month old government was susceptible at the moment to collapse and with that, there would have to be another election, wouldn’t there?

    That political drama with the vote in the Commons and then the recriminations afterwards went on through the rest of the working week. During the coming weekend, a Peoples Front march had been refused permission to take place in London due to the Trooping of the Colour. No one in power gave that any serious thought due to the political machinations ongoing in Parliament after the vote on the Monday night.


    Where there were those on the extreme left who had been radicalised and had been slowly arming themselves, the same had been occurring on the far right too over the past few years with again no serious major outlet for their potential.

    The odious National Front (NF) had been beset by splits during the Thatcher’s premiership. With Tebbit in Downing Street there were growing internal problems within the party yet, at the same time and somewhat contradictorily, the NF was on the ascendancy as well. The situation with urban riots, oftentimes (though not always) with racial issues among them, was fertile breeding ground for them. The British National Party (BNP) had broken off and taken away a lot of active, important members with them and started to gain recruits like the competing NF did. The two preyed on feelings of division and tension within communities, sweeping in with their messages of hate and putting all perceived wrongs right if only they were listened to. That would start with the race issue, naturally. The NF had always been beset by the problem that when met with greater force than their own showing of force, their weakness was shown. Big-mouths would be the first to disappear when counter-protesters showed up or communities forcefully stood up to them and while skinheads might fight for a few moments, they would often fold too. The police would gain no reprimand from their superiors for cracking skinheads either. First known as the New National Front, the BNP had the same difficulties.

    Then came the idea of the Political Soldier. It was an ill-defined faction within the NF though had some adherents in the BNP. The concept was still forming but it was one of violence and revolutionary zeal at its core. Younger members of the NF and the BNP indoctrinated new recruits in tenants of the overall idea. They spoke of a broken Britain which had suffered the humiliation in the Falklands and blamed the minorities… which was laughable. The message was passed on that Ulster was next to be lost and then the rest of Britain would break up too. Racial purity could stop this yet minorities had powerful allies supporting them in the form of the establishment of all political colours. Fighting them was what needed to be done.

    Political Soldier factions formed in both the NF and the BNP. There were some who soon lost interest as well as others who spoke to the authorities as informers. The passion expressed by adherents to the Political Soldier idea didn’t seem to concern those in authority but the sudden moved to gain weapons plus learn how to use them did. Some measures were taken to stop the efforts and seize weapons already in far-right extremist hands, but it wasn’t enough. Twice arms caches coming from fellow extremists in Northern Ireland were stopped and arrests made. What the authorities didn’t get a-hold of were other weapons that the NF and BNP armed factions, those Political Soldiers, were gaining from less dramatic sources: the theft of privately-held weapons taking place with sudden frequency and ended up being stored ready to one day be used. There would be an issue with training and also ammunition too, but guns were gathered.


    Patriotic groups, those who saw themselves as on the right but certainly not extremists, had been around in the 70s. GB75 had been one man talking big, Civil Assistance had been real. Such movements (imagined and real) had folded with Thatcher’s win in 1979, but towards the end of the Tebbit premiership several sprung up again. Patriots saw themselves as those who would step up in the event of a major national crisis where there was paralysis from officialdom. The violent riots where outbreaks of unrest were cracked down hard upon leading to later unrest brought to another halt, an endless cycle, were looked at with concern. Where there were industrial strikes too that attracted flying pickets bringing with that state action to put a forceful end to that was in again looked at with worry. Tebbit was seen as strong by many people, but Patriots weren’t so sure. The wind was blowing towards something big happening. Tebbit’s premiership had been regarded as radicalising people nationwide against him and the whole establishment rather than bringing a sense of security as was the feeling elsewhere. A revolution was feared with the disastrous consequences of that. In such a situation, Patriots would step in when chaos came and keep the country running, bringing order if they had to.

    The peaceful Labour return to power wasn’t anticipated by Patriots. The wide variety of groups who were geographically separate and with different ideas hadn’t read the mood of the voters right. They quickly saw something they did fear though: the loony left in-charge and then a street movement run by those demanding further drastic measures for the government to take. These threatened not just the health of the country but democracy itself, such was how Patriots saw this. Disunited at first, Patriots started to come together. They had financial connections with some well-off, even rich backers and also shared printing facilities for their mountains of literature predicting dire outcomes that they undertook with zeal. There was a lot of harmony at the top during discussions and mergers between leaders who were united in alarm at the present and especially the future more than seeking personal power and the vanity of being at the very top.

    Members of the Patriots, the multiple groups nationwide, came from all walks of life and backgrounds. It took all sorts to join the various groups who came together as the Patriots and those who did tended to stick with it for some time either. By mid-1984, they had a large following of serving policemen and military personnel and others such as prison officers and retired people from those professions as well as reservists who belonged to the groups; there was too a Masonic presence that brought together organisational skills and sturdy supporters. The Patriots in their various forms were not illegal nor were they high-profile. They didn’t attract official attention nor commit acts of violence. They didn’t have a violent ideology. They were present though and worried at what they saw happening. They weren’t going to act unless something else happened first to bring chaos and disruption. Should that occur, bringing order in a welcome manner was their only official intention of their individual group and when they started to unite under the banner of the Patriots.

    Not everyone who joined the Patriots thought like that though and a lot of those people used the cover of a peaceful organisation to plot and plan their own actions for when that need came to commit them. It was an organisation with manpower and access to legally-held firearms, plus people who knew how to use them. For those with nefarious ideas, that was appealing.


    The British Armed Forces were apolitical. Like the Monarchy, the military was a political football at times to be kicked around and whose victories & defeats were treated like a game.

    The Falklands had been a defeat for the British Armed Forces. Arguments could be made that the war hadn’t been lost on the battlefield just at home and there had been a very good chance of military success if it hadn’t been for the Hermes being hit, but that hardly mattered overall. British ships had sailed home with troops aboard them and the islands in the South Atlantic remained in Argentinian hands. Humiliation came and there was a lot of demoralisation across those who wore the uniform. Recruitment and retention was hit hard. The losses suffered in the Falklands – Hermes was the most dramatic but not the only loss – weren’t replaced. Tebbit’s government had remained committed to spending plans and the military as a whole but there was no zeal when it came to defence issues after that defeat. The NATO deployment in West Germany remained and there were troops in Northern Ireland involved in the security situation there; the mission was the same for the military in defending the nation. The Royal Navy took more of a knock than the British Army or the Royal Air Force but throughout the British Armed Forces, there was a feeling of shared shame at the defeat inflicted. There were those who pointed their fingers at the government to shoulder that blame and who should be ashamed – self-serving politicians! –, not those who served their country and were treated like they were.

    The Labour victory in the election came as a surprise to the military. There was already an awareness of the party’s policies on defence matters but such things hadn’t been feared. The thinking among the generals and the admirals was that should Labour have been elected, they would hardly carry those out. The party was full of sensible people and those who understood the need for a strong military. Foot was no appeaser nor was Labour about to sell the country out to the Kremlin either. The manifesto was all fluff and none of those promises were any of the sort. Upon forming a government, Labour went to try to keep to their commitments that they had made to the electorate. Any idea that the people hadn’t voted for such ideas was rubbished by politicians; of course the people had.

    Unilateral nuclear disarmament was not welcome yet still rather abstract to those in uniform. It didn’t upset many and those that it did realised that it was something difficult to achieve politically especially with a minority government relying on smaller parties. What was of more pressing concern were the ideas for ‘reorganisation’ of the British Armed Forces. A less reliance on professionals and instead reservists was what the new government had as its policy. A withdrawal from military facilities aboard (Gibraltar, Cyprus etc.) apart from those in West Germany was called for too. Capabilities for long-range deployments were to be cut. It was the offensive side of the military, the ability to act as a great power would, that the new government wanted to bring an end to. When it came to that reorganisation, there was a worry from those in uniform that while government policy itself was something that they didn’t agree with, worse was going to come later on with those opposed to the military in Parliament further moving against them on ideological grounds.

    There was something else too: that reorganisation spoke of personnel cuts to those at the very top to get rid of the bloated senior military staff of so many generals and admirals.

    However… the military wouldn’t dare act against Her Majesty’s Government (HMG). The British Armed Forces were servants of the crown and the crown’s ministers. That was a duly elected government. It would be unacceptable to do anything against HMG. There was no appetite generally for ‘stepping-in for the sake of democracy’ or ‘safeguarding the country’ like a few comments made by some at the top suggested in passing to others. Those who made such remarks were shot down and told not just that would never have support but it was near-treason too. The elected government wasn’t one of traitors. Blood wasn’t being spilt in the streets. The people had a functioning government. There was security and stability. The changes which were being proposed would have to be managed as best as possible and there was too the feeling that a new election would come soon enough.

    One general and some of his adherents in uniform stopped sharing their thoughts with their comrades-in-arms. They talked among themselves instead and plotted and planned should the worst happen. All that they would do, the said to each other, was ‘act in the national interest’.
     
    Last edited:
    Anarchy
  • James G

    Gone Fishin'
    Anarchy

    A bazooka was too much. It was an over-the-top choice of weapon for the engaged target. The shiny new toy was one of several and none had been used yet. An opportunity presented itself, one limited by time, where a bazooka was a guarantee of the desired result. A machine gun, even automatic rifles, would have probably assured the outcome wanted… but a bazooka really would do the job. It was also a test too, to see if such a weapon was as useful as promised and actually did work.

    One of five that they had been sent by fellow supporters of ‘the cause’ from across on the other side of the North Atlantic, a US Army issue M72 LAW bazooka was put to use by the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) on June 12th to kill Ian Paisley. His car was violently disassembled with him and three others inside when travelling outside Belfast. The INLA volunteers who undertook the action were left stunned by the blast as it caused more destruction than they anticipated and also the physical effects they themselves felt at being far too close to the explosion and shockwave. The launch tube for the rocket was dropped by the man who had fired it and he ran away alongside those with him – carrying pistols and a walkie-talkie – leaving that behind instead of taking it with them as they were meant to; there would be something for the security forces to look into. A trace would later reveal the history of the weapon and how it was meant to have been destroyed after removal from its guarded military arsenal because it was broken beyond repair yet somehow ended up in Ulster in the hands of terrorists.

    Meanwhile, Paisley was dead along with those travelling with him. The leader of the Democratic Unionist Party and a controversial man – to say the least – had been murdered in such a dramatic fashion by Irish Republicans.


    Ulster had been alight in conflict since the end of the 60s. It was a long and complicated situation with radicalisation happening long before and being entrenched; to many outsiders, the conflict there was a civil war in all but name. The conflict in Northern Ireland had spread far and wide and away from Ulster too.

    Tebbit had paid attention to the violence there during his premiership yet not as much as he intended to. There had been other matters which had demanded his attention and there was also the feeling that nothing could be realistically done to solve the problems in Ulster therefore the best approach was to keep a lid on things. He wouldn’t stand for anarchy though and had made sure that the security services in the form of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), MI-5 and the British Armed Forces on deployment there did their best. Yet, the killings had continued and so had other violence. Armed groups in Ulster attacked each other and innocent civilians. Weapons were smuggled in and only some of them stopped with few arrests made. No endgame could be seen. Too many groups were full of hardened murderers who were invested in the violence and their political leaders kept up the rhetoric.

    Foot’s new government had different ideas. They wanted dialogue on Northern Ireland towards a political solution rather than more of the same. There was the possibility of demilitarising Ulster, but only in the long-run. That was seen as possible when the chance was truly given to get politicians talking. The ordinary people in Northern Ireland weren’t interested in violence, they wanted peace. Northern Ireland Secretary Rees was a little more realistic than those who had formed the party policy on Ulster and got their ideas into the manifesto. He personally rated the chances of peace as zero and would see that the security forces wouldn’t be withdrawn unless the violence stopped… which it wasn’t going to. He did try to open dialogue though with the best of intentions; everyone knows what happens to best intentions.

    Many of those on the Unionist side politically, and who were often referred to as Loyalists when to some they were anything but, saw the Labour victory at the polls in 1984 as the coming apocalypse. Labour was going to sell them out to ‘Dublin and Popery’. The Falklands – populated by fellow Britons like them – had been surrendered by the last government and the new one would give Ulster to the Republic of Ireland. Paisley, a reverend and thus man of the cloth, was one of the most outspoken and prominent proponents of opposing such a thing. He was intransigent in his beliefs and people paid attention to him when he spoke whether they agreed with him or not. Politically, other politicians on the Unionist side had greater influence yet Paisley was the one who gained all of the attention in the public eye. He had denounced the new government in London as ‘communists’ – his focus was less so on ministers but rather the outspoken comments from other Labour MPs – and promised to stop such a surrender from them. As was his way, Paisley always stopped short of calling for violence directly but the interpretation of his words since the general election by those who were influenced by his ideas was always that of violence. At the same time, others on the Unionist side were warning of the same thing occurring: Labour was going to abandon Ulster to the Republican terrorists and Dublin. A surrender to Popery must be stopped, Paisley had said, and he declared that it would be.


    In the lead-up to the assassination of Paisley, those in the INLA – less well known than the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) but just as violent – had been listening to what he had been saying and the words of others too. The rhetoric was that of fighting against the Catholic people in Northern Ireland, not combatting the political will from London: that was how they saw it. Paisley was the face of this and the figure of hatred. It was he that was going to lead that effort and the new government there in London – no friends of the INLA – would be incapable of stopping the anarchy and genocide against the Catholics in Northern Ireland that they feared was coming. Their fear was just as passionate as Paisley’s.

    Weapons reached the INLA just like they did the PIRA from various sources. Money was raised to buy them from those who supported the cause either directly understanding what was going on or having a lack of real grasp of the situation. The buckets passed around the bars of Boston and elsewhere in New England across the North Atlantic were one manner of raising money; others were from armed robberies and extortion. Guns and other weapons – explosives and heavy weapons – were brought from whoever would sell them and not be caught doing so. Whatever could be got from whomever they were available from was gained: there was talk of ideology with weapons but that ignored the practically of getting their hands on such things. More were always wanted too, especially those that could give a better ‘bang for the buck’.

    The bazookas which were officially listed as destroyed by the US Army were part of the latest cache gained by the INLA, a man from the United States promised them that bang for the buck. They believed that their rivals in the PIRA had the same sort of weapons but more than that they wanted something to take on the security services with. Even heavier weapons were sought too yet the stolen M72s would certainly do. Further deliveries had been promised later. The INLA sat on their bazooka shipment for a while and sought an opportunity to use them. They considered attacking several British Army bases yet kept looking for the perfect target. Some of the shot-callers in the terrorist group had a concern too that the bazookas might be faulty as they were officially supposed to be as well. They had a new source who supplied these weapons and wanted a test. A test would mean using one of the five weapons and they were one-shot pieces of equipment. That made them hesitant yet eager too.

    A week before they killed Paisley, he had made a dramatic speech and fired up his audience. The coded terms he used were, the INLA decided, certainly a call to begin a slaughter of their people by the Loyalist groups that shared his ideology. There was an understanding that killing him would inflame matters greatly but the risk was judged worth it. Those whose task it was to gather intelligence made a lucky breakthrough on his movements to where he would be at a certain time on a certain day. The decision was made to kill him and use one of the bazookas. It would also send a message using such a weapon, one to show that the INLA was just as lethal as the bigger PIRA and also capable of doing what their rivals couldn’t and eliminating the face of genocide-baiting Loyalism.


    Immediately after the death of Paisley, there was the calm before the storm. The shocking news of the death of such a man as he, and in such a fashion too, took some time to sink in. That was just half a day though. Rees was in London at the time after the vote in the Commons the night before had brought about a Cabinet meeting and he flew back at once to Ulster. He had been forced by the party whips to attend the vote that had been lost when he was in the middle of battles with civil servants opposing the changes he wished to bring about. On his way to Ulster from Whitehall, he knew that he was jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.

    The Province erupted into violence. There were riots and shootings. That night and into the next day it continued. It couldn’t be stopped no matter what was tried. Attacks were made against Catholic communities and against those of Protestants too. Terrorist groups on both sides quickly had their armed men out and the security forces in the middle did as well but anarchy came across Ulster. An attempt was made to kill Martin McGuinness, a high-profile Nationalist political figure, but it was a failure on the part of his attempted Loyalists assassins: more ‘success’ was had against those with less profile. The president of Sein Fein, Gerry Adams (who had failed to get elected in May), was wounded by a bomb and did what McGuiness did in quietly leaving Ulster for the time being. They ran away to save their own lives though without publicity. This was done because the Loyalists had rapidly upped the level of violence and the security services, as well as Republican gunmen, couldn’t stop it.

    Loyalist terror groups like the proscribed Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF), Red Hand Commando (RHC) and the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) along with the legal but just as guilty Ulster Defence Association (UDA) were out in force seeking vengeance. They were joined by elements of the Protestant population who previously only supported the Loyalist groups in part while at other times upset at the violence: recruits flooded to these groups ready to take up arms and fight due to the outrage of the Paisley assassination. It was the same with the INLA and the PIRA: they fought on the streets and gained more active recruits in response to what the Loyalists were doing. Supposedly standing between them though with selective parts giving sympathy to the Loyalists, were the security forces who were overwhelmed by the widespread and ceaseless violence. They had informers from the Loyalists and Republican groups giving them intelligence yet everything happened so fast. The RUC cancelled all police leave and called out Reserve Constables en mass. The British Armed Forces on Operation Banner duties put all available troops out to try to break-up the violence while also soon requesting more to be urgently sent to Ulster. In addition, both the RUC and the military came under attack from the INLA and the PIRA while they were trying to stop all of this.

    What wasn’t noticeable in immediate reaction was the sudden inactivity from others on the Loyalist side politically: Peter Robinson being a prime example. The Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) wasn’t a factor either, that part-time volunteer reserve force who were stationed in Ulster and a hotbed of questionable loyalties.

    Rees and those in power could do nothing to stop the now open killings taking place as the bloodbath started and showed no sign of stopping. Tit-for-tat shootings had very quickly become the start of the full on civil war in Ulster that had always been feared was waiting to occur if the situation was right for that.

    At a time like this, everyone should have been paying full attention to Ulster. Other things were going on though.
     
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