WI: Major, 9/11-style attack in UK

I guess a more interesting question would be: what kind of attack would have to happen to make Britain as shocked as America was after 9/11? :eek:

Marc A
 
Let's face it, you need to take out a well-loved senior Royal. Then it could get nasty for a while.

If the Queen was taken out, I can see alot of muslim shops smashed never to reopen. Attack's in the street and life in general made very unplesant. And of course no more mosques. Also many under 30 muslim men riot as 'tit for tat'. Cities like Bradford and Leeds would have large no go zones for anybody without a pakistani backround.
 
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If we're talking about a literal 9/11 style atack, then our airport security is simply better than yours, and our airtrafic control is much better than yours. Millitary and civilian ATC has also been largely intigrated since the mid 90s at least. We will not be vectoring fighters in the wrong direction.:p

The big difference is how America will respond to an Article 5 declaration by another country. How much will George W spend on an attack that may not have killed any actual Americans? Though OTL it is often said he had other reasons for persuing the war on terror. So he may declare it anyway.
 
The main problem with a literal 9/11 style attack is that for the early 2000s the only available target is Canary Wharf.

Problem there- the only flightpath near that is the one to London City Airport, which is not used by the big passenger jets. A 747 heading along that will be picked up an probably shot down before it's got to Greenwich, and doubly so for the other directions, especially attempting a route from Heathrow as you'd be passing through prohibited airspace at Westminster.
 
Years ago (even before 7/7 but after 9/11), I did work on a story where a plane from Manchester Airport was crashed into the Blackpool Winter Gardens during a Labour Party Conference taking out the Labour Cabinet including Tony Blair... I think Ben Bradshaw who was out of the country was the only surviour of the cabinet as he was out of the country, The Queen asked Ken Clarke to form a "unity Government"!
 
If the Queen was taken out, I can see alot of muslim shops smashed never to reopen. Attack's in the street and life in general made very unplesant. And of course no more mosques. Also many under 30 muslim men riot as 'tit for tat'. Cities like Bradford and Leeds would have large no go zones for anybody without a pakistani backround.

What about Charles? Is he well-loved enough to provoke such a response if he's assassinated?

Marc A
 
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