The Fuse of History Is Lit

Earlier this month a British academic named Michael Rainsborough wrote an insightful essay on the United Kingdom’s descent towards civil war.  Once the head of the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, Rainsborough was dismissed from his post for committing a series of “thought crimes.”  His final offense came in the form of a co-authored essay entitled, “The British Road to Dirty War,” in which he and former colleague David Betz diagramed “the hollowing out of British democratic institutions” and the dangerous rule of a permanent governing class filled with authoritarian elites.

Now working in Australia, Rainsborough returns to the subject with additional wisdom that only time and distance can provide.  His verdict is as incisive as it is sobering: Britain’s institutions are irreparably damaged.  The country is headed for long-term Balkanization.  A “dirty war” similar to those that gripped Latin America fifty years ago may usher in an era of assassinations, hostage-taking, disappearances, industrial sabotage, censorship, and general repression.  Although he acknowledges that the question of how bad things will become in Britain is still very much an open one, he doesn’t envision any set of circumstances that can entirely avert the misery to come.

Rainsborough describes a series of intentional acts engineered by governing elites to diminish democratic accountability and maintain permanent control.  Rather than recognizing the democratic will of the people following the Brexit referendum in 2016, the ruling class responded with a “deranged mixture of denial and contempt for the electorate.”  Even before the Brexit vote, however, leftist-globalists were engaging in a great “demographic transformation” intended “to rub the Right’s nose in diversity.”  Today the whole British government “operates from a post-nationalist outlook, one that treats the very idea of nationhood as negotiable, even alien, to the political class.”

Making matters worse, the British Establishment has gone all-in on globalism by “outsourcing” its “sovereignty to supranational bodies” that “dilute and often override domestic consent.”  Consequently, institutional elites are driving Britain towards “self-destruction” by “clinging to an incontinent immigration system and an almost devotional attachment to international and human rights laws that disadvantage its own citizens.”

Rainsborough accuses British authorities of repurposing old tools for imperial governance into “divide and rule” instruments for manipulating domestic society.  “The aim” is “to rule by division: to fracture society into communities, reward loyal in-groups and discriminate against the majority through a two-tier system of justice, policing and social policy.”  He calls the agents of this purposeful division the “new imperialists.”

The “new imperialists” have self-important titles — “diversity coordinators, anti-racism activists, curriculum decolonisers, climate campaigners” — but their mission is identical to the agents that once helped Britain’s East India Company conquer much of the globe: to “manage society by division.”  After categorizing everyone by race, caste, and creed, today’s “woke” imperialists “elevate” favored minorities and “relegate” the majority to “second-class status.”  Just as their predecessors felt morally superior to the natives when conquering India, today’s leftist-globalists are “buoyed by moral certainty and a conviction of their right to rule.”

The natural result of this manufactured division is today’s national flag protests across the United Kingdom.  While government authorities enthusiastically support the waving of Ukrainian, Islamic, and “gay pride” flags, they are extremely angry with British citizens who proudly fly England’s Cross of St. George.  “The majority population, already disregarded on questions such as immigration, is told that its own symbols of belonging must be hidden, while the emblems of others are to be privileged and extolled.”  In effect, Britain’s elite ruling class has denied the British “people’s right to recognise themselves.”

What is particularly remarkable about Rainsborough’s analysis is its applicability to other nations throughout the West.  An American, Canadian, Australian, German, or Dutch citizen reading his point-by-point rationale for why the United Kingdom is heading for civil war would logically conclude that civil war is also coming closer to home.  Is there any public policy that the British Establishment has implemented to “divide and rule” over citizens that the Establishments of other Western nations haven’t also implemented?  Support for mass illegal immigration, the demonization of patriotism as “fascism,” the criminalization of so-called “hate speech,” widespread censorship, and the systematic persecution of individuals and groups expressing dissent to the government’s official “narratives” — these hallmarks of encroaching totalitarianism flourish across the West.

Parts of France are in flames right now.  After Emmanuel Macron’s government collapsed last week, riots erupted nationwide.  Fed up with the direction of their country under Macron’s rule, French citizens across the political spectrum have temporarily coalesced into a “Block Everything” movement that has shut down major highways and turned the night sky into a medieval mixture of glowing embers and smoke.  It has been reported that the ineffective French president is so desperate to quell the growing revolt that he is considering shutting down social media platforms.

Macron might resist the despotic urge to suspend public communication after witnessing events unfold in Nepal.  The South Asian republic is also in flames right now after more than a week of total chaos.  After large public protests over government corruption could not be controlled, the Nepalese Establishment made the fateful decision to block all social media platforms.  Angry citizens promptly responded by burning down parliament, dragging politicians out of their homes, and beating officials to death.  The government attempted to reverse course and permit social media access, but protesters continue to target anyone who might be considered an “elite.”

French President Macron is acutely aware that the carnage in Nepal could soon find its way to France if he chooses to shut down social media sites.  Leftist-globalists already crossed a similar line in Canada when the government of former prime minister Justin Trudeau seized the bank accounts of “Freedom Convoy” protesters fighting back against COVID edicts and “vaccine” mandates.  Trudeau’s actions demonstrated how willing Western governments are to punish dissent by seizing private property.  Should Macron follow Canada and Nepal’s reckless examples by confiscating bank accounts and stifling public communication, French citizens will no doubt respond with even more intensity.

Perhaps that is why one of the U.K.’s top law enforcement officers, Sir Andy Cooke, is desperately trying to end the criminalization of “offensive” social media speech.  Arguing that British authorities need to “allow people to speak openly without the fear their opinion will put them on the wrong side of the law,” Cooke wants cops to stop acting as free speech “monitors.”  After years of throwing British citizens in jail for expressing opinions, this kind of public policy U-turn suggests that government authorities now regret energizing a free speech movement sweeping across the U.K.

In reaction to the assassination of Charlie Kirk in the United States, Prime Minister Keir Starmer wrote, “We must all be free to debate openly and freely without fear — there can be no justification for political violence.”  After years of imprisoning people for their speech and regularly censoring social media accounts, Starmer’s hypocrisy set off a chain reaction of national anger in the U.K.  On Saturday, over a million citizens took to the streets of London in support of free speech.  One Brit declared, “They just made a million Charlie Kirks.”

Could France, Britain, or the United States suffer Nepal’s fate?  Maybe.  The “new imperialists” are dangerously arrogant.  As Rainsborough writes, “They imagine themselves clever enough — and the public credulous enough — that such policies can be pursued without provoking resistance.  But arrogance is no substitute for foresight.  Once matters tip into open conflict, escalation takes on its own momentum.  Anger is already stirring — and anger, once roused, is the fuse of history.”

If you look around the West, it is impossible to deny that the “fuse of history” is already lit.