The Manchester attack should be a pivotal political moment. Not because of the shock. And not because of the appalling and wholly unjustified loss of life. It should be pivotal instead because it should give rise to questions about how we as a society should be protected by the state and what we are being protected from.
Let's not for a moment pretend these are not political questions. They go to the very heart of the role of the state. and they reflect just what the society we want to live in might be. And for that reason it would be negligent, and even disrespectful, to those who have died and to those who will survive with scars for the remainder of their lives not to ask how the risk of this happening again can be minimised.
As a Quaker who is dedicated to peace and abhors all violence but who is a reluctant non-pacifist because there is a real need for defence I make clear I come to this discussion with a bias towards removing the causes of conflict.
That is why I innately feel that troops in the streets are the wrong practical and political response to what has happened. It is obvious that a soldier would not have prevented Manchester, or Westminster before it. As a police officer on patrol said to me last night, the only thing he could do to protect me from a terrorist attack was to put his body between me and the threat. And that, I suggest, is too much to ask of him. And that is what we are asking of soldiers and it is too much to ask of them too.
So what can we do? And what have we got wrong? Jon Snow hit two targets entirely appropriately on Channel 4 last night when interviewing Mucahel Fallon. He laid two charges against him. The first was that that last two governments, and maybe Labour before that, had been negligent in reducing police numbers: 19,000 police officers have gone since 2010. The number of armed police has halved.
This, Jon Snow suggested, is why we have troops on the street. Government cuts have forced us to the situation where people untrained for the task are now protecting key installations from attack. This, he rightly said, represents a failure of government to undertake its most basic duty.
He also questioned the UK's role in bombing Libya, which was yet another occasion when the use of force solved nothing, largely because no politician engaged in the process appeared to have the slightest idea what they might do when the short term goal of toppling Gadaffi had been realised. The hole, physical and political, that was left when the Tornados had done their job was the political failing. We don't know that is what radicalised a young man in Manchester. To exclude the possibility must be as wrong as bombing without the intention of supplying support for an alternative for many years to come might be.
Of course both viewpoints are contentious. I am sure Jon Snow did not raise them lightly (any more than I am writing this without more anxiety than usual). But these suggestions, and the fact that troops on the street looks like a a political play during an election by a prime minister desperate to deflect attention from long term failings, have to be raised.
Terrorism of the sort we have seen is always unjustified. But what we have to accept is that terrorism exists in riven societies. This does not justify it. But it does not mean we should not ask why societies are so riven that extremes attract and violence is embraced by a few. It may be uncomfortable to do so, but that does not mean it should not be done.
And let's not pretend we are not a divided a society. Divisions of income, wealth and opportunity resukt in real differences in health, life chances and perceptions of justice. This, I stress, is true in all communities. Populist politics has already taught us that alienation is one if the strongest themes in UK politics now. Cultural alienation will add to that for some, right across society. A few, wholly inappropriately, turn to violence as a result.
I do not believe that the division that leads to riven societies is necessary. But that requires that society is recognised. It requires that a commitment be made to it. This demands that there be common wealth. And the expectation must be that this wealth be used for mutual good.
I think Jon Snow was saying that this action for the common good was absent when police were cut. Austerity, he implied, was an attack on our collective wellbeing that had consequences for our protection, but also for our identity. Austerity was very obviously not about all being in this together. And as a result when a real need has arisen we simply don't have the police we need to face the challenge, Troops on the street are by this criteria a measure of failure for all to see.
And they are only one such measure. The same stress that the police are under is also seen in education, the justice system, in community work which councils simply cannot afford, and amongst people left feeling at risk because of their own inability to cope. There is alienation everywhere. You do not need to divide suppliers and users of services; bith are suffering and it takes a special form of blindness not to note.
I am well aware that I will be unpopular for making such associations. But let's not pretend that alienation isn't an issue. It is. And if we aimed for a society where alienation was itself the enemy and a politics where the rhetoric of division was not commonplace - as it has been in recent years - then tensions would be diffused, our capacity to cope would be much enhanced and the risk of the perverted thinking that leads to terrorism much reduced.
I repeat, nothing justifies terrorism. But let's not say that politics - our politics - has nothing to do with it either. Defeating terrorism requires a commitment to peace that requires care for each other that has been all too absent from our political discourse for too long. It is appropriate to ask how that can be delivered. And that is a political question. Let's not pretend otherwise.
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You are in this case very right and if you feel you may be unpopular with others then they do not understand the situation and what you are saying.
well done
Rod
Thanks
@ Richard
The Historian Mark Curtis has written a good article about the choices that governments have made in relation to their foreign policy
http://markcurtis.info/2017/05/24/the-british-establishment-is-putting-our-lives-at-risk-our-states-key-ally-is-a-major-public-threat/
David
Thanks! Have put link to article on my Twitter account.
I’ve long been aware of the danger posed by Wahaabi Salafism – lost a former student in the Nairobi bombing – but the sect was already known to me as I’d been warned about it by some of my Ismaili friends. One of them told me that the adherents of this sect ‘trample the compassion and mercy of Allah into the dust.’
She was correct!
Peace and love
Jeni
David, after reading the excellent, and chilling, article of Mark Curtis’s, which you posted – for which my thanks – I find myself posing the same question as I posed to Richard, as to which of May and Corbyn shows more understanding of the problem, and more realistic willingness to address it, to reach the end point Mark Curtis asks for?
Jon Snow did the country a favour last night – even when he put the same charge to Diane Abbott. However Abbott can at least say that Blair was involved in cuts to policing under New Labour at the same time as he supported intervention into Iraq.
How stupid was that decision to follow Bush into Iraq? And then make cuts to policing? It’s as though Blair was making war in the 1940’s – not the age of the internet.
Ordinary people continue to suffer at the hands of radicalised members of the community as a result of some badly thought out policies by politicians. Here I have to agree with some of what Morrissey said the other day.
The biggest disappointment of the interviews for me though was Sir Brian Paddick – the ex-cop now with the Lib-Dems who rolled out the old lie that the Con-Dem coalition had to make cuts because the nations’ finances were in a mess. Paddick also tried to rubbish the figures that Snow was using.
I used to admire and respect Paddick. Not any more. He’s just another badly informed politician who uses his status as a platform to reinforce misinformation in my view.
From the Manchester Evening News (2015):
‘An award-winning Manchester-based policeman has blasted the government after revealing Tory cuts forced him to leave his job.
Inspector Damian O’Reilly – dubbed ‘Mr Gorton’ – was named Britain’s community policeman of the year in 2010, but says he quit his dream role after he could no longer stomach the government’s changes.
He hit out at the Home Secretary face-to-face in front of a huge audience at the Police Federation’s annual conference in Bournemouth.
In 2012, he warned swingeing cuts to Greater Manchester Police’s funding were ‘cutting away at the muscle’ of the force and said savings were leaving officers feeling ‘undervalued’.
He quit his community job to take up a role as an inspector at Manchester Airport.
Insp O’Reilly told Theresa May: “I worked in inner-city Manchester for 15 years. I felt passionate about what I was doing.
“In 2012 I had to leave. I couldn’t take it any more because the changes that have been imposed have caused community policing to collapse.’
How sad that austerity madness cannot allow people to feel passionate about their job!
Yet this sums up what so many have suffered whether in the NHS and in Education that the desire to do a job well, to love it and to put your heart into it (and in the cas of the Police, risk your life for the community in some cases) is stymied by Fake Economics!
let’s hope Labour can still get this across and that May hasn’t gained from the pause in the exposing of her vacuity.
If we seek to maintain a just society, it isn’t just the underfunding of the police we need to be considering, it’s the underfunding of the courts too https://sirhenrybrooke.me/2017/05/24/the-miserable-state-of-criminal-justice/
Agreed
And the devastation of offender care management by Grayling. Probation is in chaos by ill-informed continuous cost reduction reforms.
A simple question – a test, if you like – of Corbyn and May, which more fully embodies, in their statements and policies, the approach that you have rightly asked for, Richard?
PS: on an entirely different point, I’m amazed to hear Paddick’s inane comments on the need for austerity. It beggars belief that, after all the evidence of the last 7 years, he can still trot out such counterfactual tosh. He’s obviously caught the “airhead Nick Clegg” infection.
Paddock shot his credibility for good
And the answer is Corbyn in the mould of what Robin Cook wanted to be
Once again well said Richard. I think it was Tony Benn who said “the best way to defeat terrorism is to stop practicing it”
One of my old school friends was in Iraq in the 50’s on his National Service. He said it was a hell hole and nobody disagreed. At the time my tutor was an authority on the history of the Middle East. We are still suffering from The Curse Of Lloyd George who in the 1919 Treaty of Versailles landed us with the Mandates in the Middle East in the cause of Empire. Was it Winston Churchill later who sent in the bombers to Mesopotamia, as Iraq then was, to scare the tribesmen off?
Churchill also got paid the equivalent of £250,000 by oil lobbyists in the 1920’s.
Plus ca change…
“As a Quaker”
A fine body, the Quakers. They stand for peace and eschew vainglorious titles as being divisive.
I read that they don’t even use Mr or Mrs but address each other by their names only.
This does sound very humble and is to be applauded
There will be a troll comment to follow that
There always is
Do you go somewhere to learn this stuff?
“Defeating terrorism requires a commitment to peace”
Given that the stated aim of ISIS is the creation of an Islamic Caliphate and the imposition of Sharia law which in their view includes the righteous killing of non-Muslims and throwing gay Muslims off of tall buildings, where would you say that our common ground was to work towards this peace?
Or are you just spouting words with never the intention of ever being anywhere near a position of having to actually act on them?
I would have thought that my intentions are obvious
And what I make clear is that, first, I accept the need for defence and, second, that violence is no answer
Do you think it might?
Richard, I do think that violence in the form of specific military action will probably have to be part of the answer. I don’t see that dialogue, political initiatives or peaceful overtures by themselves can possibly rid us of this irrational death cult, who hate everything about western liberal democracy and want to destroy it. Plainly there is much we need to do at home and abroad, but ultimately we are engaged in a struggle against an enemy that wants us either dead, or subjected to control under a caliphate.
I have said I can see reason for defensive action as a last resort
My desire is to prevent this scenario of alienation being repeated
I listened to a young man being interviewed on Radio 4 yesterday (about 17.30). He was of Libyan descent and knew the bomber. What he said was that it is British foreign policy which fuels these young people’s hatred, fed to them of course by their older mentors. He also mentioned the Prevent strategy as being totally negative in its effect on young muslims.
Let’s turn the situation round and promote the words of Jeremy Corbyn in February 2003: “[The invasion of Iraq] will set off a spiral of conflict, of hate, of misery, of desperation that will fuel the wars, the conflict, the terrorism, the depression and the misery of future generations.”
Would having more police on the street really have prevented the attack?
And what is the empirical evidence that links number of police officers to levels of crime? Are there any? Crime has been falling for at least 10 years in the UK and this is despite a fall in numbers of police.
Most police work J’s not in the street
I was not suggesting that
That assumes that the crime figures collected are a) accurate and b) record all crime. My understanding, for example, is that internet crime is only just now starting to be counted. “Small” fruad has been ignored by banks and the police for some time.
It was recently suggested that viewing “moderate” child pornography should not be prosecuted because there wass not the resource available in police and courts to deal with it.
Policing has to change to reflect the world we currently live in, but community police on the beat can develop relationships within a community that means people feel comfortable talking about their concerns.
If the number of armed police had not been cut then I very much doubt we would have the army being deployed- which is a completely unacceptable response and is hardly “carrying on as normal”.
Also worth noting that hate crime is on the increase (towards minorities and disabled)) and this is definitely an are where community trust and police presence can be of great use when handled well.
Thank you. I think you’re absolutely right. I wish I knew how we could get to the sort of caring society that you (and I, and many others) aspire to from where we are now. Instead of recognising the unity and equality of all humanity, and treating every individual with dignity and respect, many politicians in many countries seem intent on promoting division, distrust, fear, and hatred. (Oh yes, and trashing the only planet we have in the process.)
Thank you Richard, I have just posted a (much shorter and less detailed) piece on this topic after spending two days feeling gagged by the huge lobby against connecting this horror with Political ‘ends’, then I realised of course it is! (But I felt similar trepidation with putting the post out.) Thanks for your articles and analysis, I admire your general impartiality in writing and your knowledge of economics which are an important addition to political debate. All the best. Jonathan
Thanks
What do you mean ‘defence’?
Our enemy is a vile and truly frightening ideology. I am a little amazed you can attempt a meaningful discussion of this topic without even mentioning it.
These views are held by a percentage of the 1.5b Muslims across the world. Nobody truly knows that percentage. If that percentage is just 1% (and some estimates put it as high as 25%), then that’s 15m people — equivalent of about the entire population of the Netherlands.
And this percentage are not easily identifiable by physical appearance from the percentage that doesn’t hold these views.
And holders of these views are not in just one country, as Nazism was. They are found across the world, including here. They live amongst us.
I assume you don’t mean traditional military defence (i.e. our army that fights another country’s army). This is surely fairly useless.
What defence are you advocating against this ideology?
They’re targeting kids now — a big game changer. I can take risks for myself. How can you put your kids at risk?
Haven’t you noticed I am suggesting substantially enhanced police resources and am criticising those who took them away?
I also suggest you have massively overstated the scale of the threat
“I also suggest you have massively overstated the scale of the threat”
That’s my point. I can assess that risk for myself. But how do you make the decision for a child who is reliant on your judgement? It would be the child who suffers the consequence if you get it wrong. Do our teenagers all stop going to concerts now?
We don’t know how big the threat really is. And anyway, when does the threat become intolerable? If there are 50 such individuals in the country? 20? These are tiny numbers who could cause damage – not just death, but the delays from heavy security everywhere we go.
Are you happy having long queues outside shopping malls, sport and concert venues, airports etc while we all go through security. Our lives would be the poorer.
Intelligence does not create queues
They are targets
“I also suggest you have massively overstated the scale of the threat”
22 dead.
59 injured.
How big a threat would you want it to be before you took it seriously?
I deeply regret every death. Don’t het me wrong.
But there are many other causes of unnecessary deaths in the UK that we ignore.
Why? Do they not matter?
This Long Read from the Graun is worth taking some time for.
Who are the new jihadis? by Olivier Roy
Biographies of ‘homegrown’ European terrorists show they are violent nihilists who adopt Islam, rather than religious fundamentalists who turn to violence
I found Douglas Murrays book ” The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam ” a very good read
I found BBC Ulster’s Talkback with Douglas Murray and Lilly Kerr taking him to task a very good listen.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0521j9j
Meanwhile on the other side of the pond Trump and the Pentagon stealthily increase troop numbers in Syria and Iraq while relaunching the war on the Taliban in Afghanistan. Yes, really. So 100,000 troops couldn’t bring the Taliban into negotations the last time around but now, Trump/the US will try the same all over again.
Worth also noting that the film ‘The War Machine’ that’ll be released on Netflix on Friday – which is based on the excellent 2012 book ‘The Operators’ by Michael Hastings (now sadly deceased) – also explores the politics of the Afghan War and terrorism in terms similar to your blog, Richard, though I understand the film’s a bit too keen on the military dimension.
I may take a look
I think Corbyn will be speaking today on this issue of the madness of foreign ‘policy’, regime change and all sorts of geo-political meddling.
Corbyn has been, rather mockingly, called ‘Mr. Zen’, the implication being that he is out of touch with ‘reality.’ But it is becoming clearer to many that his quiet and humble determination to question the crass and disastrous actions of our geo-politics might be striking a chord.
Trump has turned out to be another dupe of the Military Industrial Complex.
Terrorists are created by elites that want control over others at any cost.
We as a society should recognise and impose restrictions on these elites,
This is known as democracy.
America has lost control over the Tax system, Banks, Secret service, and the Military.
Britain has lost control over the Tax system,,Banks and follows the American military.
To be respected in the world and achieve peace the elites must restore this balance
There is so much wrong with your logic is is hard to know where to start
So I won’t
From hypothesis to analysis to comparison you are way out
There are elites
But your suggestions as to their behaviour is wrong