This past fortnight has seen unrest of sorts in two different parts of the country, and with two contrasting demographic profiles. Piddington, a small village in Lib Dem Land in Oxfordshire, this week voted to secede from the United Kingdom in protest at plans to place more than 1,200 male migrants nearby. This symbolic referendum, and a campaign organised by the village’s women to emphasise the safety risks they face, contrasts with the more direct approach taken in Dover and Portsmouth, in this case featuring hundreds of men in black masks.
It’s the perfect time to speak to Louise Perry for one of our occasional bad news Britain podcasts (paid subscribers can listen to the episode below the paywall). Last year Louise interviewed academic David Betz, a professor of war studies who warned of future civil conflict in Britain akin to the Troubles of Northern Ireland. I’m sceptical that things will get that bad, or at least my view of the future is generally ‘the same, but a little worse’, as Michel Houellebecq said of life after lockdown, but there is certainly widespread public anxiety about political violence in the future.
