Burn It All Down – Britain, 1982-84

[James G]

The burning of the NatWest Tower, and the failed effort to do the same at the Post Office Tower, are nothing to do with the People’s Front. Their protest on July 28th continues without one of the feeder marches making it, lowering the numbers of participants overall, yet still very well attended. Waiting another two weeks to have another one – they cannot get permission for more regular events – isn’t good enough for the SWP-dominated steering committee though. They fear losing momentum. The People’s March For Jobs held smaller events outside London and so the People’s Front copy that approach. The London ones will remain the biggest yet this gives the opportunity to keep the movement in the public eye and also make it a geographic spread so it feels more national. Protests are organised for Birmingham, Bristol and Sheffield to take place on Saturdays and Sundays. These are exclusive People’s Front organised events but others are planned too as the movement expands. Militant contrive to arrange for a protest up in Liverpool and say they will go it alone if the People’s Front doesn’t participate: Militant gets its way. Alan Thornett’s Workers’ Socialist League – a small Trotskyist group in Oxford – is affiliated to the People’s Front and there will be an event in that city. In Glasgow, the Marxist Matt Lygate, not that long ago released from prison for armed robbery to fund a small Marxist group there, puts together enough support for a protest in Scotland’s largest city with the People’s Front backing the Workers Party of Scotland in arranging that. CND are also involved and they plan for another protest at RAF Greenham Common as well as one in Suffolk near to RAF Lakenheath where US Air Force aircraft fly from with – reportedly – their own nuclear bombs.

This expansion of the reach of the People’s Front happens fast and often with confusion. The movement is rapidly moving beyond the direct control of SWP figures such as Tony Cliff and Chris Harman. Livingstone’s input is significant, so too is that of Wall as well. Groups such as CND as well as those ones of Thornett & Lygate have affiliated to the People’s Front. So have the Communist Party, the New Communist Party and Socialist Action too: all small groups enjoying a surge in support in recent years post-Falklands. Cliff and Harman have kept others out though: Class War, the Revolutionary Communist Party and the Gerry Healy’s WRP are not welcome. Affiliations, especially those from the CND, bring in money to organise and also dedicated protesters to motivate others. Stopping some of the others though is important because they are considered a threat to the movement. It is feared within the SWP, and thus the People’s Front leadership, that the WRP might have been behind those arson attacks. They also bring unwanted violence. The Revolutionary Communist Party are regarded as either a MI-5 sting operation… or just completely crazy. As to Class War, they justify this prevention at joining by its actions at the beginning of August where a small band, led by Ian Bone, travel to the affluent Henley-on-Thames and go attention seeking. On a Bash The Rich protest march, they parade with banners stating ‘Meet your future executioners’. Coverage in the newspapers and on the television news links Class War to the People’s Front regardless of the SWP keeping them out.

Actions such as that one and then what it seen with street violence up in Glasgow when Lygate’s mob is given too much freedom to operate bring with it more and more negative press. The SWP do not normally worry about such things – they are used to it – but they realise how damaging this all it for their movement. The People’s Front is looking like the biggest success that they have ever had: it is more popular than their various anti-racist fronts in the past. Angry youngsters, the disadvantaged and minorities are showing up at their events in huge numbers but so too are ordinary people en masse. They tell themselves that the pressure is really on Labour MPs to force the government to abide by their promises. Note is also taken of statements made by senior trade union figures. These people control the Labour Party – cash and block voting at conference – and they are worried that Foot’s government has lost the public by refusing to follow manifesto commitments. If they are worried, the People’s Front really is something and they don’t want to waste what they have.

Scuffles in Glasgow on August 5th are followed by real violent scenes in London on the 11th. The People’s Front has brought out protesters to gather in London’s Hyde Park again. Event stewards are present and keynote speakers are centre stage. The familiar theme of calling upon the government to listen to them is what this is all about. Trouble erupts on the outskirts though when, unannounced, groups of skinheads enter the open space from the Marble Arch area. The police present don’t react in time and hundreds of them, some carrying weapons such as clubs & knuckledusters, start fighting with anyone in their way. The National Front have been long planning to do this. Their argument is with ‘communists’ but there are many ethnic minorities in the crowd too. Also here though are many young Worker’s Revolutionary Party members. The WRP may be official banned from People’s Front events, but Livingstone had made sure than such restrictions are only on paper: these are his allies who are also willing to fight fascists. There have been warnings before that the NF – along with the new British National Party too – are keen on disrupting People’s Front protests under the guise of attacking communists and here they are to do just that. A lot of people are hurt and there are some crazy scenes of chaos recorded by the media. The newspapers in the following days will tell a story blaming both sides much to the fury of the People’s Front. The Birmingham march a week later sees another attempt by the NF to show up to attack the People’s Front. West Midlands Police are on alert for them and handle things far better than the Met. did.

Spokesmen from the People’s Front as well as other public figures on the left apportion blame for the violence which has come towards GB84. This organisation is something that no one has yet to prove is real. Its purported aims, according to those who say it does exist, is to discredit the People’s Front movement and then, ultimately, bring down Foot’s government so that the Conservatives can retake power. Wall is at the Birmingham event when the NF showed up and is hit by a thrown glass bottle causing him injuries which he proudly shows to a BBC news crew & photographers from The Morning Star too. This is the beginning of a capitalist coup, he declares: the NF is just being used by them as proxies while there are other things going on behind the scenes starting with ‘the establishment’ burning the NatWest Tower in a false flag operation. Days later, Lygate is arrested in Scotland. He’s been planning to have another march in Glasgow under the People’s Front banner despite the intentions of him and his core supporters not being fully aligned with those of the wider movement. Special Branch officers detain him on anti-terror charges. They have others in custody from the Workers Party of Scotland who had bomb-making material with them when a flat in Gorbals was raided. Lygate’s solicitor claims he is innocent and this is another frame-up where the ‘unaccountable organs of the state’ are at work.

The police presence at Birmingham is criticised despite its role in stopping a mass outbreak of violence there as seen in London. Likewise, when there are large numbers of policemen monitoring the CND protest in Berkshire when they go back to Greenham Common and Militant have their People’s Front backed march in Liverpool. Negative remarks are made about the police being nearby ready to ‘riot themselves once again’. On Saturday 25th, the People’s Front have one of their fortnightly events in the capital where there are several feeder marches starting from various parts of London leading to another big gathering in Parliament Square. Home Secretary Hattersley has discussed policing for the event with the Met. Commissioner. Trouble from neither the NF or any WRP thugs will be tolerated but the Special Patrol Group nor dedicated riot police will be deployed unless the situation gets really out of hand. There is some trouble with regard to the march coming up from Lambeth in South London though this seems to be the works of low-level criminal elements where gangs of youngsters infiltrate the mass numbers of people to commit street robberies and steal from shops. Skinheads don’t show up and far left troublemakers keep their heads down. It is hoped that maybe at following events in London and elsewhere – the People’s Front has many more planned – there will be no further violence seen.


Foot spends the summer either at Chequers or back in his South Wales constituency. The Prime Minister has his leg in a cast and makes use of his wheelchair. An infection to do with that fall he took towards the end of July sees him take another trip back to the hospital in something unannounced by Downing Street but leaked to The Sun. Healey denies that he has been the ‘acting Prime Minister’ when asked and assures the media that the health of Foot is good. While physically not in a great shape, Foot still has his wits about him. He knows all about the People’s Front and while dismissive of their leadership, believes that the vast majority of those out protesting are being duped. The reason why his government cannot do all that was promised during the election isn’t about a lack of will or establishment conspiracies to curtail democracy. Instead, it is all down to Parliamentary numbers! He has much in common with the wishes of so many people out on the streets though and does want to see many of the demands which they are marching for met. It is just impossible to do at the current time… though he is making the effort to do what he can. Benn comes to see him for talks and he has long telephone calls with both Jenkins & Steel too. The leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party pays a visit in mid-August to Chequers. With three seats in the Commons, the SNP aren’t a powerful force but are nothing to be scoffed at: those trio of seats could be very important in any close vote should Liberal or SDP rebels refuse to follow their whip. Gordon Wilson and the Prime Minister talk about Scottish Devolution. What happened back in 1979 is brought up with the SNP wanting another opportunity for Scots to have a referendum on devolution including a Scottish Parliament with real legislative powers. This wasn’t something in the Labour manifesto and Foot is aware that many of his MPs, the Scottish ones especially, will not want to see anything like that. He cannot give Wilson any more than a promise to take soundings among Labour MPs to see what they are willing to back; this is nowhere near enough for Wilson to be able to make a promise to support the government if needed as a quid pro quo. Each man comes away empty handed despite a good personal exchange.

With the two Alliance parties, there is a summer of discontent among the ranks of MPs in each. Back in May when the Liberals signed up to support Foot’s Labour, they did so for two reasons. One was to get Tebbit out of Downing Street while the second reason was because talks between Smith and Healey brought forth the agreement for there to be a government review of how ‘fairer’ the election system could be. Proportional representation is what the Liberals wanted and while they know it will be hard to get, they want the process to start. MPs such as Clement Freud, Simon Hughes & Michael Meadowcroft demand that Steel makes sure that this gets going starting in September. They’d been led to believe that it would have already begun and, instead, they are hearing that Labour MPs are trying to kill off such a thing with the knowledge that in the long run it will do their party no good. Chief Whip Alan Beith and the senior MP David Penhaligon each tell Steel and Smith that the mood among the party outside Parliament is also for there to be no delay on this. Steel relays back to his MPs that he will be applying the pressure on the government as he heads off unrest in the ranks here. It is only a temporary fix though: he knows that Labour will be slow to get moving and his MPs want something concrete for their support keeping Labour in office. Smith is certain that that will never happen too and remains convinced that there is another election coming up when everything is sure to fall apart. He begins to wonder if this issue will see Steel ultimately gone and maybe his time for the leadership is now on the horizon… Two MPs from the SDP who hold Scottish seats, Charles Kennedy and Robert Maclennan, approach Owen in light of a leak that comes about Foot meeting with the SNP to talk about another devolution vote. Like so many in Labour who hold seats north of the border, they see the prospect of any sort of Scottish Parliament – even a weak one – as a threat to them in the long run as well as the United Kingdom as a whole. The SNP sits on the Opposition benches in the Commons while they in the SDP keep Labour in power: Foot meeting with the SNP in secret angers them. Owen is more than pleased to feed their discontent and reports back to them after he talks with Jenkins. Their party leader is unconcerned about Foot’s double-dealing. Two further MPs fall into the Owen camp as he prepares for what is sure to be an upcoming need to make a formal challenge to Jenkins’ leadership of the SDP.

MPs from these two parties, in addition to Conservatives, all look at what is going on with the People’s Front and their marches which lead to violence. Questions are asked about the government’s ability to ensure law-and-order and there is criticism of the role which several Labour MPs – Militant-backed ones – have with all of this. It all looks very un-British. Not just them, but there are Labour MPs who don’t like it either. Benn from the left criticises the SWP trying to subvert democracy while Robert Kilroy-Silk, a right-leaning figure within Labour, clashes with his fellow MP the radical Jeremy Corbyn where it almost comes to fisticuffs between them. Another Labour left-winger who, like Benn doesn’t support the People’s Front yet doesn’t necessarily believe they are any sort of threat, is Michael Meacher. In an interview with The Daily Mirror, Meacher somewhat echoes comments made the month before from Enoch Powell about plots from the Americans interfering in Britain. Powell was talking about Ulster while Meacher says now that the Reagan Administration in Washington is enraged at the idea of ‘British Withdrawal’ from NATO and so has agent provocateurs directing street protests to de-stabilise Britain before backing a military take-over in the UK, supported by their own forces if needed. Similar ideas have been said before, back before the election with a rumoured ‘Operation Crown Jewels’ (the name is unlikely!) supposedly certain to take place if Labour was elected.

Meanwhile, MI-5 achieves a breakthrough in uncovering those behind some of the recent domestic terror acts. The two men caught trying to set the Post Office Tower alight are identified as belonging to that Red Action group which is known to be working in cohorts with the INLA from Northern Ireland. They’ve gone old school with a programme of ‘propaganda of the deed’ by making public statements such as arson of iconic targets. Special Branch conducts armed raids on several locations in London and the Midlands and nab a few people as well as a haul of weapons. Homemade explosives are the most worrying find yet MI-5 find too many guns. These have been stolen from those who legally own them during organised rural robberies. It is clear though that they have only nibbled at the fringes of all of this though. These terrorists are active in cells without any contact with each other. They are others out there with weapons and sure to be making plans. In addition, in a separate line of enquiry supported by an informer, the Column 88 group on the far right gets MI-5’s more attention when it is clear that they are splitting into cells as well while stocking up on arms. None of this is good news that Director General Jones has to deliver to Hattersley. The Home Secretary wants more done to crush such people when told but MI-5 is being overwhelmed in trying to keep tabs on all of these groups out there seemingly set on acts of political violence. Years of growth by those on the far left and the far right has taken place and now in the summer of 1984 they are a real threat to national security.

[James G]

On the night of August 27th, the constituency home of the Conservative MP Julian Amery near Brighton goes up in flames. He, his wife & children are absent from there as it burns down in a petrol-driven fire. Sussex Police investigate the arson though cannot pinpoint any suspects to go after. Amery, a well-known figure on the right, gave an interview to The Sunday Telegraph the day before with scathing criticism of the People’s Front coming from him. His remarks about the characters of organisers and the motivations of participants were rather inflammatory. This isn’t the first time he, and other prominent Conservative MPs too, have done so but no one saw a reaction like this coming. His house is burnt to the ground. The attack on his home looks as if it is an act of political violence to the police and also MI-5 too when Sussex Police’s chief constable contacts them for assistance. Who did it and for what goal are the questions asked with answers to those not yet forthcoming.

In what is regarded as not directly related to that arson attack, yet once again surely an act of political violence, Peter Tatchell is murdered the very next evening.

Australian-born, Tatchell is a major public figure on the left with a strong interest in gay and minority rights. He ran in that by-election in Bermondsey which Labour lost last year where he gained the national profile he now has: it was a campaign marred by gutter politics and controversy. Shot twice in the back of the head on his doorstep in London, his killing is in no way any sort of criminal act. He’s been assassinated. By who though? The fire at Amery’s house makes the news but the Home Office makes a request for broadcasters and newspapers not to run the story of Tatchell’s death for the time being. The D-Notice is only advisory has no legal power to it. The Morning Star opts to ignore it because of what the editorial staff decide is the clear public interest. A picture of Tatchell speaking at the People’s Front protest a few days before is on their frontpage the morning after his death with the headline ‘Murdered By Fascists’. There is quite the shock among many nationwide that this would happen. Tatchell is a controversial figure and not widely-liked yet his killing causes outrage throughout the country. It is a cold-blooded murder that upsets people who usually wouldn’t give someone such as Tatchell pause for thought. Foot is told about it ahead of the news breaking. His negative remarks concerning Tatchell when he was running for Parliament brought much of that national attention upon Tatchell. The two of them have never met either. Still… this was a Labour politician. The act of political violence is condemned by Foot in a statement released by his spokesman once the D-Notice has been broken and now ignored by other media outlets. He finally says some nice things about the man.

Britain has seen political violence in the past and dealt with Irish Republican terrorism too. These two events are still quite the shock though. For them to be done points to the worrying situation that many regard the nation as currently being embroiled in. David Owen is interviewed by The Guardian in a piece which runs on the Thursday. Some allege that it is a leadership pitch, something which he later denies is the case at all. The number two man in the SDP talks about how Britain has got in this state that it is in where the polarisation of politics has allowed the extremes on both the left and the right to flourish. It all goes back to the defeat in the Falklands War, he says. A broken national will has led to this situation. What allows it to continue is the inability of the government to take a stand. The street protests which are happening are called by Owen to be one of the many undemocratic events taking place in this country. Just as Amery did, Owen tears into those at the top of the People’s Front. He also criticises the Home Office for ordering police forces to take a softly-softly approach when trouble has broken out at these protest marches were calls are made to defy the will of Parliament. As to violent groups, Owen says that they need to be tracked down with justice given to those who partake in this violence. That government is supported by his party’s votes in the Commons, Owen among them. He questions whether the SDP should continue to do so in the face of a weak government that does nothing to stop the ongoing madness that is being seen along with the loss of innocent life as well. The government isn’t up to the job and is also not being held properly accountable too.

That same day, a man walks into a South London police station and confesses to the killing of Tatchell. He says the gun used is at his house. Armed police officers go there (just in case there is someone else inside) with Met. detectives and find NF pamphlets as well as an array of Nazi memorabilia. There is no gun though. A questioned neighbour says that she believes the suspect in custody was home the night of that murder too. Interrogated, the man retracts his confession. It is realised that he is a fantasist – as well as a racist – and hasn’t done what he says he has. He’s wasted police time and distracted them from their important inquiry into this murder for whatever inane reason he has. There are no other leads though, not at this time anyway. Elsewhere, Merseyside Police today intercept a hidden cargo aboard a lorry coming out of the city’s docks. This is an intelligence-led operation to successfully stop the transit of explosives destined for the IRA which have just come in from overseas. Arrests are made in the aftermath though what exactly these explosives were going to be used for – to blow up what – isn’t yet known. So much for what MI-5’s head recently told the Home Secretary about them taking a step back from their war against the British state.


On the morning of Friday 31st, Foot leaves his constituency home and heads towards Chequers for the weekend there, making a trip he has done several times during the nearly four months of his premiership. He will be having more political meetings there. The assassination of Tatchell is to be discussed alongside the burning down of Amery’s house. The Prime Minister will meet with the Home Secretary and senior officials. He has plans to see Benn too with Foot aiming to see if there is way that the two of them can work together to neutralise the People’s Front and the anti-democratic feeling it represents.

Despite not at his physical best, his mind is as sharp as ever. He knows these are problems to be solved and he hopes to do his best with that. Yet, Foot doesn’t make it to Chequers.

[archibald]

The proverbial "be careful what you wish for"... ding dong, Thatcher is out, and not regreted...  truth be told however, this world is worse than our own...

[James G]

Aug 6, 2020 9:31:55 GMT archibald said:

The proverbial "be careful what you wish for"... ding dong, Thatcher is out, and not regreted...  truth be told however, this world is worse than our own...

The grass isn't always greener on the other side. Now, things are going to get really bad.

[James G]

Part Eight – Stop The Coup


Just after midday, the small motorcade coming from Wales and approaching Chequers is taken under fire. There are three cars and two motorbikes toward which hundreds of bullets fly in rapid succession. From a concealed position outside the official country retreat of the Prime Minister in the heart of rural Buckinghamshire, a heavy machine gun rakes fire down the column of vehicles halted by an abandoned car parked sideways across the road at a narrow point. Both police motorcyclists are struck and thrown from their bikes while the marked police car, the black Range Rover with specialist protection officers inside and the Government-issue Jaguar carrying Foot’s party are hit as well. The tripod-mounted M2 Browning is a British Army weapon, one stolen from storage several weeks ago with no knowledge yet that it is gone. Huge 12.7mm bullets – .50 Calibre ammunition –, armour-piercing rounds mixed with anti-personnel ones, do terrible damage to the vehicles and their occupants too. The gunfire goes on for just under a minute before the weapon jams: it hasn’t been well enough maintained. One of the two men operating the machine gun then gets into a kneeling position after picking up the second weapon he and his comrade have with them. This is also stolen from the military though it has been reported as missing with an MOD enquiry already underway. With a whoosh, the M72 rocket races towards the stricken motorcade. It strikes the Range Rover, not the Jaguar at which it was aimed, but there is still a satisfying explosion and resulting fire. The two men now go running. They discard those weapons and flee towards a waiting vehicle hidden a few hundred yards off. One of them trips and twists his ankle but his comrade pulls him onwards with fierce encouragement.

They have to get away from here!

The dead and injured are in the road. The main entrance to Chequers is just up ahead and people come from there to first see what is going on and then try to provide assistance. A passing motorist stops his own car and rushes forward to help with shouts of “I’m a doctor!”. The motorcyclists are both clearly dead and so too are most of those in the police vehicle: one young policewoman from the Thames Valley Police marked car is pulled out alive but she is bleeding terribly. A horribly burnt armed officer emerges weapon-drawn from the Range Rover alive too. As to the Jaguar, it has dozens of holes in it. There is armour-plating yet that hasn’t been effective against what it has been engaged with. The driver and protection officer from the Met. Police in the front are dead and so too is a political aide in the rear. Both Foot and his wife Jill are alive though: he is in a far worse shape than she is. The Prime Minister has been hit by a trio of bullets. His right arm is near sheared off while there are two holes in his belly – and two more in his lower back: exit wounds – from where he has been struck by those machine gun bullets. None of these are survivable injuries as they come with extreme blood loss and major internal damage. Ambulances are on their way, so too more policemen, but nothing can be done for the Prime Minister. He is already unconscious by the time he is removed from the car and dies beside the road a few minutes later. His wife and the two surviving police officers both go into ambulances when they arrive to take them to hospital but the burnt officer dies on the way there.

A blanket is placed over Foot. His time on earth, as a husband and father, a politician and Prime Minister, is over with.

Not too far away, Michael Banda is listening to chatter on police radios using an illegal device to overhear what is going on. Gerry Healy is leader the Worker’s Revolutionary Party but Banda commands its self-described militia. The WRP’s militia has spent years in readiness for doing something like this, striking a blow against the state. The party’s head has no knowledge of what is happening today though. He would never have approved this! This is all about Banda as he lights the spark of what he is sure is a revolution about to come about with Foot eliminated in such a fashion as this. There are only another five people in the know. Two of them are the gunmen, both young and still-serving Territorial Army soldiers secretly dedicated to the WRP cause. Another trio of youngsters, two men & a woman, who’ve been through Banda’s training camp in Derbyshire and also been to Libya this year with him as well, have been acting as spotters for this. They have tracked Foot’s convoy from his home to here in Buckinghamshire where it is spotted like it is on a regular routing and have used callboxes on the way to keep in touch. All of them are going off into hiding now while sworn to secrecy and with those keeping them out of sight – more devoted foot soldiers of the coming revolution – not knowing why they will shelter them but willing to do so regardless because Banda says so.

Banda has seen what Red Action has been doing and topped them! The SWP and their comedy show that is the People’s Front can go do one! He’s done what no one else would dare to and, driving away, tells himself that this will be the success he is sure it is.


In his secondary role as Foreign Secretary, Denis Healey is in Paris this evening for an official diplomatic event at the Quai d’Orsay with the French and other European allies. Urgently contacting the Deputy Prime Minister is Robert Armstrong calling from London. Armstrong is the government’s Cabinet Secretary though not a politician: this is a civil service post. Healey is told that Foot is dead. Healey is about to ask whether it is Foot’s health that has seen him lose his life – this has been something discussed beforehand for what consequences could come from that – but Armstrong interrupts him to say that it is an assassination. Whether it is the act of a foreign government or something terror related, he doesn’t know: all he can say is that the Deputy PM should return home without delay. I will do, Healey tells him. The French President is informed what is going on and François Mitterrand does all he can to help with that. A protected French motorcade rushes Healey to a military airport outside Paris where Healey’s RAF jet VIP transport arrived earlier in the day and has been waiting to fly him home tomorrow. Things have changed with that now. A flight takes Healey back to Britain and he lands at RAF Northolt to the west of London. He would usually travel by car to Whitehall afterwards. However, due to the intervention of Defence Secretary Silkin acting on military advice, there is a helicopter waiting for him there at Northolt and arrangements have been fast laid on so it can deposit him on Horse Guards Parade to the rear of Downing Street. It is late afternoon when Healey gets there and he is wished away from the Wessex helicopter upon touchdown while all around the area there are soldiers from the Irish Guards called out of Wellington Barracks to provide emergency security.

There is a brief Cabinet meeting – not everyone is here but no waiting around is done – and a trip over to Buckingham Palace where the stunned & visibly moved Queen asks him to take Foot’s role. She’s come down today from Balmoral upon being informed of what has happened and briefed by her officials, who are in contact with Armstrong at the Cabinet Office, that only Healey can form a government in her name. Then, the Prime Minister makes a statement to the nation at Eight. What happened earlier out in Buckinghamshire is something the country isn’t aware of until now. Prime Minister Healey (this is no Acting role as some might later assume it is) tells them that Foot has been murdered alongside police officers. A few details are given on that though not many. Reassurance is given to the nation. Britain isn’t under attack and this is appears to be a criminal act instead of an opening war strike. Those who’ve done this, Healey sternly says, will be hunted down and justice will be done. He promises to talk to the country again in the morning and before the short broadcast ends (it is on the BBC and ITN where they have cut into regular Friday night scheduling) he asks the country to pray for those killed and injured today in such an infamous act. Healey has meetings with MI-5 and military chiefs afterwards before finally going to sleep in the early hours. It isn’t in Downing Street where he rests his head but instead across in one of the ministerial flats in Admiralty House due to security concerns. There is a lot of worry in Whitehall that the shooting near Chequers might only be the first strike and so Healey is kept hidden while there are armed policemen nearby and soldiers on the streets.

While the new Prime Minister sleeps, and stunned Britons do as well, chief constables across the country are awake and receive emergency instructions coming from the Home Office. There are to be arrests made. Suspected Irish terrorists and domestic radicals are to be detained. There is a wider programme for wartime internment, which would require a longer lead time, but this is something else being done on a more limited scale to that. Up to a hundred people – rather than a couple of thousand if this was a Transition to War scenario – are to be arrested without charge starting at dawn and held for an undetermined period of detention. Off-duty officers across the country are called-in and get ready to move once it starts to get light and they do so on the Saturday morning.


The Cabinet voted for Healey to take the post of Prime Minister due to him being in the elected position of deputy leader of the Labour Party. That vote was unanimous and then the Queen formally requested that he formed a government. In the long-run, Healey will need a vote from his party to stay in-place yet he is where he is for now. Britain isn’t like America nor France with a line of succession to the role of head of government: the post is a political one to be held by whomever can command the majority of support to do so. Early on the Saturday morning, after taking a call from President Reagan and ahead of a conference call with senior Commonwealth heads of government, he meets with Merlyn Rees in Downing Street. The former Ulster Secretary and later Home Secretary in the last Labour government, he’s had a junior little role in the current Cabinet as Welsh Secretary but Healey appoints Rees as Foreign Secretary as he himself vacates that role. This isn’t done with Cabinet approval, something that isn’t needed. Healey cannot do the two jobs at once and doesn’t want to cause disruption with a big reshuffle at this testing time: he knows Rees has real government experience and can leave the Wales Office without much upheaval. This ruffles some feathers among other members when they hear about it though. The Foreign Office is one of the top posts and Rees has jumped the line. It is done though with Healey moving fast in an emergency situation like this. He speaks on the phone to Jenkins and Steel following the Commonwealth call. The leaders of the Liberals and the SDP agree that there is to be no change in their party’s support of the government. In addition, a call is also made to Tebbit as well. The Conservative leader offers his condolences and volunteers to help with whatever he can with him: Tebbit says he will put politics aside at a time of such national needs as this. Back to the country Healey speaks again, this time at midday. He doesn’t add much more to what was said the night before but this is done to reassure Britons that there is a stable government in-place and there is no need to worry. Healey thinks he’s done a good job with this and that the nation will respond well. The public will respect his calm demeanour, he tells himself, and his party’s MPs will understand too.

How wrong he is.

Thames Valley Police are responsible for policing in Buckinghamshire. They cover a wide area and are a large force. The Met. are tasked to assist them with the matter of the investigating the killing of the Prime Minister (and ten more people too; the others will be forgotten about by so many) and finding those responsible though. MI-5 are also involved with further support available if needed from other elements of Britain’s intelligence services too. Weapons and the hiding spot of the killers are located. Their egress route is revealed and a local who is spoken to tells of a vehicle which she can describe. With the trail hot, the police have something to work with. They are soon closing-in on where they believe at least one of the attackers to be hiding out. Outside of the town of Bicester – across in Oxfordshire and near to the American airbase at RAF Upper Heyford – there is a small house where the police follow their breadcrumbs to. The exact identity of those inside, including whom the killer of the Prime Minister might be, aren’t known but Thames Valley Police are certain that they are correct here in this being the hiding spot. Firearms officers from that force and also those from the Met. are ready to go in. Back in London, Healey talks with Hattersley and Silkin. The three of them agree that this is something that the armed forces should handle. The weapons used outside Chequers were military-grade and no one has any idea of what the civilian police might encounter. This might be the IRA or the INLA, it might be domestic radical terrorists or it might be something else entirely.

The SAS are called in with the necessary protocols followed so they can provide Military Aid to the Civil Power as per standing arrangements. An assault is made on the house late in the morning and there is gunfire directed at the soldiers who crash through the doors & windows. Shots are returned and three lives are lost, including that of the suspected assassin from yesterday. The SAS say they took out threats to protect themselves when the police and MI-5 complain they have no one to question. Of course, there is physical evidence to make use of but a live suspect in custody would be better. With everyone dead, this will not look good in the long run. Some will say that this is a cover-up with anyone who could talk silenced… The investigation carries on after this incident though more leads aren’t immediately forthcoming.

[redrobin65]

Very good story. That SAS mission will be fodder for conspiracy theorists for many years, I imagine.

[James G]

Aug 7, 2020 8:32:06 GMT redrobin65 said:

Very good story. That SAS mission will be fodder for conspiracy theorists for many years, I imagine.

Thank you.
Yep, it will be that indeed. A bit too fortunate that everyone is dead people will say!

[James G]

The People’s Front have two pre-arranged marches today which take place in Bristol and Sheffield. Neither of them are cancelled despite the events of the previous day. There is a far smaller semi-official one arranged by Welsh activists meant to occur in Cardiff but the organisers there believe their fellow citizens in the Principality would be angry should that go ahead. While not a Welshman, Foot was liked well in South Wales. Regardless of their feeling out there, the national steering committee stick to the People’s Front events for these two English cities. Cliff, Harman and Livingstone all oppose Healey succeeding Foot. He isn’t to their liking at all. They believe that Foot might have been brought around – he showed no sign of that – yet neither of them has any delusion about someone like Healey giving in unless he really has to.

The only way to change things is by action on the streets with masses of people protesting, not relying on someone’s supposed good nature.

Up in Sheffield, Pat Wall is one of the keynote speakers when several marches all combine right in the heart of the city around Peace Gardens and Hallam University. There are far too many people than there safety should be in this small space. Stewarding is inadequate and there are fears from some people of a crush is possible if something goes wrong. The number of participants anticipated was far too low yet even then, yesterday’s events have increased the turnout today. People from Sheffield, as well as from further afield, come out to Stop The Coup. Wall makes that chant and it is one picked up by the crowd of people. He has tapped right into the mood of those who have turned out today. They believe what he says when the Labour MP declares that the ‘capitalist class’ has ‘unleashed its killer goons’ to put an end to a ‘people’s government’. He urges then to resist this attempt to silence democracy and protect the values that they voted for: those values being the will of the people. South Yorkshire Police’s chief constable, Peter Wright, isn’t there in the middle of Sheffield but he is receiving reports from officers on the ground during speeches such as this and then other remarks from further speakers claiming that Foot has been killed. He worries that there could be rioting and severe public disorder in response. Riot police teams – who were also in Newbury last year like Met. Police officers were to ‘engage troublemakers’ at the bloody CND march – are on standby to go in. Wright waits for the situation to get out of hand. It doesn’t though. There is no violence and, luckily, there isn’t any injuries despite the large number of excited people in Sheffield today. The city has had a lucky escape.

Avon and Somerset Constabulary have called out special constables overnight and these reserve police officers are in Bristol today when the People’s Front have their protest here. The action was taken by the force’s chief constable following the news that the country’s elected leader had been killed and there were to be arrests made of suspected terrorists & radicals including a few in the constabulary’s operational area. There has been a worry that the march through the middle of the city could bring about trouble too so the thinking is that the more officers, the better. Tony Benn, one of the city’s MPs, is present when the march reaches Castle Park. He isn’t one of those speakers up on the improvised stage though as his negative feelings with regard to the People’s Front have been long made. He is here because he fears violence and seeks to stop it. That is a fool’s hope. The police are ready for trouble and are sent in, hard too, at the first sign of it. One of the speakers, a local activist with a penchant for the hyperbole, says similar things to what Wall is saying up Sheffield (that isn’t co-ordinated though) about Foot being murdered as part of an establishment ridding itself of opponents so they can return the country back to where it was under Thatcher and Tebbit. This invigorates a small sub-section of the crowd, mostly anarchists gathered together. One of them throws a plastic bottle towards the nearest line of policemen watching the gathering. Forward the first line of policemen go… soon followed by more. Riot police attack members of the protest with batons and shields. There are deliberate attacks made upon Black members of the crowd. Bristol is a city with a large Afro-Caribbean population and the scene of several riots in ethnically diverse portions of it in recent years. Assaulting Black Bristolians is what Avon and Somerset Constabulary have done before and it is what they do again today. Someone else in the crowd launches a firework towards the police with the aim of forcing them back in fright. The opposite occurs. They come forward in even more numbers, parting the mass gathering of people. A young woman is accidently pushed by fellow protesters into the River Avon (its banks are against the park) as people flee in terror though she will be rescued by someone else who has turned out today to support the demands of the People’s Front and oppose too this coup underway in Britain. He gets her out of the water leading to a budding romance! As to Tony Benn, he leaves Castle Park as the gathering is broken up without achieving his aim of stopping the violence he corrected feared when radicals seek street action to challenge democracy.


Newspapers in Britain throughout Saturday and Sunday have back-to-back coverage of the assassination of Britain’s Prime Minister. Nothing like this has been seen before – who can really say they know anything about the killing of Spencer Perceval in 1812? – and the media reaction is to dominate coverage solely with this one issue. On the Sunday, there is coverage of the People’s Front’s marches though that is tied into the Foot story. Dramatic headlines and questioning editorials are ten a penny. Whereas Wall said in Sheffield that the establishment murdered Foot, it is said in print by other MPs that instead it appears that this was the work of extremists on the far left who started with the burning of the NatWest Tower, struck at Amery’s house and then have assassinated Foot. Nicholas Ridley is interviewed by The Sunday Mail and blames a group called Red Action: few people have heard of them but he says the intelligence services and the government have. Fellow right-wing Conservative MPs such as George Gardiner and Harvey Proctor, both who have spent months criticising the People’s March For Jobs / People’s Front, repeat this claim and state in remarks to other newspapers that such extremists aim to bring down the British state: Gardiner also suggests that there is ‘foreign influence’ in the campaign… and by that he means Moscow. A journalist from The Sun is ejected from Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Buckinghamshire when aiming to get pictures of Foot’s wife for Monday’s issue. Across the country, people fall into one of two camps on the views on the assassination of the Prime Minster: he was either killed by the left or the right.

Those police raids early on Saturday netted a wide range of terrorism suspects but several are released through Monday and into Tuesday. The net was cast too wide when orders for the detainment of extremists went out. Standing legislation for a potential wartime scenario wasn’t followed – instead it was an order-in-council – and the rush to do that has seen many ‘innocents’ held… if some of them could be called that. Others are still held though including many Irish Republican suspects despite it being clear that the murder of Foot wasn’t the work of the IRA, the INLA or any other offshoot. As to the others, the holding of political extremists comes with controversy. The Morning Star once more breaks a D-Notice on this and then Tony Banks, the Labour MP for Newham North West, speaks of it during a live radio interview with the BBC. Banks – whose remarks on this are cut during a re-broadcast of part of his interview later in the day – does so because one of his key constituency party staff is being held by the police. He won his seat at the election in May after the previous MP was de-selected by a local party heavily criticised as being overrun by Militant types but in his short time in Parliament, Banks himself has shown no sign of being a troublemaker. He’s angry at the enforced detainment of his staff member with no information available as to where he is being held and when he will be freed. This has happened to many people now where no one – family nor solicitors – is given any information. Fingers of blame and outrage are pointed at Healey and Hattersley for doing what is called an undemocratic act. Apart from the Northern Ireland related detainees, in the case of those who were arrested at the weekend, MI-5 -led and police-conducted interviews yield little real results. These people are being held to see if they can shed light on acts of recent politically-influenced violence, especially the murder of Foot and those with him on Friday. The new Prime Minister receives several briefings on this but isn’t given anything solid. A number of very nasty individuals are in custody. From them, there is no direct tie to that though. Healey wants to know who killed his predecessor and to make sure that there will be nothing like this again, but he isn’t given that reassurance. There is grave concern in him, and others too, that there is more to come.

On the Wednesday, there is trouble on the streets of Glasgow outside the building where Lygate appears before the High Court of Justiciary in Scotland’s largest city. Scots law differs from that in English & Wales not just in names for procedures & institutions, but terrorism is still terrorism in the eyes of the law north of the border. Associates of his were arrested in possession of bomb-making materials and Strathclyde Police’s Special Branch can link him to them and the property where that was found. This is an early stage hearing which Lygate is called to where his barrister speaks on his behalf. Supporters from the Workers Party of Scotland have gathered outside, some of them with People’s Front banners. There are placards being held by a few of them which are daubed with the tagline ‘Stop The Coup’. A policeman moves to arrest a protester he says spat at him. From this comes fisticuffs and the use of batons. Nine arrests are made and several ambulances attend the scene. Camera crews and photographers – tipped off beforehand that there is likely to be drama – capture images of the violence. It is made it by the media to be a bigger deal that it is and on ITN News that night, there is emphasis in the broadcast on the shouts made too again to Stop The Coup. In what angers the Prime Minister and several Labour Party officials, one of their MPs makes an inflammatory statement in the same broadcast. George Galloway, elected in Dunfermline East after beating to the punch a noted academic & journalist for the Labour candidacy, defends Lygate’s Marxist group and makes insinuations (not direct claims) that this is a police stich-up of an innocent man. The Whip’s Office will contact Galloway afterwards to admonish him but he isn’t deterred by this. He says he will continue to speak his mind and he also questions Healey’s assumption of the party leadership. Galloway isn’t the only one doing that.

As the deputy party leader, Healey has stepped into Foot’s shoes as he is entitled to as per Labour’s own rules. By extension, this has made him Prime Minister too because, despite Labour coming second in the recent general election, a Labour candidate such as Foot has the support of the Liberals and the SDP – plus Ulster’s SDLP if need be as well – to command a majority in the Commons. Neither Labour MPs, party members nor the trade unions with their powerful block votes put him in Downing Street. It was they who elected Foot to the leadership four years ago and who (twice) have voted for Healey to be his deputy. The party rules say that should the leader resign or die, then the deputy should take over… but on an acting basis pending a leadership election. So when is that election going to be then? It is something wanted by many. Cabinet members and party officials are saying that, of course, there will be one. A special conference will be arranged and the matter of the leadership will be put to a vote following the party’s electoral college system. It’ll take time though and, at the minute, Healey is where he is at this time where it is less than a few days ago that Foot has been murdered. For MPs aplenty, that isn’t good enough. They aren’t given the time frame they demand. There is anger about what Healey has done with all of those arrests made of ‘innocents’ joining the long list of grievances against him. Healey is focused on Foot’s upcoming funeral, which is scheduled for Friday, and also the ongoing worrying national security concern. Several of his MPs are already telling anyone who will listen that when it comes to it, they will vote for someone else in particular. There is already widespread party support for him among members and the unions have already shown some support too. In the opinion of many observers, who put those to the airwaves and in print, it could be possible that Healey’s time in Downing Street might not be that long and Britain could have it’s fourth Prime Minister of the year: Anthony Wedgewood Benn is who the smart money is on to be that new leader.

[James G]

There are a good few dozen political parties and press groups on the far left of British politics in 1984. None of them have had electoral success. If you want to get elected, it is best to do so through the Labour Party. That is why so many of them have, or tried to, affiliate to Labour. The plethora of organisations often have similar names with the outsider oft confused as to which stands for what and which the latest en vogue one this week after the latest round of internal feuds leading to splitting. To those within them, the distinction between them is of great importance though. They believe that theirs is the only legitimate movement. Of the many, affiliated to both Labour and recently the People’s Front too is the Socialist League. Their headquarters is an independent bookshop in Islington, that home of trendy politics. They are an organisation which value secrecy with open recruiting not done and a hiding of membership less Labour do what many within that behemoth of an electoral force have long been calling for and proscribe them. It has been put to Ken Livingstone this year by a journalist as to whether he is a member or not and he refused to either confirm nor deny his membership. A newspaper is put out by the Socialist League and it is Socialist Action which brings attention to this group among those on the political left. Regardless, it is still an obscure publication with its content being editorial-like opinion articles and letters rather than any news in the traditional sense. Last weekend, printed ahead of the Foot assassination yet released the day after that event, within the (few) pages of Socialist Action there was focus on the political future of schools in Britain under the current Labour government. The manifesto which that party was elected on pledged to abolish fee-paying independent schools including grammar & religious schools too in favour of wholescale state education. Like so much promised, this hasn’t been delivered on with no sign of that to come. Labour figures have said that it is impossible to attain the votes for it should the matter come before Parliament and they thus have the priority of getting passed in the Commons what they can. Several writers in Socialist Action criticised this with one of them taking aim that those holding this up outside of the government in the form of Roy Jenkins and Cyril Smith. The SDP leader and one of the Liberals loudest voices (Smith has no official spokesman role within his party) both went to grammar schools to benefit from what so many other Britons didn’t.

At the end of this particular piece, remarks are made about the personal characters of each man. Socialist Action alleges that in his younger days, Jenkins had homosexual affairs and this continued too even when he entered politics as he had a relationship with someone who rose high like he did in the government. With Smith, it is said that he continues to indulge in illicit sexual encounters with young men. From out of nowhere, with no discernible connection to the matter of schools, these allegations are made against two every well-known public figures. It’s a political attack made to damage each man.

Smith is informed about this and makes sure that his solicitor becomes involved. He’ll sue for libel against Socialist Action should it repeat these and do the same to anyone else too. There is discomfort higher up in his party because the memories of the Jeremy Thorpe scandal are still fresh and Smith’s sexual proclivities have been brought to the attention of the party leadership before. Steel has been told that Smith might have, at the very worst, ‘smacked a few bare bottoms of young lads’: he doesn’t know (neither is it said in that article) that he enjoys raping underage boys. It is hoped within the Liberal Party that this will go away. In comparison, Jenkins does nothing like what Smith does. He believes that no one will take notice. The SDP leader is wrong though. There are whispers among other politicians and journalists that this is true about him with that once fellow Cabinet minister who it is said he was involved with – now deceased though – named too. The current affairs focused satirical magazine Private Eye decides to run with this its next issue. The editorial decision is justified on the grounds that it will make good sales. Lawyers are consulted though and care is taken what Private Eye says here: coded language is to be used because they don’t have access to the same first-hand sources that Socialist Action do. Word comes to Jenkins late on the Thursday night that when that magazine runs the next day, what was said in the obscure Socialist Action will be repeated in the better-read Private Eye. He is a married man, a party leader and he believes he is someone whom the public respect. Jenkins tries to get the magazine to not print what they are going to without any success. He is at Foot’s funeral the next day and there are certain looks and whispers which he takes notice of. Later that night, he is told that The Daily Mirror is going all-out tomorrow with this story. They will not be as cautious as Private Eye has been. The whole world will know his secret.

He resigns his leadership of the Social Democratic Party late on September 7th. A short statement is put out by the party headquarters to this effect. No reason is given as to why this is the case though the nation will find out why the next morning when The Daily Mirror hits the newsstands. David Owen is the party’s deputy leader and assumes the leadership upon Jenkins’ resignation. He’s wanted to head the party for a long time and that has included running against Jenkins in a failed attempt two years ago. He never imagined gaining the leadership in such a manner as this though. Jenkins gave him little notice of his upcoming resignation though did tell Owen why he was going: others in the party’s higher echelons were told he was leaving ‘for personal reasons’. There has been pressure on some time for Jenkins to go though. This particular situation came out of the blue yet his eventual resignation has thought by many to be on the cards. Owen has been angling for the leadership and there has been much open dissent within the SDP since May when Jenkins ensure that MPs were whipped into putting Foot into Downing Street. The SDP is said by many to have gotten nothing from this. They were formed in opposition to Labour’s hard left! Now they’ve given them the reins of national power!

Mike Thomas was one of those Labour MPs who left that party to join the new SDP when it was formed in 1981. He was defeated in Newcastle East this year by Labour as it retook that seat like it did with the majority of those in the hands of defectors. Staying in the SDP, Thomas has turned on Jenkins with a fury and gained party influence. The well-known actor & comedian John Cleese is a public supporter of the SDP and the effective use of him as someone to help with voters is down to Thomas. Jenkins’ position hasn’t been directly threatened by Thomas’ internal party games but a lot of the groundwork has been laid to that, eventually, a challenger to Jenkins could have wide support. That challenger was meant to be Owen. He has been secretly preparing for a second attempt at the leadership before this issue with revelations about Jenkins’ private life has come from nowhere. Now Owen is where he has always wanted to be. He’s in charge of the SDP and he doesn’t want the party to continue to support Healey’s Labour. Many, many of his fellow MPs share that feeling that they shouldn’t be backing Labour.


At that funeral earlier today where both Jenkins and Owen attend, it is a who’s-who of the British political establishment. Foot is cremated in North London with a religious service which he might have personally objected to. There is extensive security considering how he died and the noted personalities at his funeral. Alongside the domestic political figures attending, many of them including former prime ministers, Vice President Bush is here representing the United States and on behalf of the Queen there is Prince Philip. In comments which will bring controversy afterwards, Wall will give an interview saying that the Monarch ‘couldn’t be bothered’ to attend the funeral of her Prime Minister… though he himself didn’t go when so many other Labour MPs did. The Queen rarely goes to funerals but officials from Buckingham Palace did consult with her other whether it was appropriate for her to attend. It was Healey who ultimately came down on the side of her not going with the Prime Minister agreeing with the standard principle on the Monarch’s non-attendance of funerals as being something to make sure that it doesn’t distract from grieving by family and friends. Wall just makes a cheap shot against the Royal Family with this. While his comments upset many who hear them, elsewhere in Britain there are people who do agree with his sentiment if not so much the tone. Why hasn’t the Queen gone to the funeral of Foot!?

Eric Heffer is another attendee. A noted left-winger, this junior minister in the government is a big beast within Labour. He arranges for Healey and Benn to talk during the wake, doing so in the vein of a peacemaker. He’s aiming to smooth over divisions within the party at Healey’s assumption of leadership and intends to stop it going further. There is success it seems. These two men speak amicably and Heffer toasts his own achievement. The thing is though is that he is barking up the wrong tree with this. It isn’t Benn causing problems within the party over what Healey has done in the past week. Benn hasn’t called for him to go either. It is others who support Benn causing trouble. Heffer’s actions have no effect upon the coming storm. There are MPs and party members who want Healey gone and they couldn’t care, even if they knew, about two colleagues sharing kind words about a departed friend. The ball is already rolling on that note. Tebbit and Owen are both at the funeral as well. The Conservative ex-PM and the SDP’s deputy leader (he takes power that night but cannot see the future) attend because, regardless of political affiliations, this is the funeral of the nation’s murdered leader. The two of them have a conversation too. It is a brief one out of sight of many people but significant in light of that later resignation of Jenkins.

Those remarks made by Wall are controversial but they don’t attract as much negative coverage in the media afterwards as the actions of the Worker’s Revolutionary Party do. Outside of the crematorium and behind the lines of police, the WPR ‘pickets’ the funeral of Foot. A small but loud group of activists shout the chant ‘Stop The Coup’ as loud as they can. Attendees to the funeral try to ignore them but press photographers take picture and camera crews record their actions. Again and again, they make this chant. When questioned by a journalist from The Guardian about their motivations, a dedicated spokesperson steps forward to put out an agreed upon message on behalf of the WRP in case the media couldn’t understand what is being vocalised. The WRP is here protesting against the ongoing coup d’état within Britain that has begun with the Foot assassination. The country is being taken over by those going against the democratic will of the workers & people and so the WRP is here to help stop that. None of those on the protest are ‘in the know’ about who really was responsible for the killings in Buckinghamshire last weekend though. Not at the protest, yet willing to speak to a Mirror journalist when questioned later tonight at a London showbiz event, is Vanessa Redgrave. The actress and her brother are well-known supporters of the WRP, especially willing to steadfastly back its leader Gerry Healy against all detractors. She defends the actions of the WRP earlier in the day and repeats the ‘Stop The Coup’ message herself.


Reaction to both Jenkins’ resignation and the funeral of Foot are widespread across the newspapers on Saturday. However, The Daily Telegraph leads with an interview with Tebbit. He calls for Parliament to be recalled in light of the murder of the nation’s prime minister and other terrorist actions. MPs are on their holidays with the Summer Recess not due to end for many more weeks and the Commons will then return near to the end of October (the 22nd). Bring MPs back now, Tebbit says, at this grave time. He goes onto pay his respects to Foot with remarks about his successor’s long and distinguished political career. There is an admittance that the two of them were far from friends, considerable political opponents it must be said, but Tebbit declares that the murder of Foot is a national tragedy. The country has gotten itself into a terrible state where to allow for the prime minister to be murdered like he has been. Parliament must be recalled.

The People’s Front have another protest arranged for today. This has been in the pipeline for several weeks but it is one that the government has tried this week to see cancelled. Hattersley at the Home Office has failed to do so though. Livingstone took charge of the legal defence against the attempt to see the gathering banned by making sure that the right strategy and people were employed in stopping the Home Office’s try at an injunction from going ahead. Protecting the public order was the government’s reasoning but, in the end, the High Court didn’t agree in a last-minute decision handed down late yesterday. Throughout the legal challenge, the People’s Front has ploughed ahead with preparations regardless of the arguments in court. It would have been difficult to stop everyone from turning out even if that decision had gone the other way. The gathering is made to the north of the heart of London, this time up on the open space of Hampstead Heath and Parliament Hill. Not having the protest marches going through the middle of the capital and here instead had been key to getting the right outcome in the legal battle. Transport links are reasonably good to get people to Hampstead Heath and Livingstone’s GLC has made arrangements with several councils to help facilitate the event. There are extra stewards laid on (again to help get those judges’ permission) and there is a ban on alcohol. It is meant to be a peaceful event without any violence.

Healey has, through the Whip’s Office, instructed Labour MPs not to attend the latest People’s Front event. Regardless of that demand, Pat Wall stands up to the microphone and makes a chant to the several hundred thousand people gathered on Hampstead Heath: “Stop The Coup!” He’s one of ten MPs from Labour in attendance in defiance of their party’s acting leader Diktat and excites the crowd with such a call. It is one echoed by them. This was done last week by him up in Sheffield in an impromptu fashion but today he knows exactly what he is doing and the people have heard this before. He shouts it and the crowd shout it back to him. He’s really got the mood of his audience. They lap this up just like he does. Other speakers say what leaflets and placards do when they likewise declare that the coup must be stopped. Britain is apparently on the verge of being taken over the a ‘hard right, racist dictatorship’. Only by turning out in opposition in huge numbers can this be stopped. Stop The Coup!

While officially not welcome, there are WRP activists at this People’s Front event. Near to a thousand are at Hampstead Heath and they stick together in large groups. They are here to defend the protesters from the police it is said. What they do instead is attack the police. Officers from the Met. Police have been deployed on public order duties. They aren’t here to stop the protest nor harass participants unnecessarily. In a deliberate fashion and with coordination, the groups of WRP volunteers throw projectiles first and then punches towards the police. Responses come and brawls begin. There are photographers and cameramen present when the attacks on the police start though much effort is made – not with the greatest of success though – by the WRP to make it look like ‘the innocent’ were attacked by an out-of-control police hellbent on stomping down hard on protesters defending democracy. Then come the gunshots. Just like what occurred back in April on Haymarket, a couple of shots ring out from unknown gunmen who cease fire with haste. Policemen are struck along with an innocent bystander this time too. Utter chaos erupts in response. Banda, who ordered this, isn’t here on Hampstead Heath as his devotees join him in trying to continue to start a revolution. He has already written the press release which goes out straight afterwards accusing the police of shooting protesters and hopes that they will work well with the media footage.

At the end of that press release, the WRP co-opt the People’s Front newest slogan of ‘Stop The Coup’ too.

Britain is seemingly gripped by violence. To some, things look they are completely out of control. That would be an exaggeration though. However, across the country, there are more people than are turning out at these protests who believe that a coup d’état is actually happening. The Foot assassination is widely regarded as the beginning of an undemocratic takeover of national power. Detractors claim that this is foolish and anyone who believes that is a deluded, paranoid idiot. The funny thing is that those who fear the worst are sort of correct… just not in the way that they fear. There doesn’t have to be tanks on the streets for a change in power to occur. This is Britain after all where nothing like that seen overseas has to happen here. Democracy of the parliamentary kind is dominant in Britain and through that a big change is coming.

[James G]

Part Nine – Riot


In rather unusual timing, late on Sunday a statement is released from Downing Street affirming that Parliament will be recalled from its Summer Recess. There has been two days of open speculation and behind-the-scenes drama as to whether this will take place with the Prime Minister initially rejecting what Tebbit called for. However, he’s found that so many of his own MPs, and then later Cabinet members too, believe that it is the right thing to do. Already leaked, Downing Street is only confirming what is unofficially known. The press are told that Parliament will reopen on September 17th: just over a week away. Yet, the very next morning, this date is changed. It will be this coming Thursday (the 13th) instead. The first date hasn’t gone down well and Healey has, once more, submitted to Cabinet will on this matter. It had been first said that many MPs will be on their holidays overseas and it will take a week for them to return. The vast majority aren’t though – the Foot assassination and the end of the school holidays has seen to that; plus the upcoming party conference season – so the date is changed under pressure. Healey has no idea that he has walked into a carefully laid trap by Tebbit on this.

The recall of Parliament is done so that MPs can discuss the ongoing national emergency regarding to domestic terrorism. For Healey to recall Parliament due to this has meant that he has had to admit that the situation has become one of a crisis. The Prime Minister hasn’t wanted to but the clamour from friends and foes alike has forced his hand. Assassinations, shootings and disorder have taken place. He is in Downing Street because his sitting predecessor has been killed. An unprecedented situation has developed and Parliamentarians want action. However, it isn’t the case that they all want to come back so they can get on with each other and agree: not at all! There are MPs who want to see stern measures brought in and stronger action taken to bring this unrest to an end. Others desire to see the opposite and believe that what has been done so far with those security measures brought in via orders-in-council without Parliamentary approval need to be if not ended then at least legitimised with Commons. Banning the People’s Front marches is on the agenda for so many Parliamentarians, especially after the death in hospital of a policeman shot in North London at the weekend; a small but vocal group of other MPs are determined to protect the right of protest in the face of that opposition. MPs are working on questions to ministers – to be honest, speeches for public consumption in a lot of cases – and already briefing press contacts. Hattersley is expected to come under fire but he believes he can defend the government’s actions. As Healey will do, the Home Secretary will ask for support across the Commons from all those who want to preserve parliamentary democracy from the forces of the unruly mob.

With regards to national security, there is a second raid on a rural house in the English countryside looking for the assassins of Foot. Late on the Monday night, SAS soldiers are once more deployed on the mission whereas last time all those in their way lost their lives. Bedfordshire Police officers stand back when the secretive commandos raid a small property in the village of Stevington to the north-west of the town of Bedford. A tip off has come that the second gunman can be found there and it has been judged by MI-5 to be of merit. The house is empty. The SAS find no one waiting for them with guns this time nor anyone else hiding when they tear the place apart looking for a concealed hidey hole. However, only minutes after the raid, a pair of Bedfordshire Police officers come across a young man seen stumbling from woodland about a mile away. He’s bleeding from a stab wound to the chest and in a frantic state. These officers are here to establish a cordon radio in what they have while moving to secure the man. A second man comes out of the trees behind the first with this one carrying a large knife. Using force, the knifeman is knocked down and handcuffed before he can use his weapon again. The victim is soon in an arriving ambulance and on the way to hospital. This is no coincidence. Those in the house in Stevington had fled ahead of the SAS raid and the police have encountered these two. Information phoned in anonymously to Bedfordshire Police’s anti-terrorism hotline had spoken of these two men in that house and given descriptions of them along with details on the role one of them played in killing the country’s prime minister ten days beforehand. These are the two with the wounded man being one of those operating that machine gun near to Chequers on August 31st. MI-5 and Special Branch will have a lot of physical evidence at the house but they also now have two live terrorism suspects to talk with. The matter of that woman who made the phone call is also something which they want to get to the bottom of too. After stalling, the investigation into the murder of Foot and those with him now has new steam.

This isn’t something that is going to be making the newspapers the next morning. Everything is hush-hush here with another D-Notice in effect with regards to the hunt for Foot’s killer. Another story, a political one, is about to make to make the biggest of all splashes and end with a riot.


Those following the chant made from Wall call what happens on September 11th the ‘Tuesday Coup’. Ridiculous hyperbole this is but they have been shouting Stop The Coup for more than a week and now they are faced with this. The Guardian leads with an exclusive story this morning stating that the new leader of the Social Democratic Party is intending to take his MPs out of its confidence-&-supply agreement with the government. Owen is said to be willing to support a possible Conservative government and leave the Healey-led Labour hanging in the wind. The Guardian has only off-the-record remarks to support this story but are certain enough of its accuracy to make it the lead story in today’s edition. Journalists from that newspapers join those from other publications, plus television camera crews, outside of Owen’s London home waiting for him to come out. He does so when on his way to the SDP’s offices but has no comment for the media. Elsewhere, comments are sought from further MPs within his party, the Liberals, the Conservatives and Labour. More success has had with these endeavours. The story has truth to it.

Along with party officials who aren’t MPs themselves, including ex-MPs such as Thomas and the party’s president Shirley Williams, Owen goes to the SDP headquarters in Cowley Street for a late morning meeting. The media are kept outside. There are questions asked over who tipped off The Guardian but no direct answers are forthcoming… everyone knows it was Thomas though. They are here at Owen’s request and he tells them that he intends for the SDP’s parliamentary representation to do just what is being said in print this morning. Healey’s government isn’t something that should any longer be supported with SDP votes to keep it in power and he wants to see support switched to ‘an alternative’. Maclennan asks him who that alternative should be and the reply comes that it will be one led by Tebbit and his Conservatives. Owen explains that he has had preliminary talks with the former prime minister about this and a deal has been proposed. The SDP will join with the Ulster Unionists so as to make up the numbers to form that government. It will not be one where the SDP will be silent partners as they are with Labour first under Foot and now Healey though. There will be a real voice for the SDP in the new government where Tebbit will provide two, maybe even three, Cabinet seats in exchange for allowing him to make a return to Downing Street.

Quite the spirited discussion comes from those at the meeting. Everyone knows that there will be quite the backlash against them, one coming from many quarters. The Alliance with the Liberals will be dead. Voters the next time around will not have as much trust in the SDP. Putting Tebbit back in Downing Street when only a few months ago the SDP was willing to work with a hard left dominated Labour to do anything to get him out of there will be quite the spectacular U-turn. These arguments against doing this come with comments from Owen and others about what will happen if they do not. Thomas tells them that they have a stark choice between Tebbit or Benn. Healey is sure to soon lose the Labour leadership to Benn when their party gets around to a leadership election. Does anyone here want to see Benn in Downing Street? Would he ever leave if he got there? Imagine Nellist or Wall at the Home Office! The party’s chief whip, Cartwright, suggests that they arrange for a vote on this matter. He senses the mood following it sinking into many that they have to act to stop Benn – the face of the hard left from which so many of the SDP fled Labour from – and a democratic decision on that will be needed. Thomas tries to get them to vote now but Williams cuts down that silly idea. There isn’t much time to waste but she will not allow for a vote today. Parliament returns on Thursday though so it will have to be tomorrow when the SDP makes its mind up. They have a day and a bit to think this over with a vote due tomorrow on whether to support the move made by Owen to transfer their support and thus, by extension, bring down the government.

Owen is invited to see Healey later that day. He comes to Downing Street while being followed by reporters and photographers. Before he got here, a small group of People’s Front activists had shouted abuse at him when he left Cowley Street: they’d reacted fast to get people there and are already moving to do more too. The Prime Minister and the SDP’s acting leader have a friendly chat. Owen is asked if what is being reported in the press is true. He confirms that it is his desire to see the SDP no longer support Healey’s premiership, something which will have to be decided by his party though. He is implored to change his mind and Healey tells him that Tebbit cannot be trusted with the country again. Regardless, Owen will not backtrack on this. When he is gone, Healey is back on the phone with Steel once more (they’d been talking before Owen came) and he also places a call to Jim Molyneaux too. The Liberal’s leader affirms his party’s support for Healey’s premiership but from the Ulster Unionists, there is nothing that the Prime Minister can achieve by trying to bring them onside. Molyneaux doesn’t tell him that he has already struck a deal with Tebbit yet Healey will find that out tonight. Steel visits Owen as he aims to keep the Alliance together. Owen tells him that if he wants to do that, the Liberals should join with the SDP in seeing Labour removed from office. Under them, the country is in a worst state than it was in May: the certainty from Owen that Benn will soon take the reins of power in Labour is also mentioned. Steel won’t budge and neither will Owen. They are at an impasse here and the Alliance meets its death.

The SDP votes the next day to follow Owen’s suggested course with regard to what its MPs will do in the Commons. The vote isn’t unanimous though and among those who don’t agree is Maclennan. He pledges that he will not vote to put Tebbit back in Downing Street… yet he is only one of the nineteen MPs (including the absent Jenkins who casts his vote by proxy) that the SDP have. Eighteen votes in the Commons will no longer be for a Labour government. Owen joins Williams in a press conference arranged for that afternoon at Four. It is one well attended by the media. The announcement is made that the SDP no longer support the government. The latter states that control has been lost of law and order nationwide and a change is needed. In response to a posed question from a journalist with The Daily Mail, the former says that should a motion of no confidence be tabled in the Commons when Parliament returns tomorrow, it will be one which the SDP will cast vote in support of that. Owen is asked if this is an invitation for someone to do just that and he smiles…

During that last day before MPs are back, Healey fights to stop the attempt to depose him. He and several high-level Labour figures contact MPs from the SDP to try and get them to back the government. They don’t have any luck though, even with Maclennan who is far from keen on all of this. He indicates he might abstain instead. The majority of these MPs aren’t ones with long service in the Commons who might have old ties to Labour despite the schism which saw the SDP formed three years ago. So few of those defectors from Labour who might be counted upon to hate the idea of putting a Conservative right-winger like Tebbit back in power survived this May’s general election. Trying to get newly-elected MPs from the SDP to split off from their party’s vote-approved decision is impossible. There are further problems. Steel finds he might not be able to keep his own house in order with several MPs from the Liberals wavering over whether they too wish to continue to support Healey’s premiership and there is talk of them supporting any vote to depose Healey as well. Only from the SDLP does there come any support: their two votes will hardly be enough to avert what is coming! Outside of all of these political shenanigans, none of this is going unnoticed by those who since the Foot assassination have been shouting Stop The Coup. Unofficial gatherings in the name of the People’s Front take place – a couple of hundred people at the very most in each the various incidents – at several locations and times. The SDP headquarters sees people outside and so does Owen’s family home too; another group of people are outside the currently closed Houses of Parliament. The Met. Police respond but while there is a lot of anger, they isn’t any violence. The concern is that there will be though when this drama comes to the conclusion it is heading towards.

[James G]

The vote of no confidence and the outcome will be in the next update.

[James G]

Parliament returns on Thursday morning without much of the usual pomp and ceremony. MPs are back from their holidays early and return to Westminster where there is a lot of visible security about. They have been recalled to discuss the situation which has brought about that being in-place yet developments in the past few days with the SDP means that the potential for the fall of the government is imminent. In the Commons, the Speaker Bernard Weatherill works with the government to set the agenda of proceedings but he is informed that the Conservative opposition wish to lay down a motion of no confidence. It isn’t something that can be ignored nor pushed to the back of the agenda, not when there is a hung parliament and the Conservatives have a plurality in numbers. Weatherill decrees that this will take the priority the rules set by convention demand that it does.

Tebbit puts down the motion. It declares that the House of Commons has no confidence in the sitting government. MPs can vote aye to agree or nay to disagree with this. They are invited to speak upon the merits of the motion and then the decision is taken that there will have to be a vote on this. It will be held tomorrow morning, Weatherill says. In the meantime, the matter of security is what the Commons turn to. Those questions are asked of ministers and statements are made. Proceedings in Parliament aren’t televised though they are recorded for sound. The words spoken by MPs go out across the country as several radio channels opt to broadcast live what is being said. Healey and Hattersley both respond on behalf of the government against alleged incompetence in accusations made by Tebbit and also Shadow Home Secretary Heseltine of utter incompetence. Left wing figures such as Benn and Wall are heard across the country too when Weatherill calls upon them to speak; so are Amery and Gardiner from the right as well. Steel and Owen are given the opportunity to speak when called upon with the latter being repeated interrupted. The Speaker instructs Fields and Nellist to both keep silent to no avail. Each man makes the shout of ‘Stop The Coup’ when the SDP’s acting leader is trying to address the Commons concerning his belief that mass public protests need to be better policed at this time of national emergency. These two Militant-backed Labour MPs will not let him speak without interrupting. Weatherill is forced to ‘name’ both of them in an effort to silence each man yet they will not be quiet. Other far left MPs with Militant come to their defence. Weatherill is forced to announce that there is ‘grave disorder’ within the Commons Chamber and force an adjournment. This is a temporary measure meant to bring calm once MPs have had the time to cool off. After an hour, MPs are brought back. The Speaker has achieved what he has sought to: the disorder is over and the Commons can return to the matter at-hand of why they have been recalled.

Led by Wall, those Militant MPs are now outside rather than within the Commons. There is a crowd of people within Parliament Square around them. This isn’t a People’s Front event but instead a gathering organised by Militant itself. To even the most unbiased of observer, this is something pre-arranged. Those MPs deliberately forced Weatherill to act. There are claims to those waiting for them that they have been deliberately thrown out of the Commons – where voters have sent them! – as part of an establishment stich-up when they were protesting against the coup underway in Britain. Owen is denounced as being a key part of that where he is working to ensure that the will of the British people is subverted. Fields holds up today’s copy of The Sun newspaper. The headline reads ‘Welcome back, Norman!’ with an image of Tebbit on the frontpage. For this MP in particular, that publication and its editor Kelvin Mackenzie have for some time now been regarded as an enemy. The British public remember the headline of the day of the general election where The Sun was backing Tebbit: it ran ‘We Can’t Have This Old Fool Running Britain’ in reference to an unflattering image of Foot pictured. The tabloid had backed the Conservatives then and tried all it could in the days afterwards to urge other MPs not to put Foot in Downing Street. The problem that Militant has with The Sun are further frontpage attacks on them since. Mackenzie has gone all out against them with some particularly nasty personal attacks made. Now it is openly welcoming what looks like an imminent return of Tebbit as part of the continuing support for Tebbit’s Conservatives. Wall takes the newspaper from Field and sets it alight in as much of a dramatic fashion as he can muster. He then makes his familiar shout: Stop The Coup! The pace of events has gone on regardless without those MPs inside the Commons. Hattersley confirms changes to policing procedures with regard to protests and the Home Secretary says too that there are moves underway to ban upcoming People’s Front marches arranged for this weekend. The shooting incident last Saturday has been the last straw for the government. Later, the sitting in the Commons ends for the day but MPs are due back on the Friday morning.

Weatherill has scheduled Tebbit’s motion as the first order of business and it goes ahead. There is near full attendance in the Commons from MPs with only a very few missing. How the vote will go isn’t in doubt. Tebbit’s motion that the Commons has no confidence in the government passes with three hundred and thirty-five votes to three hundred and four. The SDP (minus one abstention) votes with the Conservatives (ex-PMs Heath and Thatcher join in as everyone sets their differences aside) and so too do the Ulster Unionists, three Liberals (ignoring their party orders) and all of the smaller opposition parties apart from the SDLP. That support from the SDLP for Labour has come with the votes of eighteen Liberals… and no one else. There had been overnight efforts to gain support from MPs from the SDP defying Owen and also to try and bring the smaller parties from Scotland and Wales onside. In his failed effort to do that with the SNP and Plaid, Healey has driven those few Liberals away and seen a trio of Labour abstentions too when it comes to supporting their own government. It is quite the mess with regards to where the ayes and nays have fallen… and will create even more mess in response.


The British constitution is famously – or infamously; it depends upon your point of view – something unwritten. Everything relies upon convention, what has been done before. The last time that a government lost a vote of no confidence was under Callaghan (a tight 311 to 310) with the result of that being him going to see the Queen and requesting a dissolution so that a new election could be fought. However, Callaghan could then have instead resigned and, should there have been a majority of support among MPs, a new government could have been formed without an election. In light of the result today, Healey doesn’t necessarily have to do either. There is no legal requirement for him to act at once. To do such a thing is unthinkable though. It would cause a constitutional crisis and imperil democracy. His government has lost its support despite all efforts to try and keep it as per agreements made back in May. The Queen is at Buckingham Palace and waiting for him due to arrangements made between her officials & government civil servants ahead of the vote occurring this morning. Healey takes the short trip there after leaving Parliament. In conversation, the Queen and her Prime Minister discuss what to do in light of it. Healey suggests that he should follow that example of Callaghan and make arrangements for a general election. This is questioned as to the wisdom of doing so when he is only the acting leader of his party and there are preparations underway within Labour to appoint a new one. Healey says that that process can be sped up and he believes that instead of the usual four weeks between a dissolution and an election, the timeframe could be extended to six weeks, even seven if needed.

The Queen shakes her head at this. She points to the Lascelles Principles. These are unofficial guidance but regarded as convention when it comes to a government being formed in her name in a situation where numbers are tight within the Commons. Parliament is still viable & capable of doing its job and there is too the certainty that another government under a different prime minister can govern. Healey’s suggestion of dissolution isn’t what she thinks is best. The Queen doesn’t ask him to resign though. She instead asks him to see if he can manage over the weekend to find a way to regain the support his government has lost. If he can, a motion of confidence could be called to affirm that. If not, the Queen believes that then they can discuss any resignation of Healey’s government. What she doesn’t want to see is a general election when there is no need for one at this time. This is advice given to her by unelected officials but she doesn’t agree with it.

In Downing Street, Healey meets with his Cabinet and senior party officials when returning from the seeing the Queen. There are journalists outside waiting with impatience and protesters who’ve come up from Parliament Square too. Noise can be heard from the latter in the background: everyone here knows that they are still shouting Stop The Coup. Those here are informed as to what was said at Buckingham Palace. There is a bit of disquiet at the Queen directing events yet, still, it is understood that this is in reality coming from civil servants such as Armstrong and others. What she says is correct too. There is a viable opposition in Parliament which can be formed. Labour is in no state to at once fight an election. While it doesn’t seem likely that it can be done, a few days more have been given now to try and reverse the outcome of the vote in the Commons today. Maybe the tide can be turned… Healey knows that there are others who might in this situation say that they would refuse to do as the Queen asked him to do and try to force an election regardless. Healey is reminded by the party’s General Secretary Jim Mortimer of the terrible state his party is in though with no cash on-hand to fight with, low poll numbers and a divided party. Then there is the fact that Labour came second in May’s general election though and has only been in government at the mercy of others. Tebbit’s Conservatives will likewise return to power under the influence of smaller parties and there will likely be a general election soon enough. Time is needed to be prepared for that. Whether it is he or possibly Benn who leads Labour into that, he doesn’t know. That will be a matter of democracy, just like the efforts he will now make over the next few days to try and avert the inevitable end of his extremely short premiership. His speechwriter drafts a statement for him to make and, once that is done, he goes outside to talk to the media. The Prime Minister calls for MPs to support his leadership at this time of crisis. He says he can get the job done with that. He urges the public to respect the democratic will of Parliament too.


All day, the numbers of protesters who’ve gathered in Central London grow. No official march or organised event is underway but people are showing up on Whitehall as well as down in Parliament Square. There isn’t the feeling among that the Healey has of the future being Que Sera, Sera. Angry and motivated, they make their presence feet with their feet and voices. They are trying to stop the end of the Labour government even if the decisions taken by it during its existence are ones which they have protested against. The thought of a return to the premiership of Tebbit terrifies them though. They believe they have voted him out and now he has wormed his way back in! Word does filter among those on the streets of the capital that Healey has not yet gone but that ‘not yet’ bit is understood to mean that it is certain to happen. For several days now, the upcoming fall of the government has been all the talk in the newspapers and on the news after Owen’s action: it is delayed but not called off. The only thing that can be done is thought to be to protest against this and eventually they can bring it to a stop. Politicians will have to listen to them in the end!

When there is property damage done and the obstruction of traffic gets to an unacceptable level, the police move in. The Commissioner of the Met. Police, Kenneth Newman, has had a terrible couple of months. There have been officers murdered and many others hurt in rioting and violent disturbances across the city. London has been hit with domestic terrorism with the Met. on the receiving end of that. At the same time, the government has been telling him to not go in hard while criticising him when there is that disorder that a strong initial reaction would have nipped in the bud. Newman was the verge of resigning in disgust – doing so publicly too – until that political surprise came on Tuesday. He’d been quietly hoping that Tebbit would be back in power today and is just as surprised as everyone else by what Healey says on the steps of Downing Street where he has been granted several days by the Queen to try to reform support for the current government. Of course, the Met. is meant to be apolitical yet these things affect him, his organisation and his officers. This evening, Hattersley backtracks on everything he has previously been saying about the police ‘not encouraging violence’ and the Home Secretary instructs the Met. to crack down hard. The Met. is a bit short-handed at the moment with officers available for public duty tasks due to preparations being made to lend out personnel to attend planned People’s Front marches elsewhere in the country tomorrow but Newman calls in extra officers from elsewhere in the city. He is too allowed to use the controversial Special Patrol Group for riot control when a petrol bomb is thrown by a protester to burn out a – hastily abandoned – police car in the middle of Whitehall. The crowds are broken up and order is restored. It takes some time and there are some ‘difficulties’ but the Met. have done as tasked… bashing many heads while doing so.

While big political developments have been going on in the past few days drawing public attention, there has been a quiet but severe break among those at the top of the People’s Front. A clash of personalities has erupted among this organisation’s steering committee. The SWP consider it theirs but have allowed a high-level presence at the top from other groups on the far left. This hasn’t included the Worker’s Revolutionary Party. No matter how much Livingstone has tried to bring them aboard on an official level, Cliff and Harman have pushed back. Attendance at protests from the WRP has been growing though in size and visibility. Cliff believes that the shooting by unidentified gunmen on Hampstead Heath last week towards the police – wounding two and killing another – was their work. No more is he willing to tolerate them unofficially. Harman supports this position and so too do both the Communist & Revolutionary Communist Party officials (usually these two are at each other’s throats: here they have cordial agreement) allowed a say in directing events too. Livingstone denies that that was their work and blames agent provocateurs ‘from the security services’ and wants them at this weekend’s planned protest marches to apparently defend attendees from racist fascists in the National Front who are reported being ready to turn out in opposition. Defeated, Livingstone has been expelled from the steering committee. While there is a good reason for this, it is something that will damage the People’s Front. His control of the Greater London Council has ensured that their marches in London have gone ahead. He’s gone now though, thrown out after defending people whom Cliff and Harman regard as murderers.

Losing Livingstone’s influence in London is a blow to the People’s Front but what comes late on Friday – while there is rioting ongoing in London – is worse. The Home Office sought to but failed to ban the Hampstead Heath march last weekend: the High Court now approve the move from Hattersley to put a stop to the two marches planned for tomorrow. At Plymouth and Manchester, judges in London say that there can be no public gatherings organised by the People’s Front under their name nor that of a proxy. Paul Foot, nephew of the murdered Michael Foot and who is a prominent SWP supporter as well as a journalist with The Daily Mirror (currently on compassionate leave), is due to speak down in Devon as one of the headline speakers there in what was his uncle’s home town. Meanwhile, the Manchester event is meant to see Cliff and Wall take centre-stage. Now these will be illegal if they take place. The barrister arguing the People’s Front case argues that the timing is very late with so many preparations underway. Nonetheless, those judges say the protests cannot go ahead as the violence seen in North London is cited as key in their decision. Instructions come for the People’s Front to do all they can to make sure that everyone involved knows that there is cancellation too less. Cliff does the opposite. He’s interviewed on the BBC with his reaction to the court decision sought. The SWP’s leader claims that those judges are acting in the interests of the establishment to allow a coup to take place in Britain robbing people of democracy. He uses the platform given by a live broadcast to state that supporters of the People’s Front should gather in London tomorrow at Trafalgar Square. By turning out in numbers, they can avert the disaster coming with Tebbit once more back in Downing Street. The BBC will not repeat what Cliff says in that live broadcast when news reports later comment on the court case. They do though run remarks by Wall talking about ‘radical action’ needing to be taken and his suggestion that the workers of the country should take part in a general strike in opposition to the political stitch-up ongoing. He also says, once more live on air, that before that they should take to the streets tomorrow. Both calls by these two men are heard by people across the country either themselves or third-hand. Nothing official is arranged yet it is guaranteed that there will be people on the streets of the capital tomorrow with no arrangements in-place to organise nor guide them.

Meanwhile, MI-5 is looking for Michael Alexander van der Poorten… better known as Mike Banda, the Worker’s Revolutionary Party’s number two man. A raid by armed police takes place in Derbyshire against that country estate from where the WRP has their ‘training camp’ (a property several years ago purchased by Corin Redgrave and gifted to WRP use) but they find no one there they are looking for. Instead, it is on fire with the entire place gutted by the morning. Several homes in Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Warwickshire likewise receive this attention too. Police officers have SAS personnel waiting in the wings to be brought in yet those soldiers are unneeded by officers seeking arrests. No real opposition to the searches and detentions made across the other properties throughout the middle of rural England comes though. There is just surprise from these WRP figures instead of anyone rushing for weapons. Banda is nowhere to be found despite intelligence-led operations on addresses where he is thought might be. He’s gone into hiding and so many of his dangerous devotees are also spending tonight out of sight ahead of following instructions as to what to do tomorrow. Despite what the organs of the state security have been told in interrogations of those caught in Bedfordshire bringing about these actions, the revolution promised by Banda to his people is going to be attempted. He’s going all out against the state and aiming to burn it all down.



September 14th Vote of No Confidence

No confidence: 335 (Conservatives, 295 / SDP, 18 / UUP, 11 / Liberals, 3 / Others, 8)
Confidence: 304 (Labour, 284 / Liberals, 18 / SDLP, 2)
Abstaining: 9 (Labour, 3 / Conservatives, 1 / SDP, 1 / Speaker & Deputies, 4)
Absence: 2 (Sinn Fein, 1 / Foot’s constituency)

[gillan1220]

I wonder how the Soviets will react to this.

[James G]

Aug 12, 2020 5:06:06 GMT gillan1220 said:

I wonder how the Soviets will react to this.

There are those in London and Washington who are seeing the hand of Moscow in everything. But they are mistaken.
The Soviets would have liked to have seen Britain leaving NATO, nuclear disarmament and kicking the Americans out though. They'll just be pleased with chaos in the UK as it weakens the West.

[gillan1220]

Aug 12, 2020 8:38:24 GMT James G said:

Aug 12, 2020 5:06:06 GMT gillan1220 said:

I wonder how the Soviets will react to this.

There are those in London and Washington who are seeing the hand of Moscow in everything. But they are mistaken.
The Soviets would have liked to have seen Britain leaving NATO, nuclear disarmament and kicking the Americans out though. They'll just be pleased with chaos in the UK as it weakens the West.

A very convenient way to destabilize and undermine the West. The Soviets do not even need to lift a finger.