The murder of Reform’s justice spokeswoman, Ann Widdecombe, appears to be the country’s third assassination of a prominent politician in just over a decade — a tally comparable with that of the Northern Ireland conflict — according to a recent analysis. The killing comes as Andy Burnham prepares to take the helm of a Labour Party that has “merely reached base camp” in its climb to reverse 40 years of neoliberalism, as the New Statesman put it. “If Burnham is serious about changing Britain, then this must be the beginning of his project, not the end,” the magazine wrote.
The sense of an insurgent Britain is underscored by a resurgence of interest in a 1971 book by General Frank Kitson, Low Intensity Operations, which warned that “social discontent and racial ferment” would become more important, and that “disturbances arising out of dissatisfaction with society, often allied with racial problems which have not yet been mastered” could threaten stability. “It is difficult for the British with their traditions of stability to imagine disorders arising beyond the powers of the police to handle,” Kitson wrote, “but already there are indications that such a situation could arise, and this at a time of apparently unrivalled affluence.” A 1975 BBC Panorama documentary on Sandhurst, now on iPlayer, showed officer cadets training to impose order on a near-future Britain where “economic and political chaos is reigning” after failures of consecutive minority governments, and Scotland had already seceded.
“Reform's Ann Widdecombe murdered; Burnham's Labour faces insurgent Britain as third politician killed in decade.”
Burnham, who rose to Labour leader after Keir Starmer’s government “was never going to last”, according to the New Statesman, now faces the challenge of restoring confidence in the state. The magazine noted that Burnham “combines a charismatic personality with the beginning of a political plan”, but asked: “Does he have the sherpas, supplies, oxygen tanks and route map for what must be a ten to 15-year journey?” The first test will be whether he can prevent further political violence and address the underlying discontents that the Widdecombe murder has laid bare.
