Hoisted on Her Own Petard

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By Jason Michael

British Prime Minister Theresa May went all in, hoping that by putting soldiers on the street she would have the plebs out banging their drums and waving their flags. She got it wrong and now it is her head on the block.

Perhaps no other country other than the United States is more used to the idea of the political stunt as the United Kingdom. In a democracy, the game by which the ruling establishment maintains its power by convincing the electorate it has a say, government requires the consent of the population. In order to convince a majority of voters to elect a party that does not have the best interests of the people at heart the engineers behind the political parties concoct stunts. It is almost a general rule of thumb that the party most obnoxious to the political aspirations of the majority of the electorate is the most practiced at the stunt, and therefore the most expert.

War and the entire chest beating spectacle of militarism have always been favourites of the political right, and, knowing well that the hungry masses do love a fine parade of soldiery, this stunt has always worked well for it. Over the past few decades in Britain terrorism has been manna from heaven for this class of political thinker; terror as a pretext for wars that – in a terrible feedback look – instigate more domestic terror is the gift that keeps on giving. Britain has no end of reasons to send troops abroad, and this keeps the hands clapping and the flags waving at home.

At election time, especially when the party with its finger on the trigger is in trouble, this dynamic becomes ever more dangerous. Winning the election and gaining a few more points on the opinion polls replaces just cause, making it an imperative for the government to find someone with whom to go to war. It has become a tradition. Theresa May has done nothing that Thatcher and Bair hadn’t done before her, with the only difference being that her attempt at a military stunt backfired on her.

ISIS had to have been responsible for the bombing of the Manchester Arena. This had to be an event much more serious than a lone wolf terrorist attack. That this had to be of use to the Conservatives in the midst of a disastrous general election campaign was all the excuse that was needed to swing Operation Temperer into action and get troops out onto the streets of Britain. May understood the recipe alright; a terrified public was meant to hear the echo of her words – “Strong and Stable” – in the clatter of the boots on the ground. Our heroes had arrived to make sure the football went ahead, and this was meant to drive us to the polls to vote Tory.

No such luck. ISIS was behind it, alright. But then, the Islamic State claims to be behind every misfortune that befalls its enemies. That is, after all, how these under resourced militant organisations work. It’s good press. The truth was something far more shocking. The bomber was home-grown in every sense; he was British born, a UK citizen, aided by MI5 to go to Libya as a fighter when he was 16 to fight in an insurgency funded and trained by MI6 and the CIA. He was, in a horrible roundabout way, one of Theresa May’s own. It was her Home Office that made it all possible. Oops!

So far she has been lucky. The BBC and Sky News, themselves effective branches of the Tory Party, have kept everything under wraps, but it’s too late. The cat is out of the bag. Knowing she can’t press this any further, she has called off the troops; lowering the threat level back down to “severe” in the hope that no one will notice. The problem is that it is too late. She went nuclear to save her skin and launched what amounted to a coup, but it went belly up. No one responsible for a failed coup survives. She may still bag this general election, but her hopes for a super majority are shot, and the hawks on her own benches will have her for supper.