UK - A people's revolution !

[ghostdancing]

UK - A people's revolution, exactly how difficult would it be for a group of average people to take control of the UK in a people's revolution ?

All people who have always had the power in this country are from the upper middle classes, whether they are Gordon Brown, David Cameron. And what a mess we are in today.

If you had control of the utilities, armed forces and certain other services would it be possible ?

[Rollo]

UK - A people's revolution, exactly how difficult would it be for a group of average people to take control of the UK in a people's revolution ?

If you had control of the utilities, armed forces and certain other services would it be possible ?

I don't think that it would be possible, because you'd have to take on the combined forced of the Army, the Royal Navy and the RAF.

It is esitmated that at the time of the First English Civil war, there were only about 15,000 people in the full-time employ of the army. The New Model Army which was raised in 1645, had about 22,000 people in it.

Using the Civil War as a template, in order to beat the British Armed Forces which currently have c. 435,500 employees, you'd need to raise a force of about 638,000 people to fight against it, and supply them with an equal if not better array of weaponry.

You'd think that to create an Army of that size, it would probably be noticed by the Armed Forced, MI5, MI6, the Police, etc etc etc, and that it would be stopped dead in its tracks well before it got anywhere.

[Mark in Oshawa]

You could have a revolution if everyone voted and CARED about their voting. The British public are no different than in most countries. THey are apathetic because they don't believe the politicians are paying attention to them, but lets face it, not voting just ensures your voice isn't heard.

[Hondo]

Won't happen.
The biggest reason it won't happen is the lack of popular support. Revolution isn't like voting and 51% of the people on your side isn't going to get it. You would need at the very least 75% of the population dedicated to you. You will not get:

The professional poor - the folks that have learned to use the system against itself and now live quite comfortably on the dole. You are not going to convince these people that the joy of holding a job is worth a charge of treason and the risk of being killed.

Civil service employees - They have a great deal now, protected against layoffs, great benefits. They aren't going to bite the hand that feeds them in order to welcome the hand that wants to feed them less.

The great middle class - They may not be happy with the way things are going but they are used to that and therefore comfortable. What little they have, they worked for and don't want to lose it. Your revolution represents an unknown and people fear the unknown.

The rich - Right.

To get the armed forces on your side you would have to prove major governmental violations of the authority under which they took an oath to defend. I don't know what that would be in England.
You have no weapons and very few people that train regularly in the use of them.
Your population grows more and more reliant on government every year. How much can they do for themselves and how much are they willing to do for themselves. The American government did the same with the American Indians. They knew if they could get them on reservations for a couple of generations relying on government handouts for their existance, they would become helpless and unable to do for themselves anymore. Control, without genocide. It worked. They did, and are doing, the same to American Blacks with the welfare and social programs.

Your government is doing the same to you and now you're stuck. Voting the same old same old will not bring changes.

[emporer_k]

It could happen if the people all voted for somebody new at election time, altough that is very unlikely.

But there are too many people happy with their lot / considering it a case of better the devil you know for their to be a storming of parliament/ downing street/ buckingham palace sort of revolution.

[Hondo]

It could happen if the people all voted for somebody new at election time, altough that is very unlikely.

But there are too many people happy with their lot / considering it a case of better the devil you know for their to be a storming of parliament/ downing street/ buckingham palace sort of revolution.

You can bet one thing for sure. If the Liberal Democrats or the BNP were to be elected to be the majority government, every challenge and appeal to the election results known to man would immediately be employed. There would be a secondary election. While all that was happening you would see Labour and the Conservatives work hand in hand to limit the power of government including adding a waiting period of say, 3 years, before any new laws enacted by the new majority could take effect.

The established main parties, conservatives-labour & republicans-democrats, are used to sparring with each other and making deals to where it's hard to tell one party from another. But if you get a renegade in there, the rules of play will change and change fast to prevent the renegade from having an effect.

[Mark]

There was a drama series about this a few years ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Amazing_Mrs_Pritchard
Where someone decided to stand as an independent cadidate and found themselves as Prime Minister.

[Hondo]

There was a drama series about this a few years ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Amazing_Mrs_Pritchard
Where someone decided to stand as an independent cadidate and found themselves as Prime Minister.

I know of a few cities where the mayor's office was effectively stripped of any executive powers by the city council and sitting mayor before the newly elected mayor from a "fringe" party took office. The new guys would find out that the limit of their authority was to make meaningless proclamations like Tuesday will be "Pencil Sharpener Day" here in sunny East Jesus to honor the development of the pencil sharpener.

If you beat them by the rules, they change the rules.

[Hazell B]

Won't happen.
The biggest reason it won't happen is the lack of popular support.

Exactly :up:

The British public can't even be bothered to tell our government that we're not happy about things, let alone take up arms. It's pathetic.

Getting dog walkers to clean up after their pets is beyond the Brit mentality, so what they'd do if somebody organised a rebellion is .... sit and maybe watch ... but probably not if there's something good on TV :mark:

[Mark in Oshawa]

Exactly :up:

The British public can't even be bothered to tell our government that we're not happy about things, let alone take up arms. It's pathetic.

Getting dog walkers to clean up after their pets is beyond the Brit mentality, so what they'd do if somebody organised a rebellion is .... sit and maybe watch ... but probably not if there's something good on TV :mark:

I just notice that here, if you get 65% of the eligible voters to vote, you did well in national elections. 30% of the people voted in the last municpal election in Toronto, and it has a budget greater than 3 of the provinces. So when the same idiots get in through all this apathy, nothing changes, and the incumbents become more entrenched. Regardless of one's political stripe, surely everyone can agree that a populace that is more likely to vote is more likely to force change because it will make the elections more contested, and YES parties will have to do and say things they would do different. As for a revolution, I cant see that ever happening in modern Western societies. The USA is the only nation that probably has the populace armed enough to even conteplate it, but as a whole, all people, Americans included have concluded a long time ago that taking up arms is 18th century thinking..

[Brown, Jon Brow]

Exactly :up:

The British public can't even be bothered to tell our government that we're not happy about things, let alone take up arms. It's pathetic.

Getting dog walkers to clean up after their pets is beyond the Brit mentality, so what they'd do if somebody organised a rebellion is .... sit and maybe watch ... but probably not if there's something good on TV :mark:

But they will all download a song to stop Simon Cowell getting to number one.

[Captain VXR]

I've always found that most Brits moan as much as they want but can never be arsed to actually get up and DO things to try and make change for the better. MLK didn't just sit there and moan about 'whitey' discriminating against blacks, asians, natives, hispanics, arabs, jews etc. No, he helped organise massive marches to make the ruling elite and the general public sit up and take notice. If the French don't like something, they riot. If us Brits don't like something we sign a petition that becomes recycling fodder in the first governmental/council office it reaches. Ulster is the only exception to the rule, and probably because only give or take 60% of its population are Brits.

[BDunnell]

Exactly :up:

The British public can't even be bothered to tell our government that we're not happy about things, let alone take up arms. It's pathetic.

Getting dog walkers to clean up after their pets is beyond the Brit mentality, so what they'd do if somebody organised a rebellion is .... sit and maybe watch ... but probably not if there's something good on TV :mark:

Absolutely. And another reason it won't happen is because there is no need for it. Most of our lives may have their frustrations, but they are basically fine.

[Mark in Oshawa]

Absolutely. And another reason it won't happen is because there is no need for it. Most of our lives may have their frustrations, but they are basically fine.

I was just going to say the same Ben. I think The UK must be a pretty well run nation overall. We Canadians grumble about a lot of things, have one province trying to occaisonally look at leaving, yet as the previous two weeks showed, we really do love our country, and can put all the moaning aside. We have it good enough that most of the talk of change is really fine tuning... Since our system of doing thing is built on your model, has simliar politcal parties, and we share the same head of state, I can read papers like the Times, Telly or Guardian and it is similar to the political debates here.

The UK hasn't been about revolution in modern times. It didn't keep slavery into the 19th century, didn't disenfranchise 15% of the population over skin colour until the 50's and for the most part has managed to do ok. I think the 70's were really rough...but they were for the USA and Canada too. Revolution is for nations too young to understand the benefit of evolutionary change in gov't or for nations where there is some faction that has it despartely wrong.

[Saint Devote]

The free nations need good leaders again: Lady Thatcher and Prez. Ronald Reagan.

Obama as prez and Gordon Brown - god help us!!!

While on this sort of thread - great movie for those who are anti-collectivist and therefore against ANYTHING that even smells of the left is the movie "V for Vendetta"

[Daniel]

LOL Thatcher a good leader :rotflmao: You should go into comedy, you really should.

[Mark]

LOL Thatcher a good leader :rotflmao: You should go into comedy, you really should.

If you want someone to lead the country into economic ruin. Then Thatcher is who you want!

[AAReagles]

UK - A people's revolution, exactly how difficult would it be for a group of average people to take control of the UK in a people's revolution ?... If you had control of the utilities, armed forces and certain other services would it be possible ?

I was wondering what I would find one year after the Eat The Bank campaign. Good topic.

Considering how things were starting to escalate last year, over most of Europe with the financial crisis and all, I was beginning to think we were going to see 1848 all over again. There is still quite some unsettled matters as far as some folks are concerned in France, Spain, Greece and so on. Therefore another June Days event is qiute possible.

Personally I thought you Brits did quite well with your protests during the G-20 summit in April of 2009. I don't endorse breaking of windows and such, but it was perhaps good in the sense that it sent a message. I was hoping the same anger would have been displayed here, but there was one problem - we already had our revolution by voting. Whether or not Obama is going to be the answer for what's been ailing this country for the last 45-50 years or so, remains to be seen.

Revolutions are a tad messy as some folks here already explained. For one thing, the cause would have to be something quite significant, such as human rights abuses on a wide scale mind you, for anything of a notion of revolution to be remotely considered. Especially since people are going to be killed in the event.

Commitment would be another deciding factor as well. Even Spartacus had to set forth that element with his comrades by crucifying a Roman Soldier as a reminder of what they would face if anyone were to give a second thought about what needed to be done to achieve their quest for freedom. As Ben Franklin put it, "We should all hang together, or we will surely all hang seperately." Some rather compelling words I must say.

Another task to take into account would be what were to happen if the revolution were to succeed. Being a multiculture nation, like the US, there would of course be seperate factions, be it religious, political, cultural/ethnic groups that seek their own agendas and aspirations to elevate their communities in the forth-coming social-economical arrangements. That can create further problems, as we know already from observing other countries over the years/decades.

As some others stated before, I think we have it good (or at least decent), despite our dissatifactions with current (or former?) political administrations. I like David vs. Goliath stories too, whether it's about a rogue sperm whale taking out a whaling ship (the Essex) or the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Not sure if I want to be involved in one though.


... While on this sort of thread - great movie for those who are anti-collectivist and therefore against ANYTHING that even smells of the left is the movie "V for Vendetta"
In reflection of movies being related to the issues of gov't abuse I was thinking of Clockwork Orange, with its' portrayal of gov't 'aversion therapy.'

[Mark in Oshawa]

If you want someone to lead the country into economic ruin. Then Thatcher is who you want!

I guess the fact the budget was balanced was a bad thing? How about the fact people outside the UK respected the UK? How about the growth in the economy? When she took office, the UK was in a deep dark hole where the unions were crippling the nation, and when she left, the UK was posting better numbers economically.

Maggie has her faults, and there is stuff she didn't do right or articulate well, and all pols make mistakes, but this stuff isn't hard to figure out. The UK under Thatcher was economically a lot better off than it was under the previous governments in the 70's...