Would the British Army Turn Its Guns on the People?
TOM ARMSTRONG
It’s a question few want asked, let alone answered. But given the febrile state of the nation it is becoming pertinent to ask: “would the British Army obey orders to open fire on the British people in the event of a rebellion?”
I’ve been asking myself this since watching a video on the subject by a former soldier. He thinks probably not, and that is my gut feeling. I knew lots of lads who joined up and I can’t see them shooting British citizens. But I’ve never been in the military and do not understand its dynamics, so let’s look a bit closer.
I take it as a given that the Establishment would order the army to open fire if they felt that they and their perverted globalist dogma were endangered. Its loyalty is to global institutions like the WEF, NATO, the EU, ECHR and the UN. Shooting protesters would, no doubt, be justified as defending “the rule of law” or “protecting democracy” a risk that will grow as the enmity between Establishment and People grows.
So, let’s move on to the armed forces and history. Reassuringly, there have been cases when armies defied tyranny and stood with their people. In Russia, February 1917, Tsar Nicholas II ordered troops to disperse crowds by force. Some fired, killing dozens, but within days large portions of the army had laid down their weapons or joined the demonstrators. The Tsar’s authority evaporated.
In Portugal’s Carnation Revolution (1974), soldiers refused to fire on unarmed civilians opposing a long-standing dictatorship. Crowds placed red carnations in their rifle barrels, and the government collapsed. In East Germany, in 1989, the communist regime ordered a crackdown on mass protests in Leipzig. The military did not fire as they doubted the regime’s survival. The Berlin Wall fell weeks later. In Egypt’s 2011 uprising the army — unlike the brutal police — refused to open fire on protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, effectively sealing President Mubarak’s fate.
The common factor here is that soldiers strongly identified with the protesters and doubted the legitimacy or survival of the regime. Orders to kill were seen as politically or morally unacceptable, and the army valued its national role above the demands of a ruling clique. It can be reasonably argued, I think, that this spirit prevailed in the British army we have known and loved since about 1914. But does that army still exist?
History has a darker side too. We were in Beijing in June 1989, close to Tiananmen Square, when the Chinese Communist Party sent in troops from distant provinces to clear the square at gunpoint, killing hundreds, maybe thousands. The following days were hot with rumour; the Cultural Revolution is coming back; anyone connected with foreigners will be jailed; the 123 army is opposed to the CCP and coming to Beijing from the north. The 456 army is loyal to it and coming from the south. They will meet in Beijing and have a battle.
In Amritsar, 1919, British Gurkhas, opened fire on a demonstration trapped in an enclosed space, killing hundreds. At Kent State University, USA, 1970, poorly trained, panicking National Guardsmen fired into a crowd of student protesters, killing four. In Syria, 2011, President Assad ordered the army to fire on demonstrators. It obeyed.
Again, these incidents share their own grim traits. The armies were often physically and/or culturally distant from the civilians they were ordered to shoot. The civilians had been branded as “enemies” terrorists, traitors, or foreign agents. Obedience was also enforced by fear, of punishment and the financial consequences of disobedience. Information was tightly controlled; soldiers often believed they were confronting dangerous insurgents, not unarmed fellow countrymen.
So where does the British Army of today sit? For centuries, it has prided itself on professionalism and loyalty to the British people, expressed through constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy. But when parliamentary democracy is a sham and the monarch sides with the globalist enemy, how much does the oath of loyalty count?
The army is bound by the principle of civilian control: the government commands the armed forces under the authority of the monarch. But does that mean that if the government gives a ‘lawful’ order to open fire, would the army comply. Does the army ask itself these questions? Do soldiers understand that the Nuremberg trials established that ‘I was just following orders’ is no defence?
British troops have fired on British civilians before, infamously at Peterloo (1819), when cavalry charged into a peaceful rally in Manchester, killing at least 18. Six years later, on August 3, 1825, at least five Sunderland seamen, striking over dangerous working conditions, were killed by the army in the ‘North Sands Massacre’. Many were injured. During Northern Ireland’s Troubles, the army was used extensively for internal security and, admittedly controversially, the Bloody Sunday shootings of 1972 are thought by some to be a stain on its reputation.
Is the army, long a symbol of national pride, now sufficiently culturally distinct from civilian Britain? It still draws from specific regions and communities with a strong military heritage, but recruitment from this source is drying up. It is now seen as less about defending Britain than defending the EU and the Globalist New World Order, entangled in NATO missions and global security commitments. It also has ‘diversity’ as a core ethos. Who can forget the RAF refusing to train white pilots?
Patriots should, therefore, ask if the British Army is still ours, or if it is now the government’s, the last resort of an increasingly despotic and malevolent state, ready to turn its rifles on us if ordered?
I don’t think we are near the point of a majority of soldiers in any given battalion being from ethnic minorities, but could Squaddies be brainwashed into thinking that protesters were a threat to the nation? Would a squad of Glaswegians open fire on English civilians in Gloucester? Would English soldiers from Durham open fire in Dundee?
Recent events have raised speculation that the Establishment is already preparing for the use of armed force against the ‘far right’ people. (No doubt many will be thinking of the legion of single men now housed at our expense in comfortable hotels, heavily protected by the state. But this speculation is another subject).
In the 19th century, the state might respond to rebellion with sabres and muskets. In the 20th, with soldiers policing the streets. But today it will be mainly with intelligence, surveillance, censorship and pre-emptive arrests. At least at the beginning. There is already a vast CCTV network and expansive anti-terror and public order laws. The capacity to monitor online communication expands all the time and there are military-trained police units capable of rapid deployment.
The “Tiananmen moment” could be avoided by making it impossible for the people to mass in the first place. If a rebellion did occur the government’s choice would be to negotiate or suppress. All the evidence I have seen is that they would chose suppression.
But what might happen if they did bring in the army? In case of a widespread uprising, including in communities with high army recruitment, loyalty to the people could well outweigh loyalty to the government. But in the case of localised unrest, if the government could successfully paint protesters as terrorists or foreign backed (Putin?) agents, the army might obey suppression orders.
What other factors decide which way they turn? Is it the attitude of the army’s leadership, or that of the rank and file. Obviously, if both believed that the government had lost all legitimacy refusal is likely. But if the leadership sided with the government? A difficult one that, as who would provide rank and file leadership? NCOs?
The balance is troubling. The chain of command is clear, and it runs to the government, not to the people. Yet the Army is not the same as the police. Soldiers, unlike the politicised police leadership, are trained for war, not domestic crowd control and many soldiers are motivated by service to the nation rather than service to ministers. So, will the British Army fight for us, or against us, if the day comes?
For now, the answer is unknowable – and I hope we never have to find out. My heart says that the British army would join us, but my head is not so sure. I will be very interested in what you think.
But one thing is certain: a government that fears its people enough to even consider orders to shoot them has already lost the right to govern. And perhaps the same goes in reverse, when the people.
This article (A Dangerous Question for Dangerous Times) was created and published by Free Speech Backlash and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author Tom Armstrong
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