![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/00033955.jpg\")
\n Illustration by Roy Scott \/ Ikon Images<\/p>\n
\n Illustration by Roy Scott \/ Ikon Images<\/p>\n
Reading this while British? Then there\u2019s an extremely high chance you want to overthrow the state, or so right-wing commentators would have it.<\/p>\n
If this information comes as a shock, then I can but point you to this tweet<\/a> by Daily Express political correspondent Christian Calgie that reads: \u201cIf you don\u2019t understand how close tens of millions of Britons are to wanting a full-blown revolution, let alone fail to understand why, then you have no value as a political commentator.\u201d There are almost 70 million people in the UK. That, by my count, puts the odds that you\u2019re a closet revolutionary at somewhere around one in three. Eye your neighbours with suspicion, comrade.<\/p>\n This is easy to mock. But this excitable doomsday prophesying is hardly unique. The Express journalist Carole Malone has warned<\/a> Jeremy Vine that immigration has left Britain \u201clike a tinderbox that\u2019s set to explode\u201d. Over in the Telegraph, Isabel Oakeshott has, more in sorrow than in anger, agreed<\/a> with Nigel Farage\u2019s claim that Britain is facing \u201csocietal collapse\u201d. \u201cUnless our leaders get a grip \u2013 and fast,\u201d she warned, \u201cexasperated communities will turn vigilante.\u201d Meanwhile, columnist Allison Pearson \u2013 who, delightfully, co-hosts a podcast named Planet Normal \u2013 recently tweeted<\/a>, \u201cAnyone else hoping for a military coup?\u201d At its end, she included a shrug emoji.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s disappointed former politics professor Matt Goodwin, whose Substack I have looked at so you don\u2019t have to. Recent headlines over there have included \u201cLabour is pushing the UK into civil unrest\u201d, \u201cIs Britain about to blow?\u201d, \u201cEpping is a warning of what\u2019s to come\u201d, and \u201cHow things fall apart\u201d. (This last one promises \u201cmore BOMBSHELL numbers on what is really happening in the UK\u201d. Exciting!)<\/p>\n I am writing this from London, which, so far as I can tell has not fallen, is not on fire and remains free of sharia law. So perhaps I know not whereof I speak. But I do not think this country is on the verge of revolution. Sorry, but I don\u2019t. It just isn\u2019t very British. We tried it once, didn\u2019t like it, switched it off again, and were then one of the few countries in Europe that didn\u2019t join in the fun during 1848. We\u2019ve experienced both street action and political violence, yes, and these are febrile times \u2013 but such things have never overthrown a government. Most of the time they don\u2019t even change policy.<\/p>\n There is ample evidence of real rage out there (there\u2019s this report<\/a> from Anoosh Chakelian, for one thing). Events in Epping are worrying; last summer there were riots. From Corbyn to Brexit, the Labour landslide to the Reform surge, there are plenty of signs that the public hungers for substantive change.<\/p>\n But anti-migrant protests have often been accompanied by pro-migrant counter-protests, and polling has found that the British public overwhelmingly oppose street violence as a form of political action. (According to YouGov<\/a>, just 7 per cent supported last year\u2019s riots; 85 per cent were opposed.) This is not a country that\u2019s ready to man the barricades. Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way.<\/p>\n
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