Iron Britannia

by Anthony Barnett

  The description is disingenuous to the point of being misleading. (When he says ‘society’ he means the market – the transfer of power that results will favour corporations not citizens.) Nonetheless, it is a civilian and consensual programme, not a divisive, militaristic or jingoistic one.

  The Cameronian approach was conceived at the height of the boom, as a continuation of Blair’s pro-market mindset. In 2012 the financial crash and the vast overhang of banking debt taken over by the state promises years of flat-line growth and austerity. What if this undermines the glorious bonus culture of the City and its global role, as both the best offshore set-up on earth and the organiser of Cameron’s marketisation of the British public sector? Thatcher’s remedy was an injection of military prowess to compensate for any such loss. Alas, here too the Coalition has inherited a crash. An ongoing, little-publicised military defeat of British forces is taking place. The UK has broken a fist trying to ‘punch above its weight’. Instead of the UK’s military prowess decorating the financial supremacy of the City of London, we will have to eat austerity without the psychic compensation of winning in Iraq’s Basra or Afghanistan’s Helmand.

  Cameron’s Falklands Syndrome

  A cold-eyed, well-organised observer of what works, Cameron is also preparing the ground for a Falklands-style operation if the opportunity arises. Back in June 2010, he flew to Camp Bastion in Afghanistan. There, he told the troops, ‘I want you to help me create a new atmosphere in our country where we back and revere and support our military.’ Revere? I’m not sure even Margaret Thatcher would have said that. According to Tim Shipman of the Daily Mail, Cameron had already told them (my emphasis),

  ‘During the first and second world wars and during the Falklands War, there was real support in our country for the military. We want to put you front and centre of our national life again …’ Speaking in the midst of a sandstorm, Mr Cameron quoted poet Charles M. Province: ‘It’s not the politician that brings the right to vote it is the soldier, it is not the poet that brings free speech, it is the soldier’.22

  With those final scandalous words our Prime Minister militarised our democracy and liberty of speech, explicitly appealing to the Falklands Syndrome. It is inconceivable that Churchill and Attlee, the wartime premier and his deputy, both battle-hardened front-line officers, would have suggested putting the military ‘at the front and centre of national life’ – they would never have recognised Cameron’s ‘again’. The idea that they would have quoted with approval a ridiculous American poet making the false, shameful and wretchedly contrived allegations that soldiers have given us free speech and the right to vote, defies belief.

  It is, therefore, important to do more than understand how the Falklands worked in 1982, when an apparently sophisticated society actively permitted itself to be taken over by a militaristic leadership. That was the original purpose of Iron Britannia. But today the Falklands needs to be read as the start of a new kind of militarism. The glow of a thirty-year-old triumph inspires our current Prime Minister to pledge that he will embed the military into the centre of British life. True, it is only one card that he is playing in a wider game – who knows what else he has up his sleeve? But whereas his call to release the genie of the Big Society leaves civil-society organisations baffled and their funding gone, a forty-billion-pound annual defence budget, an ongoing war, celebrity-led lobbying by the Royal British Legion and other rich NGOs, along with the networks of the corporate-security state, have a vested interest in the celebration of the military.

  The ease with which their influence seems to be growing, and the lack of resistance to it, stems in part from the punishment the old Establishment culture received at the hands of Prime Minister Thatcher. She was a stickler for formal procedures and the protocols of parliamentary rule. But she broke any sense of an inner respect for opponents as she bent them to her will. She really did create an ‘elected dictatorship’. True, it led the most imperial of rulers to be politically assassinated by her humiliated senators, in a move that could have graced the Roman forum. Yet the way she was purged by them both short-circuited democracy (disgracefully so in my view as it was a conscious attempt to pre-empt an electoral verdict), and privatised still further a process of transformation best described as a transition from government by an Establishment to rule by a political class. While this has been identified and debated, outstandingly so by Peter Oborne, the role of Britain’s deep state, and the military-high-technology complex within it, has not yet been recognised as one of the forces driving the process.23

  The Falklands Syndrome is now a norm, a baton every Prime Minister has to run with. In her memoirs Thatcher describes how she and her War Cabinet had to decide on the rules of engagement for the opening phase of the campaign. She writes, ‘This was the first time any of us had had to make such decisions.’ She also tells us, I think truthfully, ‘When I became Prime Minister I never thought that I would have to order British troops into combat.’24

  Thatcher never expected to give such an order. John Major inherited the need to do so from her, as British troops were already stationed to go into Kuwait in 1991. And Tony Blair was looking forward to the prospect of it. Today, David Cameron is at ease with issuing such orders; it has become ‘part of the job’.

  Over Dead Bodies

  You can’t put your troops into the same war twice. What was an atavistic exercise in armed nostalgia thirty years ago was to morph into a pioneering exercise for the use of armed forces in a localised but ‘full-spectrum’ conflict on land and sea, in the air and using space. In Britain, a reworking of the relationship of the military with the public is needed for exercises of this kind to be sustainable, especially following the failure of Blair’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

  A contest over the bodies of the dead and the wounded plays a defining role in this reshaping of military ideology. The Falklands was the last war where the bodies of those killed were buried where they lay, then taken to a dedicated Military Cemetery in the country where they died; for the tradition was ended there after one family requested the return of their son’s body to the UK. Before the Army acceded, The Sun – ever eager to Americanise British culture – made it a tabloid issue, splashing BRING BACK OUR DEAD BOYS across its front page. Most families asked, and a gruesome cargo was brought back to the UK by ship. It seems that only fourteen now lie within the walls of the Falklands memorial on the islands. I feel this is an important change. Soldiers were buried ‘in some corner of a foreign field’ (sometimes very large corners) because that is where we were. The cemeteries continue to make this claim on the world, even if the nature of the claim alters over time. With the Falklands a new relationship to war and the armed forces begins: the killed come back home to us.

  As Vron Ware shows, ‘The image of the flag-draped coffin remains a site of intense struggle, not just over the meanings of military sacrifice but also the perceived value of the war in which the individual soldier “gave” their life.’25 I want to contribute to this ‘struggle’ briefly because our democracy is being shaped by it. Thanks to the Falklands a new kind of post-war celebration of soldiering begins, that should be borne in mind when we look back. It has become one of British society’s willed consequences of that war.

  The military learnt the need to create and orchestrate a patriotism that supports ‘our boys’ in ‘doing their job’ and being ‘professionals’ (with all the latest high-tech equipment this entails) independent of any political judgement of the conflict itself, its importance, or public support for its supposed objectives. It seems paradoxical that this should start with the Falklands, which was so popular. But the military is especially aware of how contrived and potentially controversial was the South Atlantic Campaign. They understand, for example, as the public does not, that we do not have today’s Navy with its global reach in order to defend the Falklands. We retain the Falklands in order to hang on to a global navy.

  Without the Cold War to sustain them, the armed forces n
eed wars to justify their budgets. But as the wars themselves are dislocated from a core defence of the homeland a new approach is needed to ensure their legitimacy. The military are keen to be used in far-flung conflicts to ensure more money and resources. But as the politics becomes dodgier they also need to know that they will not be hung out to dry. They demand that their legal position is protected, and especially that funding is guaranteed for those who return injured, for as troops become deployed as armed policemen under the flag of humanitarian adventures, they are increasingly seen as humans. That is no bad thing. Rather than this enhancing our own humanity, however, it permits our democracy to be manipulated into support for dubious wars and military values. In short, an attempt is underway to update and lodge ever more explicitly military values into what it means to be British.

  For every corpse sent back by a conflict there are many living wounded, physically and psychologically damaged and often permanently disabled. In 1982 there were only rundown facilities available, no preparation for casualties and no understanding of their needs when they returned. The issue was dramatised by Tumbledown, a compelling film of what happened to Robert Lawrence MC, a twenty-two-year-old captain in the Scots Guards, who was partially paralysed after his brain took a sniper’s bullet in the last violent clash of the campaign, the battle for Mt Tumbledown. Starring Colin Firth, written by Charles Wood after striking up a friendship with Lawrence (who advised on the film’s production), and directed by Richard Eyre, its viewing figures were nearly fourteen million when the BBC showed it in 1988. The film has two outstanding features, apart from a compelling performance from the young Firth struggling with rehabilitation and trauma. Up till then the human images of the Falklands War had been completely sanitised. Photographers were kept well away from the front line to prevent a Vietnam-style public revulsion26. Tumbledown brought into living rooms the gruesome nature of the hand-to-hand combat that the troops were thrown into, and the real conditions of the war (and there is at least one report of The Sun being burnt for its jingoism by the squaddies themselves). More important, and with understated originality, Tumbledown exposed the appalling indifference and incomprehension that awaited the wounded when they came home. The Ministry of Defence did everything it could to stop a film being shown in which Lawrence was wildly indignant at his treatment and felt he had been betrayed. Most alarming for the authorities, the stricken officer turns to his parents and delivers the most chilling judgement of all, ‘It wasn’t worth it, Mummy,’ to which she replies, ‘I know darling, I know.’ The ex-RAF father says nothing, a silence that speaks volumes.

  The Second World War was filled with gratuitous and accidental deaths. But the war as a whole could still be defended with Churchill’s rhetoric or Attlee’s ‘Life without liberty is not worth living.’ Not so a war of choice in the South Atlantic,

  I am proud of my son – but not proud of the fact that he died for his country in a war that was not necessary. I accept that it is a serviceman’s duty to fight. But in a futile situation like this, I think it’s evil to put men’s lives at risk when negotiations around a table can save so much heartbreak.27

  This mother’s sentiments could be swept aside then, as the war finished and the dead came back in one ship. The threat of such feelings becomes more of a challenge this century when the bodies have been coming back regularly, one by one, week after week from an illegal war in Iraq since 2003 and from an arguably undeclared war in Helmand, since 2006.

  Returning coffins were at first flown in to RAF Lyneham. From there the bodies were driven to the morgue at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital before being taken to their resting place. The route went through the small town of Wootton Bassett. As they were driven through, almost weekly, people in the town started to stand to attention, then throw flowers at the cars and salute the dead. Few were confident of the reasons why the young were dying, but none wanted their sacrifice to be treated with indifference. The authorities were nervous. The public’s attitude to each fatality’s cortege threatened them with a loss of control and might even turn to open protest as the media moved in.

  A comparison comes to mind with the outpouring of dignified but palpable mass anger at the coldness and indifference displayed by the Queen and her family towards Diana, Princess of Wales, after she died. Where there is genuine and authentic public feeling there is an opportunity for cynical exploitation. The protest over Diana was skilfully manipulated into a re-establishment of public support for the monarchy and its system.

  Likewise, the potential for Wootton Bassett to become an unofficial protest was circumscribed by laudatory coverage, the mobilisation of the Royal British Legion and the fact that the Army had been looking for ways to turn back public hostility to the wars. A desire to honour the fallen was nudged into a celebration of British power. Then, in early 2011 RAF Lyneham stopped being used as the point of arrival as Brize Norton replaced it. The drive through ceased and Wootton Bassett was wrapped in ermine to be known henceforth as Royal Wootton Bassett, in gratitude for its loyalty.

  Despite this, the endorsements of the British Legion and the Army, and media laudations, the silent gatherings retain an eerie force still, as an insistent public acknowledgement of the cost of war, and a reminder of what was going wrong in Iraq and Afghanistan. While the town may be wrapped in loyal fur, its name also symbolises a reproach to the politicians and generals. Meanwhile, though deprived of a high-street salute, the coffins continue to return week after week.

  At the same time that Wootton Bassett was honouring the dead in 2007, Help for Heroes was founded (it has now generated over £100 million for the wounded) and Steve McQueen’s conceptual art response to Basra was exhibited.28 Robert Lawrence, the hero of Tumbledown now in his fifties, founded Global Adventure Plus to ‘help ex-servicemen get back on their feet’ by ‘rekindling enthusiasm for life.’ He notes on its website,

  It is startling to learn that in comparison to the 256 British killed during the Falklands conflict over 370 have since committed suicide, it is believed that over 25% of our homeless are ex military and the largest occupational group within HM prisons are ex military.

  It is not clear if these figures are accurate or, if they are, whether they are due to the experience of combat, the failure of aftercare, the way the Army treats soldiers,29 or because a relatively high proportion of young men who are already unstable are drawn to the Army in the first place. However, there is anger among a significant number of British veterans. The costs they pay for active deployment are celebrated in purely human terms as a job done heroically, while their heroism is disassociated from a cause that clearly demands such sacrifice.

  What better, what more human way to smother such anger, than a love song? Who could object to the Military Wives Choir ‘capturing’ the Christmas’ number one of 2011, selling over half a million copies of ‘Wherever You Are’? To do so risks appearing to be a hard-hearted cynic or a snob. Of course I cheer the humanity of those expressing their love at a distance, and share their trepidation. But these emotions are being exploited. ‘Wherever you are … may your courage never cease.’ Fighting men are being backed irrespective of the cause. Helmand is currently the source of most British losses, in a campaign that has seen nearly as many British killed as the Falklands and Iraq combined. As Henry Porter has pointed out, it is likely that the UK forces’ occupation of Helmand created the conflict there – and certainly made it worse.30 What’s the point of that? But would the choir have received the same support from the BBC had the military wives sung ‘Whatever you do’, or if they’d included the immortal line, ‘Is it worth it?’, from Elvis Costello’s response to the Falklands, ‘Shipbuilding’?

  That old Military Covenant (fooled you)

  There was a small, but outspoken, protest against the treatment of soldiers and their families. Its authentic, passionate and justified nature threatened to grow into a larger objection to the misuse of the armed forces that connected to the various anti-war movements and becom
e a challenge to the way we are governed. It could even have given lasting force to the huge demonstrations against the Iraq war. This danger to the regime was pre-emptively disarmed – by being appropriated. The generals themselves led the protest movement against the treatment of their men.

  I discuss this here as an essential introduction to Iron Britannia in 2012, because this is how they are preparing for the next Falklands war. They need to prevent soldiers saying ‘It wasn’t worth it, Mummy’ – and this is how they are going about it. The so-called Military Covenant is the signal of future war: wherever it is, it will be worth it for the boys. The Independent on Sunday launched a massive campaign for it in 2007 backed by the British Legion and others, headlining it: ABANDONED, THE DISGRACEFUL TREATMENT OF BRITAIN’S FIGHTING MEN AND WOMEN:

  The Independent on Sunday wants soldiers to have the right to expect any war to be lawful, to have adequate resources, the right to be properly cared for in the event of injury and the right to know that, in the event of their death, their families will be properly looked after.

  Early in his premiership, on 25 June 2010, David Cameron addressed troops aboard HMS Ark Royal and told them, ‘It’s time for us to rewrite the military covenant to make sure we are doing everything we can. Whether it’s the schools you send your children to, whether it’s the health care that you expect, whether it’s the fact that there should be a decent military ward for anyone who gets injured. I want all these things refreshed and renewed and written down in a new military covenant that’s written into the law of the land.’

  As the Daily Mail put it, the Covenant will ‘include rights to prioritised NHS treatment, decent housing and proper education for service families’ children’. Everyone agreed. Labour spokesmen were furious when the government tried to wriggle out of its commitment. But in the Second World War, British forces had the Beveridge Report in their pocket. They fought to create the NHS and the welfare state for all and voted in Labour to create it; they shared the war aim of decent housing and proper education for all citizens. Today it seems that, on the contrary, joining the Army is not just about fighting for your country: its purpose is to get out of the regular NHS – you fight also for better education for your children and housing for your family than ordinary folk. You sign up for life-long privileges, as what is good enough for us is no longer good enough for our soldiers.31