15. The 1984 Miners' Strike
16. London Bombings
17. The Sinking of the General Belgrano 1982
18. Rebecca Loos and the Beckham Affair
19. Sinking of Zeebrugge Disaster 1987
20. Iranian Embassy Siege
At the bottom this erodes the importance of the vote for people in this country … It prevents people using the ballot box … to change taxes and laws … We are being invited to give up those rights. Panorama, Tony Benn vs Roy Jenkins ***** with David Dimbleby, BBC 1975, Benn
Will destroy all that is most valuable in Britain. ibid.
Absolute sovereignty is nonsense. ibid. Jenkins
I think it’s about democracy. ibid. Benn
Pool our sovereignty. ibid. Jenkins
It would create jobs for our people – that was his [Heath] phrase. ibid. Benn
Common Market membership has been a disaster. ibid.
We’ve really got to have confidence in this country’s capacity to survive. ibid.
An economic and monetary union is a long way off … I think as a long-term objective, yes, it could be highly desirable. ibid. Jenkins
Nicola Sturgeon – until recently a name few outside Scotland had heard. Now it’s a word on everybody’s lips. Panorama: The Most Dangerous Woman in Britain, BBC 2015
All eyes are on her relationship with the prime minster. ibid.
Branded the ‘Most Dangerous Women in Britain’ [Daily Mail]. ibid.
These people all think they’re British but in the eyes of the law they’re not. They’re the children of migrants. They’ve grown up here and say they’ve been penalised through no fault of their own. Many are paying through the nose so they can stay in the country they already call home. Some are facing deportation to counties they barely know. Panorama: Am I British? BBC 2021
Britain and Europe start working out how exactly this conscious coupling will proceed and what Brexit actually means. Life After Brexit: A Newsnight Special, BBC 2016
How did we get such a divided country? … The most fraught issue of all – the gulf between Inners and Outers. The new national divide. ibid.
It became the biggest event in modern British history: the Referendum. But it was really a family row – one raging in the Conservative Party for over half a century. Brexit: A Very British Coup, BBC 2016
Enter Farage: Vote Leave have refused to allow Nigel any part in their campaign. ibid.
‘I’ve been on the road a fortnight and most of my time has been spent in Labour areas ... There’s not such much of a debate going on in Labour areas.’ ibid.
Theresa May is about to push the button on Brexit and head off on a mission … For Brexiteers the dream is a quicky divorce. Brexit: Britain’s Biggest Deal, BBC 2017
A lot of money is on the table ... That potentially massive bill is for Britain’s share of existing EU spending commitments like the pensions of EU officials. ibid.
Our skies are governed right now by the EU with a myriad of European legislation. ibid.
They set themselves a new target of negotiating a trade deal within two years. On top of all that tricky divorce. ibid.
Tonight: will it be deal or no deal? The countdown to Brexit is on. Getting it right on trade: the biggest political test of Theresa May’s life. Tonight: Deal or No Deal? Brexit Britain, ITV 2016
The EU has said there’ll be a so-called divorce settlement which some say could cost us up to £50 billion. ibid.
Angry and divided Britain. The victims of abuse online. The rise of extremism. And how can Britain be repaired? Angry Britain: Beyond Repair? ITV 2019
Every year thousands of children travel to Britain from poor countries seeking new lives. The government allows some to stay till they’re eighteen and grow up British. But once they become adults they face deportation back to where they were born. Don’t Deport Me, I’m British, BBC 2017
The government places most unaccompanied asylum-seeking children into foster care. ibid.
In the last ten years the Home Office has deported over 3,800 young people. ibid.
When I look at Britain I fail to see what the masses see: instead I see a nation of conformists, a nation of sad drunks and drug addicts sitting in front of the TV drinking and working their lives away, I see a nation obsessed with overpriced gadgets, football and reality TV … I see a nation that stands by and watches as our sick government cuts benefits for the sick, disabled and the poor … I see corruption in the banks, the government, the police and the media … Wolvoman80, Fuck the System I, Youtube 1.53.27
In 2014 black British citizens legally settled in the UK since they were children were told by the government to prove they have the right to be here. They faced deportation back to countries they could barely remember. They lost jobs, homes, savings and much more. It became known as the Windrush Scandal and it shocked the nation. But another story went untold: the story of seventy years of political panic, bad faith and racial prejudice in the corridors of power. David Olusoga, The Unwanted: The Secret Windrush Files, BBC 2019
Sarah, Anthony and Judy are all victims of the so-called Hostile Environment, a crackdown on illegal immigration first introduced in 2014 … Now the authorities required proof of their right to be here and extensive documentary records for the whole of their lives in the UK. ibid.
The Empire Windrush was a converted German troop ship commandeered after the war. ibid.
As it headed to Britain the Windrush became a serious embarrassment, and even in the words of prime minister Clement Attlee ‘an incursion’. ibid.
By its own estimate the government required an extra 1.3 million workers to help rebuild a country shattered by five years of war. ibid.
At its most extreme, it was government policy to give preference to men who had fought against Britain over men who were veterans of British forces and all because those veterans were black. ibid.
Churchill is reported to have said that immigration was the most important subject facing the country but complained that he couldn’t get his ministers to take any notice. ibid.
Many of the second wave of migrants travelled by air … The government machine now had the new arrivals firmly in its sights. ibid.
The children of the Windrush Generation who not for the last time would pay the highest price. ibid.
Prime Minister Winston Churchill had surprised cabinet colleagues by suggesting the Conservatives fight the next election on the slogan, Keep England White. ibid.
Since the 1971 Act successive British governments have passed more than a dozen nationality and immigration laws. ibid
The belief that the United Kingdom was a nation that was now reconciled with its history ... was to prove over-optimistic. David Olusoga IV: Union and Disunion, BBC 2023
Britain has never been an easy country to define or understand. ibid.
By the power of faith, by the wealth of empire, by the threat of invasion.
1912: The Home Rule Bill: The story of what happened in Ireland in the years after 1912 is a story that has the city of Belfast at its centre. ibid.
Irish independence meant that at a stroke the land mass of the United Kingdom shrank by 20%. ibid.
In the 1960s another conflict erupted. The Troubles left over 3,500 people dead and led to the deployment of the British army on to the streets of British cities. That conflict officially ended in 1998. ibid.
What emerged from the Second World War was a new national mythology. ibid.
‘Between 1920 and 1922 Belfast is the most violent place in Ireland. It is really the epicentre of revolutionary violence. What we see again and again is violence in one part of Ireland leads to violence in another part.’ The Road to Partition s1e1, BBC 2021, historian
On 22 June 1921 King George V and Queen Mary arrived in Belfast for the first official opening of the Northern Ireland parliament. Fearful for their lives, they had come to a city scarred with sectarian division. The occasion marked the creation of the new state of Northern Ireland. ibid.
This is the story of the dramatic events that led to the partition of Ireland. A story that continues to reverberate to the present day. And dominate the relationship between the islands of Britain and Ireland. ibid.
For Britain, the loudest and most strident demands for self-determination came from very close to home, from a country that it had ruled for centuries: Ireland. Prior to the war, and in response to long-standing demands from Irish nationalists, Britain had been preparing to devolve some powers to a Dublin-based parliament, through so-called home-rule. But home-rule was fiercely resisted by Unionists, particularly in Belfast and large parts of Ulster, where for centuries the population had been impacted by migration from Scotland and England. ibid.
By the end of the nineteenth century Ulster’s distinctiveness was marked by its status as the most industrialised part of Ireland. ibid.
The outbreak of the First World War averted to threat of a violent confrontation between Ulster Unionists and the British government, and home rule was suspended. ibid.
Nine weeks after the Easter rising, on the western front the men of the 36th Division made a very different blood sacrifice. In July, during the first two days of fighting at the battle of the Somme, the Division suffered an appalling 5,500 casualties. Men fighting for Britain … ‘The battle of the Somme was absolute slaughter particularly for Ulster Unionists.’ ibid.