politics

Starkey Explains The Sixth English Revolution

Alex Coppen

May 20, 2024 • 13 min read

David Starkey's unique gift is his ability to transcribe in words what history has written invisibly on the hearts of Englishmen. Britain's grumpiest old Cambridge professor has a way of explaining our collective memory in a way which terrifies the entrenched vested interests because he is forensic in detail and brutal in his rhetoric.

England is an ancient country built on bonds of sentiment. We do not have a written constitution, because we have 2000 years of sentimental constitution.

The transformation of England into a socialist state under successive Labour governments (Atlee, Wilson, Blair) has reached a head, and the embrace of the same policies by their opposition - who have always represented the populations views and dominated Parliament for 200 years - is a catastrophic political event.

Mervyn King once said that if you look at Britain’s GDP since the Second World War, only two dates really stand out: 1979 and 2008. One where we started to become richer, and one where we suddenly became poorer.
https://www.cato.org/commentary/thatcher-did-not-stimulate-economic-growth

Starkey's Commentary: The Memo

As always, Starkey is on point. But his tone this year is vitriolic.

A majority government being voted in which no-one wants has never happened before;
Liz Truss's disaster is identical to Edward Heath's disaster. His capitulation to militants led to the re-election of Harold Wilson;
Most of Britain's decline can be blamed on Atlee's post-WWII reforms and took 30 years to reverse;
Blair's revolution parallels Atlee's but is much worse;
You cannot tackle culture directly, and the poisonous ruin of leftism is due to a political support network created by Blair;
We have to carry out a 1660-style restoration, as America will also have to;
Blair's reforms subvert the central constitutional principle of Anglo success: the sovereignty of Parliament;
The Crown-in-Parliament goes back to the 13th and 14th century. Freedom is grounded in history, not abstract reason;
The idea everyone is represented in Parliament, either himself, or by his representative, is what carried our country through every major change. The suffragettes didn't want to tear Parliament down, they wanted the right to sit in it and have an honoured place within it;
The Tory embrace of socialism reached its peak in 1917 with the rearrangement of the monarchy and reform of the Honours system, where socialists and trade unionists were integrated under the "companion of honour".
The Brexit "take back control" slogan was misplaced. The power hadn't gone to the EU. The problem was domestic quangoes and devolved parliaments;
The Bank of England's record since Mervyn King has been disastrous;
Scotland's devolution has simply recreated all the worst features of pre-union Scotland: clan-ism, Calvinism, corruption, factionalism;
The 1707 agreement with Scotland preserved the country's sovereignty, with the only bond being Parliament;
The idea of "union" in America is a development of unionism in England;
The European Court of Human Rights (1998) was disastrous because it established a law with authority which does not depend on popular consent;
The 2005 Constitutional Reform Act established a Supreme Court, which is contradictory and incompatible with a supreme Parliament;
England cannot have a separation of powers like the US when the head of the executive sits in the legislature and controls it;
New Labour carried out a partial Americanisation of the British constitution and it must be completely reversed;
The Charities Act was perverted from strict rules to make charity "internationalist" around "human rights", which is why the lifeboat agency picks up refugees;
The ECHR was never meant to be a court for individuals, but as a "guide to the making of law". Rights are no longer absolute as they have always been in England, because judges can play with them as they wish;
"Human rights" created by the UN were deliberately perverted during the 60s, 70s, and 80s, by the communist bloc. They were intended as protection of the individual against the state, but were inverted via the levers of "anti-imperialism" and "racism" into the supposed "protection" of minorities against the majority;
Orwell's dictatorship is a left-wing one, which emphasises the importance of language in exercise of political control. The Proles are left alone to their stupor, whereas the busybody middle classes are the party believers;
The Equality Act perverts universal equality under the law by privileging specific groups;
The goal of law is now "equality" or some notion of redressing vast social wrongs;
Putting any adjective in front of the word "justice" perverts it;
The last time England had laws about speech was in the Reformation under Henry VIII ("treason by words");

From the Q&A:

We must not have any kind of written constitution;
England and France are the two missing halves of the perfect civilisation;
There are two different methods of running human affairs: a) the British free market of ideas, tested by time - expressed as evolved Common Law; and b) the French idea of starting everything from scratch via an "explosion in the brain";
Britain invented modernity, paradoxically, by rooting it in the past;
America used the rhetoric of the French revolution but wrote down a lightly-re-worked version of the constitution of England;
All revolutions are disasters, with the standard principle being their propensity to replicate the worst features of the regime they displaced;
The question is not whether to change, but how to change. If you change according to abstract principle, it is always a catastrophe. If you change organically, you succeed;
Freedom is the foundation of human progress;
The mismanagement of the economy is due to the deranged attempt to use "econometrics" to "tweak" it, when one should be aiming at a balanced budget;
The size of the state is ruinous, and it has become parasitic because it is too big for the economy;
All inflation is the result of state activity, with politicians' behaviour guaranteeing it by borrowing cast amounts of money to pump into the economy;
The collapse of the welfare state is comparable to Rome, when Caracalla doubled the wages of the army;
If you have equality before the law, an "equality act" is completely unnecessary;
The point of "woke" is it replaces the notion of equality before the law with group allegiance;
Patrick Nash's book explains the reason we developed such a brilliant legal system in England was because we outlawed cousin marriage. It leads to clans, and membership to a group rather than to the state;
The only thing not protected under "equality" law is reason;
An "equality act" is designed to produce privilege and specifically privileged groups. The way "freedom of speech" is imposed is to designed to limit it. "Hate speech" legislation is designed to permit hate speech by privileged groups and prevent the rest of us from objecting;
Woke absurdities happen because of laws protecting them, and a framework allow more of them to be legislated;
Our historical successes are the best argument against wokism;
Mervyn King said there are only two facts you need to know about post-war British economic policy: growth starts in 1979, and stops in 2008.
We are seeing a shuttering down of the world's most successful state and society (America and Britain are distant twins);
The little island of Britain did what it did by pioneering freedom and giving the world a model of living: the weekend, sport, dress etc;

England's Five Revolutions

England has always been renowned for its stability. However, in its history, major changes have occurred which dramatically changed the country's trajectory.

1. 1215 Magna Carta

King John was forced by an alliance of northern barons to accept a Charter which limited the powers of the monarch and established the principle that everyone, including the king, was subject to the law.

Result: the Rule of Law was established.

2. 1381 Peasants' Revolt

Wat Tyler led the first major uprising across large parts of England in response to the imposition of a poll tax and the socio-economic consequences of the Black Death (Covid!).

Result: taxes were abolished and officials were executed.

3. 1642-1651 Civil War

The Parliamentarians ("Roundheads") and Royalists ("Cavaliers"), fought over the manner of England's governance, resulting in the execution of King Charles I, the temporary overthrow of the monarchy, and the establishment of the Commonwealth republic of England.

Result: the monarchy was overthrown and the country became a republic.

4. 1688-1689 Glorious Revolution

Protestant William of Orange (William III) and his wife Mary II were invited by Parliament to replace the Catholic King James II, which established the principle of parliamentary sovereignty and led to the Bill of Rights (1689), limiting the powers of the monarch and protecting the rights of Parliament.

Result: Parliament became sovereign and the Bill of Rights was adopted.

5. 1946 Socialist Reorganisation

A succession of socialist Labour governments (and weak Conservative governments imitating them), transferred private ownership to the State and attempted to transform England into an European-style social contract nation under abstract notions of "equality" and "human rights".

Result: widespread poverty, decolonisation, overpopulation, constitutional crisis.

What Have The Socialists Done?

Britain was left bankrupt by two world wars. The subsequent rise of Pax Americana led to the voluntary dissolution of the world's largest empire and the economic destruction of the country in the name of "making everything equal". England took a horrific turn after the Suez Crisis, adopting things America and other colonies refused to.

By the early 50s, Britain had revolutionised the world's militaries, invented the nuclear reactor, computer, 3D holography, hovercrafts, integrated circuits, road cats' eyes, videotapes - despite the state of the country. It did this by concentrating talent, and through the stubborn inventive resiliency of Britons. It was decidedly unequal in influence and innovation.

David Lammy, socialist politician, describes the situation in 1997 at the end of the Empire:

When former Prime Minister Tony Blair entered Downing Street 27 years ago, the British economy was larger than India’s and China’s combined.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-kingdom/case-progressive-realism-david-lammy

In the 70 years since WWII, civil service-led, socialist-inspired governments have:

Monopolised "equal" state healthcare (the NHS) which barely functions;
Abolished private land ownership via the "planning permission" and "social housing" system;
Nationalised banks and industries into state ownership;
Covered the country in revolting communist-bloc-style Brutalist architecture;
Destroyed the tripartite education system and replaced it with the disastrous comprehensive system;
Burdened multiple generations with an ever-expanding benefits/pension system which cannot pay for itself;
Silently voted for 30 years to ban capital punishment, which the people have been in favour of by 2:1;
Taken 51% of ordinary earnings via the PAYE progressive tax system;
Legalised abortion, leading to 200,000 killings a year since 1967;
Banned private firearms ownership;
Mutated to the definition of self-defence to require "proportionality", against the consistent wishes of the electorate by at least 4:1;
Protected militant trade unions with laws, allowing them to wreak havoc;
Placed the entire legal system under a foreign court;
Placed the entire political system under a foreign super-federation;
Broken the world's most successful political union (the UK) into devolved governments;
Destroyed marriage with "civil partnerships", no-fault divorce, and homosexual "marriage";
Taken the country into wars the people disagreed with, while covering up war crimes by special forces soldiers;
Sold off the country's gold supplies;
Implemented mass surveillance with CCTV and telecoms/internet monitoring;
Proscribed "hate speech" and identity politics into law;
Ignored the mass rape of schoolgirls in 40+ northern towns by Pakistani crime gangs, and years of domestic islamic terrorism;
Deliberately encouraged a doubling of the population with mass immigration;
Flown neo-Marxist flags from government buildings;
Decimated energy policy with inertia over nuclear power and orientating the economy around spurious "net zero" policy;
Locked down the population in their homes and used the army's psych warfare unit against citizens;
Decimated the armed forces - while leading them into foreign wars against Russia and Iran;
It goes on, and on, and on, and on....

The country is nearing a population of 90M, most of whom live near or under the poverty line, outside London. They no longer recognise their country.

And they are very, very, VERY angry.

What Will The 6th Revolution Be?

Parliament has become an aristocracy of little rulers who are more concerned with internationalism than ordinary people.

This is exemplified with immigration policy, but it has a long precedent in the death penalty. Britons have consistently been 2:1 in favour of it, yet MPs voted quietly for 30 years to keep it "paused" until Blair abolished it under the rules of a foreign superstate. They knowingly went against the specific wishes of the electorate, every year, for three decades. Then they knowingly made the country a protectorate of the same superstate, under a foolish premise internationalism of all nations was "inevitable".

Socialists, regardless of their party membership, have always made the same error: they believe the British class system is the source of all evil and is widely hated. It isn't. The working class didn't show up to perform their revolution because they don't hate the rich; they want to join them.

It's embodied in Parliament: working class people don't hate Wimbledon and Ascot. They want to dress up and join in too. If you want to win every MP seat in the North, simply put a grammar school in every town where poor kids with high IQs and/or talents for art or sport can join the upper classes in a matter of years.

Britons are stubborn villagers who value sportsmanlike fairness and orderliness. The class system is an expression of that, as is queuing and pageantry. They want the ability to move up through the class system themselves, and to help others who have fallen downwards through it. They want mobility; to nobly earn their way, and for their individual quality of life to flourish/prosper. To say thanks, they don't mind paying back in to their nation with their time and taxes.

Nobody really wants an NHS. They want to be wealthy enough to pay for themselves into a non-insurance-based system. They do not want "Net Zero", they write endlessly into newspapers requesting safe nuclear energy so they can do their bit to preserve the countryside they adore. Nobody thinks any normal, reasonable person should have to ask "permission" for what to do with their own private land if it offends no-one else.

There will never be a grass-roots communist revolution in England. There has been a socialist march of intellectuals through the institutions which has left working class people ruined, and they blame the conservatives for not holding the radicals back.

The bond which holds the UK together is the ability to participate in the political process. That means Parliament. Parliament is ours; we own it; we make our own laws for ourselves. That is what is means.

Parliament has become its own body, and is disconnected from the people. That means a revolution is coming, as it always has.

The anger against it can be summarised in a few points:

A vanguard of unelected, incompetent, and partisan Civil Service/Quango bureaucrats is in control of the politicians and process, not us;
Our weak and mediocre representatives believe themselves to be our rulers;
Our country has been catastrophically mismanaged, and transformed into something no-one voted for.

However, there is a genuine threat of sectarian violence and/or civil disorder because of the increasing Muslim population and its political influence. When people get poor, and voiceless, they only have one option left.

These immigrant groups do not share our Parliamentary tradition - which binds us - and broadly do not seem to want to understand it or participate in it.

Our conflict-resolution structure was Parliament. Parliament turned against the people in 2017 and the next election will have record lack of participation. The result will be a government no-one wants, either way.

In 2016, MP Jo Cox was murdered by an extremist;
In 2021, MP David Ames was murdered by an extremist;
This year, MPs were given armed security because the Speaker of the House was terrified of potential violence from protestors.

Prior to these, the last MP to be murdered was Ian Gow (Conservative), who was killed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) in a car bomb attack outside his home in East Sussex on July 30, 1990.

Given English history, it stands to reason the 6th revolution might well be a radical 1660-style restoration of participation in Parliamentary democracy, as Starkey advises. This will almost certainly take the form of:

Replacing the "winner-takes-all" (aka "first past the post") system with Proportional Representation (PR);
Severe curtailing of the Civil Service/Quango bureaucracy, via technology;
Severe restrictions on MPs and a reduction of the volume of them;
Replacing representatives with Swiss-style direct democracy, using technology;
Abolition or transformation of socialist reforms, such as the welfare state, NHS, immigration, devolution, planning permission, etc;

The problem factor here, as the sensible British public have been saying for years, is the rapid demographic change in the electorate. The 2011 census recorded around 2.7 million Muslims, or 4.9% of the population. According to the most recent census data from the Office for National Statistics, the Muslim population in England and Wales was approximately 3.9 million in 2021, making up 6.5% of the total population.

The same census noted there were approximately 9.6 million people living in the UK who were born abroad, making up around 14.5% of the total population. This is an increase from the 2011 census, which recorded around 7.5 million foreign-born residents, or about 11.5% of the population.

1 in 6 Britons is foreign-born.
1 in 20 is Muslim.
There are 40,000 Muslims on MI5's terror watch list. That is more than half the size of the British Army (75,166 regulars).

The Treasury and "Office of Budget Responsibility" (OBR) - unelected bureaucrats supposedly managed by elected representatives - have been importing foreign workers, en masse, against the people's express wishes, under the belief "immigrants equal growth". They just so happen to be the same "impartial" partisans whose party the immigrants tend to vote for.

The purpose of which is to support a welfare system which has collapsed under its own weight due to a declining birth rate: you need the next generation to be the same size or greater to support the one before it. Gen Z was smaller than the milennials, and Alpha will be even smaller.

The massive influx - a doubling of the population - has radically constricted the domestic supply from the massive demand. Ordinary people can no longer access the NHS, find a competitively-paying job, or buy a house, as kids are bombed in stadiums or raped in taxi offices. For which they are called "racist" and "gammon" if they complain.

British citizens are being taxed at their highest since WWII and the State budget is over 50% of the country's GDP. On top of ordinary people being physically locked down in their homes while surveillance technology is deployed on their streets to ensure "eco" zones triple their heating bills. As they earn less per person than any other Anglo country, and their officials are unable to define what a woman is.

Ex-PM adviser Dominic Cummings wrote on Twitter:

Nothing will change about how Whitehall works, there'll be no accountability for senior people, SW1 has a formula for bullshit apologies then quickly onto the next media bullshit - they *never* change after each disaster except to get worse - Iraq, Afghanistan, 2008, covid, Ukraine, post offices, blood... Officials prepare fake theatre for the NPC MPs / hacks, SW1 wallows in cheap sentiment for a day or so with practiced 'tight lipped emotional' faces & fake 'never again' statements 'from all sides of the House', & officials carry on applying the same corruption, lies, and incompetence to government that's become par for the course... *The system is working as intended*

https://x.com/Dominic2306/status/1792599810693796028

What exactly do you do when you when conservative voters don't want the Conservative Party and Labour voters don't want the Labour Party, but the "winner-takes-all" system preserves the two-party uniparty monopoly - to produce politicians controlled by the Civil Service doing the opposite of what the electorate want?

You reach the point of implosion.

In 2011, British police were overwhelmed in 72hrs by teenage rioters communicating with Blackberries and Twitter. The army were mobilised because they were overwhelmed by simple distraction tactics.

The questions now are a) when, and b) how. And how we avoid bloodshed with the use of political force without paramilitary violence. This is England's tradition, and the signs are self-evident. The event is now inevitable, which means the only issue to ponder is how to preserve peace.