David Betz isn’t some bloke in the pub ranting about revolution. He’s a Professor of War Studies at King’s College London. In his essay, ‘Civil War Comes to the West‘, he outlines the precursors to societal collapse. Collapsing trust in institutions, a gulf between rulers and ruled, policy failure and a public that no longer believes lawful change is possible.

Sound far-fetched?

This week in Essex, a public meeting about a migrant hotel descended into chaos. Protesters and counter-protesters squared off, police were called, and the locals, those living with the consequences, were ignored. They usually are.

Meanwhile, doctors are striking as the NHS buckles under its own weight. Seven million on waiting lists. A&Es in meltdown. GP appointments cancelled before they’re even booked.

Birmingham Council went bust, after blowing millions on mismanagement and diversity consultants, while bin collections and libraries vanished. Thames Water dumps sewage into rivers by the ton, drowns in debt, and still pays out bonuses.

No resignations. No prosecutions. Just more slogans and ‘action plans’.

This isn’t governance. It’s theatre. A slow-motion farce in which the audience pays, the actors lie, and critics are told to mind their tone.

We’re not in civil war yet, but we are in slow decline. The institutions still stand, but few believe in them. Politicians. Civil servants. The BBC. The Bishops. Sacked football commentators turned podcasters. Sanctimonious actors. All spouting the same Orwellian doublethink: ‘Diversity is strength’, while reinforcing security at migrant hotels and telling police not to take sides. When they clearly do, nothing happens.

Betz calls it the death of trust. And once trust dies, peaceful consensus dies with it.

The Warning Signs Are Flashing

Don’t take my word for it. Look at the data:

• Just 9% of Brits trust politicians to tell the truth (Ipsos, 2024).
• Fewer than one in five trust the BBC — numbers halve outside London (YouGov, 2023).
• Only 34% believe democracy works well in the UK, down from 62% a decade ago (British Social Attitudes, 2023).
• 72% say immigration is too high, yet ministers still mumble “the system is broken” as if someone else broke it.
• National debt now exceeds 100% of GDP, with 20 years of consecutive deficits (ONS, 2024).

Meanwhile, knife crime nears record highs. School standards drop. Public services strain. Home ownership collapses. Mental health crumbles. Life expectancy stagnates.

In the poorest areas of England, male life expectancy is now under 73. Two decades behind affluent areas. Blackpool could be mistaken for post-Soviet decay.

Young people, drowning in rent, debt and hopelessness, are told to be grateful for a Netflix subscription and a mental health app.

The Establishment swears blind it sees the rot. It promises reform. Nothing changes. Only taxpayers are ever held accountable, footing the bill while public sector leaders cash in, without a word of regret or a hint of shame.

The Problem Isn’t Just Incompetence. It’s Impunity

It’s not that the system fails. It’s that no one pays for it.

• The Post Office scandal: Hundreds of innocent lives ruined. No exec jailed.
• Covid: Families banned from funerals. Politicians partied. No resignations.
• Thames Water: 1.3 million hours of sewage dumped. Bonuses paid.
• Net Zero: £28 billion a year to leave you cold while ministers fly to climate summits.
• Grooming gangs: Thousands abused. Officials turned blind eyes. No accountability.
• HS2: Over £100 billion incinerated. Scrapped halfway. Nobody fired.
• Windrush: British citizens wrongly deported. Apologies offered. No one sacked.
• Grenfell: 72 dead. Safety failures known for years. Still no prison time.
• Illegal immigration: Record boat crossings. £8 million a day on asylum hotels. Complain, and you’re labelled a bigot.

Other Nations Faced the Cliff, And Swerved

Denial has a shelf life. Eventually, even the most ideological governments hit the wall. And when they do, reality bites hard.

Sweden used to be the progressive paradise. Open borders, generous welfare, soft integration. Then came the bombings, the gang crime, the ghettos. In 2023, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson declared:

Segregation has gone too far. Sweden is too weak to protect itself. … We will turn every stone to restore safety.

It now enforces mandatory integration, language testing and relocation from ethnic enclaves. Not Nigel Farage. Not Marine Le Pen. That’s Sweden’s centre-Right.

Argentina spent decades on ‘social justice’, printing money and bloating the state. Along came Javier Milei, a libertarian with a chainsaw who promised to slash government, abolish the central bank and dollarise the economy.

The elites laughed. The people elected him.

Within months, he cut spending by 5% of GDP and eliminated the deficit. Poverty is still high, but there’s a plan, not platitudes.

They Swapped Platitudes for Principles

Sweden and Argentina bowed to progressive orthodoxy. Open borders, moral grandstanding, endless handouts. Then reality crashed the party.

They didn’t hold a vigil. They changed course. Swapped slogans for action. Started governing like it mattered.

Meanwhile, Britain hums along to ‘equity’ and ‘sustainability’ while the lights flicker, the bills climb and the postcode riots inch closer.

Maybe it’s time to stop voting for the same polished halfwits in different rosettes? The house is on fire. It might be worth letting someone other than the arsonists hold the hose.

This Isn’t Left vs Right. It’s the Ruled vs the Ruling

Some of the clearest voices now come from across the old divides.

Toby Young, founder of tte Daily Sceptic, now sits in the House of Lords. Alongside him: Claire Fox, former revolutionary communist turned free speech advocate. Two former enemies, united in scepticism.

The real battle isn’t Tory vs Labour. It’s between the rule-makers and the rule-followers. The architects of failure and the people made to live with it.

So What Do We Do? Revolt?

Not yet. But we need noise. Relentless, dinner-party-ruining noise. Because polite silence and voter apathy is what let this rot take hold.

Here’s how to start:

• Vote like you mean it. No more ‘lesser evils’.’ Choose someone who’ll fire civil servants and tear up the script.
• Turn up. At council meetings, school boards, planning hearings. Ask calm questions. They hate that.
• Support the plain-speakers. Journalists, podcasters, comedians, councillors.
• Don’t conform. If your bank or university asks for pronouns, ask for theirs.
• Call out cognitive dissonance, the polite word for ‘we know it’s nonsense, but we say it anyway’.
• Defend free speech. Back groups like the Free Speech Union with your voice and your wallet.

One Final Warning

Betz says it best. When people lose faith in peaceful change, they don’t stay peaceful.

We’re not at the cliff’s edge, but we’re running out of road. Britain won’t collapse with a bang. It will rot politely, in boardrooms, in press releases and in taxpayer-funded failure.

Ignore it, and we won’t get revolution. We’ll get risk assessments on how to manage the decay without offending anyone.

So stand up. Speak out. Because they’re betting you won’t.

As Churchill said: “You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”

Now would be a very good time to stand.

 

Clive Pinder writes from the awkward space between common sense and treason. Lapsed executive, writer, broadcaster and equal opportunity offender, you can find him on Substack.

This piece was first published in The Daily Sceptic, and is reproduced by kind permission.

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(Photograph: The Bell Hotel by Alex McGregor, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)