'Standing Armies'

What's really behind Starmer's British Gendarmerie?

European gendarmeries are technically part of the military. A ‘Third Force’. I think it’s an EU import British Europhiles should be wary of.

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This article follows on from this piece, on the recent disturbances across England and Northern Ireland.

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Narratives help us make sense of complex situations. Spun by politicians, commentators, activists, journalists and other interested parties, narratives are memetic - they find their way into the mainstream and, eventually, into more considered accounts. We call the diminishing species responsible for the latter process ‘Historians’.

Here’s a popular narrative about British policing: By 1978 police pay and conditions were so awful (with concomitant corruption and brutality scandals) the-then Labour Government commissioned a review. Led by a judge, Lord Edmund Davies, it suggested a staggering 45% pay rise and significant improvements to conditions of service.

When the Conservatives came into power in 1979, the Labour-commissioned Edmund Davies review was accepted in its entirety by the Thatcher government. This was surprising; the Tories weren’t enthusiastic about the public sector in general (another narrative), or the plebs police in particular.

Why?

Margaret Thatcher, legend has it, intuited the importance of police loyalty. She saw storm clouds on the horizon, tinted Red - the Unions needed taking on if the Iron Lady’s free-market revolution was to succeed. There would be aggro. This narrative, beloved of the British left, is Maggie would need boot-boys to impose her will, so she held the police tight.

You know the rest; from the Brixton and Merseyside disturbances, the Miner’s Strike (where flying columns of coppers from across the UK were dispatched to combat the Scargillite menace), Greenham Common to Thatcher’s personal Götterdämmerung, the Poll Tax riots.

Fast forward to 2024.

We have a situation very similar to 1978, except the incoming administration is of the centre-left. There’s economic stagnation. Cultural revolution. An explosion of political extremism and terrorism (much of it linked, as usual, to the Middle East). The country is skint. And the peasants are revolting. The police force is broken and under-resourced (which, to be fair, is the last government’s fault).

There’s also a Prime Minister with an authoritarian streak, despite (or perhaps because of) his background in human rights. A man who thought the repressive and hugely damaging Covid lockdowns were too lax.

Sadly, though, there’s no Edmund Davies (Trade Union pork barrels need stuffing first), but does the PM have another trick up his sleeve?

A Gendarmerie? A shiny new police toy? The Prime Minister, with almost indecent haste, declared the creation of a ‘standing army’ of specialist public order police (4000 strong - bigger than most county constabularies) to quell any future outbreaks of neofascist street thuggery. Hmmm. Really, Keir?

There’s a narrative just waiting to be written here, and it makes Margaret Thatcher’s look mild-mannered.

Once a narrative sticks, it’s difficult to shake off. Especially when half-witted political comms people lock horns with Elon Musk.

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The British centre-right commentariat is having a field day. Their narrative is of a disproportionate, two-tier policing response, marginalising white working-class communities in favour of Labour’s special interest groups. The police are the paramilitary wing of ‘The Guardian’.

The New Establishment are in on it, too - the first offences of Riot I can remember were authorised by the CPS this week - against a 15-year-old in Sunderland. Even stranger, the kid had already pled guilty to Violent Disorder, when the judge suggested Riot was a more appropriate charge (post plea re-charging is highly unusual). Getting the CPS to perform such legal acrobatics is nearly impossible - that’s the CPS Keir Starmer used to run, by the way.

This stuff is all meat and drink to critics, something the government’s tin-eared comms operators might want to remember. Has the CPS made a rod for Starmer’s back? The next time there’s a serious public disturbance, perhaps caused by minority communities, there needs to be equally stiff penalties else the ‘two-tier’ narrative will stick. Otherwise, those on the political extremes will feel validated and emboldened.

Now, having worked in policing, I’m a firm believer in Hanlon’s Razor, which states: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. I would also add, though, two riders to Hanlon’s wise words;

(1) There’s always a Ghost in the Machine (i.e. conscious or unconscious bias), and;

(2) That ghost WILL guide the Establishment’s hand.

Which is to say the McPherson sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, right? Let’s call it a Starmerite blind-spot towards the concept of white, marginalised people having their own sense of identity which doesn’t involve swastikas.

For the avoidance of any doubt, I’m not excusing the fucking idiots rioting or threatening mosques, as much as I don’t conflate every angry pro-Palestine activist with the fucking idiots threatening synagogues. As I’ve said before, I’m a big fan of robust public order policing which is consistently applied to all. Lock ‘em all up (not just the ones who tickle certain ideological funny bones).

I’m just not sure a knee-jerk, government-mandated national gendarmerie is the best way to deliver it.

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History teaches us how all politicians are capable of having ‘fuck it’ moments, moments when a heavy-handed solution seems especially appealing. They’re only human. Not only that, but the very nature of political personalities suggests a tendency to narcissism and hubris.

Look, for example, at a recent speech by Tory leadership hopeful Tom Tugendhat. Tom is, in many ways, wetter than an otter’s pocket - he’s a Remainer too (with a French passport). Yet Tom recently suggested we need a butch ‘National Security Police Force’, one presumably run by ex-army officers like Tom, re-enacting such spectacular successes as, er, Basra and Helmand? Tom also suggests stripping the Met Police of its national functions - something I wrote about here.

Even Falstaffian liberal Boris Johnson, the Loki-esque trickster of British politics, was cowed into accepting lock-downs in 2020-2021. No single party or political personality is immune from the appeal of authoritarianism.

I remember, back in 1999 / 2000, protest action over the cost of fuel. I worked in an intelligence cell tracking demonstrators across the UK. Word came down from bosses attending COBRA meetings how Tony Blair was exasperated by the lack of a national force who could simply appear at will to sort out these bloody protestors. The 43 territorial police forces simply weren’t coordinated enough (cue much panicking by chief officers, who quickly cobbled together new mutual aid structures to avoid mergers).

Incidentally, I did a fair bit of my special branch service under New Labour. They were as keen on using us as any other government. If not more. After all, a fair few of them were ex-communists and those guys dig that kind of thing. Anyhow, in my experience, politicians have more in common with other politicians than they ever will with the people who vote for them.

As I grow old and jaded (cynicism is like brandy - there’s always room for another splash), I realise political parties are largely irrelevant. Politicians are people and people are flawed. And flawed people like to be liked. They want to wave magic wands to solve problems, both real and imagined.

Is a gendarmerie a magic wand Keir wants to wave? Where will this narrative take us?

Greater Manchester Police TAU (tactical aid unit), making a testudo worthy of a Roman legion. TAU is GMP’s dedicated public order / support unit, i.e. officers whose full time job is ‘kinetic policing.’

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I use the term ‘Gendarmerie’ lightly - I doubt a British equivalent would be a paramilitary adjunct to the armed forces (like the French and Italian equivalents, for example). There are two models I imagine the Home Office might consider;

(1) A new national force akin to the British Transport Police (BTP) which would sit separately from the 43 territorial forces, but augment them as and when required. This throws up a whole load of contentious issues around management, tasking, accountability and so on, but hey, it’s sexy and tough and screams ‘law and order’. Who knows? Perhaps somewhere, in the bowels of the NCA, loins are stirring at the possibility of imperial expansion? ‘Britain’s FBI’ was a Blairite innovation, after all.

(2) Increasing mutual aid arrangements by building on existing capability. This would see every force ‘donating’ a certain number of trained public order officers to make up a full-time national cadre. In a classic piece of British fudge, I imagine a committee of chief officers taking turns commanding it as a portfolio.

The third, which seems the most achievable in my opinion (if not headline-grabbing), would be to increase existing police funding for public order training, along with the infrastructure of (2) above. That is to say, all chief constables would be instructed to have a certain number of officers trained in public order (which comes in three levels) and available for emergency abstraction - and be given the money to do it. This, I imagine, would be the cheapest solution too.

Some forces have received exploratory enquiries from the Home Office concerning their public order trained staff - the answers vary wildly. Some have credible capability, others have no full-time ‘riot squads’ (they have cost-saving ‘strategic partnerships’ with other forces, who lend officers as and when necessary. This is paid for by the host force). This means a simple ‘every force will give up ‘x’ percentage of constables for the gendarmerie’ won’t work.

There are, for non-police readers, three levels of police public order training. Remember, level two and three officers have a ‘day job’ - every time you deploy them, there’s a street not being patrolled or an incident not being answered.

Level 3 is basic crowd management and taught at recruit level. Officers wear no PPE beyond their usual gear and are usually withdrawn when things kick off.

Level 2 is specialist training for officers abstracted from their usual duties. Officers wear flame-proof coveralls, armour, NATO helmets and are trained in the use of shields, tactics and working with dogs and horses. I did this; it was fun having your mates throw petrol bombs at you at Hounslow. Then I was sent to a real riot. Which was also fun, if I’m honest.

Level 1 officers are full-time public order specialists, like the Met’s TSG or GMP’s TAU. As I’ve mentioned, not all forces have a level 3 capability. These officers can be used for demonstrations (spontaneous or pre-planned), raids, searches, proactive patrolling and any other task where you need volume and effect (i.e. vanloads of fit coppers capable of running around and nicking people).

And here’s the thing - Level 1 units are controversial. Their job involves using physical force, something the police and government aren’t traditionally keen on. This means less people want to volunteer (not least due to the sheer level of fuckery the job involves, in what the army calls ‘get on the bus / get off the bus’). These units have also been cut, like everything else. For example, the Met has around 500 TSG officers (it might be less nowadays) - for a force of over 30,000 cops and a population of at least 9 million people we know of.

Yes, if the Met - the UK’s biggest police service - surrendered its entire Level 1 capability for Sir Keir’s National Starmtrooper Force, it would be only 25% of required personnel.

Do you see the problem?

Of which numbers is simply one. The others? Well, the UK isn’t France. We don’t have riots-by-appointment every other Saturday. In fact, the last significant public disturbances in the UK were in 2011. Yes, you could count the pro-Palestine marches, but they weren’t riots. Threatening? Yes. But not riots. If they were, even a 4000 strong national force couldn’t contain 150,000 people. You’d be calling in the army, whereupon the shit really would hit the fan.

As I’ve said before, public order is primarily about maths.

Then, for the rest of the time, what are your 4000 gendarmes doing? Going to the gym and eating crayons? Or will they become a national TSG, subjects to bids from already deracinated forces (robbing Peter to pay Paul being a civil service speciality)? In which case, will we begin creeping towards a continental, tripartite, policing model by default (gendarmerie / national / municipal)?

Lots of questions Sir Keir-bloody-Starmer didn’t ask himself when he summoned the gendarmerie genie from the bottle. Barristers have a reputation for arrogance, I suppose. They’re never wrong, are they? To which I say, be careful what you wish for, Prime Minister. You might not see where this narrative might take us, but I can. Don’t like the police you have? Hey, create a new one to do your bidding.

Or am I the only one who sees a Ghost in the Machine?

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