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Left-Wing Terrorist Groups in the UK

S

Simon

Oblivious
Originally posted in the PMQs thread,
Simon said:
Has anyone done a timeline about or had any thoughts on the UK with left-wing terrorist groups? Now the IRA were vaguely socialist, there were a couple of tiny groups that were outright Marxist, and possibly even a Maoist one, but they were really tied in with the whole Norn Iron situation more than anything else. I'm thinking more along the lines of Action Directe, Baader-Meinhof/Red Army Fraction, Red Brigades etc., outright revolutionary terrorist groups.
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I was was mainly thinking about the 1970s. Owen correctly pointed to The Angry Brigade, but compared to the European groups they were a damp squib. Can anyone think of a reason why Britain didn't develop its own similar left-wing terrorist groups?
 
On reflection, my response above is a little glib. There are probably several reasons, all of which date back to at least the early 1900's. First of all, Britain has never had either a police force or army with political motivation beyond that of supporting the State: thus little if any reason for armed insurrection. There is also probably something in the British psyche which holds armed terrorist activity as "foreign".
We should not forget however that early Celtic nationalism, in Scotland, Wales and Ireland all had believers in "Propaganda by the Deed". The prime example of armed Socialism was The Irish Citizen Army, led by James Connolly which took a major part in The Easter Uprising in 1916. Clan Albain, a shadowy Scottish nationalist organization in the 1920's also advocated armed struggle. It was, however, the Right who cornered the market in the 1930's through organisations such as the British Union of Fascists. As to more recent times, my original response probably still stands.....
 
It's worth noting that groups like the Red Army Faction and the Japanese Red Army existed only because there was a substantial minority who were sympathetic and willing to provide them with material and logistical support. In many cases, these supporters weren't true believers, but fellow travelers and non-terroristic socialist/communists who simply felt more sympathy with the guerrillas than their governments. A significant portion of the mainstream West German and Japanese left genuinely felt that the post-war governments were mere continuations of the fascist regimes they and their parents had been repressed by and resisted against in the previous decades. This was aided by the fact that many of the powerful people in 1960s West Germany and Japan were, in fact, recently reformed Nazis and Japanese imperialists.

I don't think you could find enough people in the UK, outside of Northern Ireland, who were willing to let terrorists live in their homes. The socialist/communist movements that existed were well-disciplined and opposed to individual terror, while the rest of the population were supportive of the political system they lived under.
 
I'm not familiar enough with post-war British politics to give a specific PoD that would get enough of the British left behind a significant revolutionary terrorist group for them to operate successfully. Maybe the UK gets involved in Vietnam?
 
George Kearton said:
On reflection, my response above is a little glib. There are probably several reasons, all of which date back to at least the early 1900's. First of all, Britain has never had either a police force or army with political motivation beyond that of supporting the State: thus little if any reason for armed insurrection. There is also probably something in the British psyche which holds armed terrorist activity as "foreign".
We should not forget however that early Celtic nationalism, in Scotland, Wales and Ireland all had believers in "Propaganda by the Deed". The prime example of armed Socialism was The Irish Citizen Army, led by James Connolly which took a major part in The Easter Uprising in 1916. Clan Albain, a shadowy Scottish nationalist organization in the 1920's also advocated armed struggle. It was, however, the Right who cornered the market in the 1930's through organisations such as the British Union of Fascists. As to more recent times, my original response probably still stands.....
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No.

It’s because under a social market liberal democracy the pool of potential left wing terrorists and their supporters is pretty tiny and in the UK they almost without exception got involved in the Irish situation in some way even if only in a supportive way.

There were a number of people with few connections to Ireland who volunteered for the IRA, there was even a British section to Sinn Fein which involved left wing students and miners which was shut down for being too left wing.

You can google phrases like Lilywhites to identify the English born IRA people.

The Harrods bombing was carried out by two main people one of whom was a British ex-soldier who had been in Red Action (SWP splinter group who later set up the Mazdabait IWCA). A former flat mate of mine shared a flat at one time with the other Harrods bomber.

However as well as acting as a draw for those inclined to take up violence for a left wing cause, the IRA “mainland” bombing campaign clearly dampened peoples enthusiasm for political violence, and meant the police and security services upped their game to make a difficult environment for terror groups to form and operate.

Of course the conflict also did the same to draw in far-right terror fans.

It can’t be overstated how much effort the British far left invested in the Irish situation in the Seventies and Eighties for Marxist’s it was clearly THE ISSUE.

Edited to add: sorry got the bombing wrong doh! It was these people and this incident: https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/www....glishmen-who-had-no-apparent-1435755.html?amp
 
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Western Europe had the experience of fascist rule in living memory of the terrorists - Britain didn't have that recent history of the older generaitons being part of a brutal regime.
 
Lemon flavoured said:
The IRA were, at times, nominally Marxist, weren't they?
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Yes. During the 1960s the IRA developed Marxist theories to explain the NI conflict. This, along with the question of using violence, caused the Provos to split from the IRA. After the Provos left the Marxist faction of the IRA became what was called the Official IRA, and formed the Irish National Liberation Front with other Irish communist groups. The OIRA went on ceasefire in 1972, but some members decided to continue their violent campaign as the Irish National Liberation Army (which later was responsible for killing Billy Wright). It should be noted however that compared to the PIRA the OIRA and the INLA were not very impactful, killing 50ish and 120ish people respectively.
 
Communist and socialist ideas were going around the original IRA and republicanism way back in the 1920s and 1930s too - which didn't make everyone in the IRA or republicanism very happy,
 
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