Prologue - History Basics: The Political Background of Battle Royale Caledonia

As taken from A Legacy Imploded - Lessons in Generational Disharmony Learned From Battle Royale Caledonia by Harrison Graham, Walrus Publishing, London: 2039

As of the time of writing these words, we have reached the 20th anniversary of a monumental event in the history of our great nation, the United Kingdom of Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland. Many words have been said, many pages have been written as to this event, what exactly happened, how it happened and why, and one may justifiably question why the current author now writes more. To this I say that on such an important anniversary, one full text containing every piece of knowledge one might ever need to know is required. To whit, I have been given along with this commission a great honour - access to the location where it all happened, DNA archives, even the heretofore top secret audio transcripts that have long been sought after by academics such as myself and by the general public.

...

Before anything can be said of the events themselves however, some political exposition is first required. It is recognised by the author that any child of this great nation will know much of what is to be said in this chapter. For the sake of completeness however, all aspects must be covered. After all, one dare not hope to fully understand how events happened as they did, without first understanding why.

A New Beginning in Government

In June of 1997, a new Government administration came to power, ending two decades of rule by the previous incumbents, the Conservative Party. The Labour Party was led at that time by Anthony Blair, the youngest Prime Minister in British history. Victory was achieved ... easily against the corrupt and decadent "Tories", with much of the populace deliberately voting for anybody except the Prime Minister at the time, John Major, as shown ...

The precise reasons for the victory are irrelevant in this text, but it is of note that despite the above evidence indicating a desire to simply prevent the Conservatives retaining power having an influence on voting patterns, it is easily possible to overstate this factor. A more accurate reasoning is that evidence was provided as to how Labour would fix the myriad mistakes made by the Conservatives.
To a large extent, this is what happened in the intervening years, with ... and although it has been argued by a few notable individuals that the Labour administration used past mistakes to cover up their own, as noted above it is not the purpose of this work to defend or refute such arguments

...

A New Era of Human Rights

In 1998, the events were set in motion which eventually led to what is described in this work. It was in this year that the Human Rights Act was formally passed. This was the assimilation of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into British law. A referendum was considered but decided against, as it was not believed that any significant opposition to it would arise, and that the costs in holding such a vote would almost certainly outweigh any benefits it would bring.

The Act's incorporation was in some ways a simplification of the existing judicial process. The ECHR was created by the European Union, a grouping of countries not unlike a less formalised version of the United States of America as it existed at the end of the 20th Century. At the turn of the Millennium, a series of protocols for increased integration was enacted, one of which was the ECHR. This aimed to standardise the definitions of the various rights held by the citizenry. By incorporating its provisions into British law, the need for the European Courts as a final place of appeal when a citizen continued to disagree with a legal judgement was removed; the grounds on which such appeals would be made would be considered as part of the original or first appeal verdicts.

An unexpected consequence however was that many more people became aware of rights they did not previously know they had, and thus the number of claims of infringement of basic rights began to increase exponentially. While most of these were legitimate, a noticeable minority also sought to take advantage of technicalities in the legislation, thus to some degree exploiting it in order to attain better rights, and not merely those legally required to be provided by, for example, employers. The Labour administration did not directly oppose this however, instead seizing the chance to increase their favour with the working class citizens who had always provided the Party with their primary support base, as opposed to the middle- and upper-class favouring Conservatives. This took the form of a total reinvention, branding themselves "New" Labour. Part of this was the strong promotion of the idea that Britain should be a beacon of multiculturalism within the Western world. While multiculturalism was not a new idea by any means, its specific use as a "buzzword" only truly became apparent at this time.

Laws began to be actively enacted that would ensure forever that all traces of racism, ageism, sexism, bigotry ... and sectarianism would be eliminated. The overriding name for this doctrine was Political Correctness, and all British citizens were urged to follow it. Again, this was not a new idea in itself, merely one promoted with a new passion by the Government. This was an admirable goal; after all not a one of us can deny the baser elements of human society, nor oppose their eradication by any and all means, but on September 11th 2001 the world changed forever.

This was the date of the destruction of the First World Trade Centre in New York City. These attacks signalled the start of the War on Terror, more recently designated the Second Cold War by commentators such as Millar (2038) and Hedgewick (2039). In the aftermath of these attacks, Western antagonism towards Islam increased many-fold, with organisations such as Al-Qaeda becoming household names for the first time, although their leadership had been known to Western authorities for many years. The public did not oppose increased security within the country. Indeed, they actively embraced it, becoming more cautious and introverted, particularly towards outsiders in communities. This caution even found itself becoming, in some cases, open hostility.

This of course was in direct opposition to the government's stated aims of providing a free society for all to live in. Searching for an answer, the administration saw answers in the doctrine of Political Correctness. It was not difficult to integrate its greater application into ordinary society; all that need be done was to cause the citizenry to realise that more words and actions than they thought were capable of causing great offence. Seen by some as emotional blackmail, enough people were willing to step forward with legitimate and claim offence had been caused so as to quickly silence those voices. Noting changing economic trends creating gaps in the native British labour market, the Government sought to encourage immigration, particularly in the fields of ... a task made difficult by hostility among the native populace. By promoting the idea that any form of hostility, even implied or inferred, was as bad as a direct attack on the subject, a swift change in cultural attitudes was enacted.

Needing to ensure the maintenance of order in the face of opposition to such attitudes however, the Government effectively removed the need for proof of a given course of action having caused offence for it to fall foul of what became known as "Anti-ism Laws". Thus, the various "isms" such as sexism and racism were dealt with proactively rather than reactively, on the grounds that the right not to be offended by something took preference in the eyes of the law over freedom of speech and of expression.

This was nonetheless a view strongly disputed among certain areas of the populace, especially when well-publicised cases of what many considered abuses of the ECHR came to light. In one infamous case, a group of murderers successfully sued their prison wardens over the denial of access to hardcore pornography in prison, arguing that this infringed their right of access to information. That the claimants in that case were Muslim did nothing to ease ethnic tensions in the country, and it was quickly realised that a legal precedent would require to be set, one way or the other.
Both the Government and Opposition parties argued for various cases to be considered the precedent, such as ... but none were truly suitable. In 2004 however, the majority of the leadership of the extremist right-wing British National Party was arrested at their annual Party Conference in Bradford, including party head Nick Griffin. Audio transcripts of the conference indicated that their speeches contained material that could cause offence. The question however was whether this offence could be legitimately considered unlawful.

After a protracted trial, fiercely fought by both sides, in which ... Griffin and the other leaders were found guilty and imprisoned. The Government had its precedent. In the interests of creating a Britain where citizens could live free from the fear of being offended by other citizens, certain freedoms would need to be sacrificed.

...

This was not accepted by all, at least not immediately. Some, even those from ethnic communities, were against being told in advance what did and did not offend them. These people however were quickly branded as traitors to their communities by those who supported the Government's measures. As the years passed, opposition gradually diminished, with the people starting to warm to the idea of being able to walk the streets free of offence. The Police became ever stricter in their punishments, and the Government as a whole ever-more controlling in such areas as media output, but for the great majority, they saw their quality of life as having improved. Even those who once protested soon started to forget why they ever had, and developed a tendency to shudder when thinking back on the days of yore when there were no restrictions on what anyone could say to you.

The economy greatly benefited from this as well. Britain's welcome to immigrants was like no other developed nations'; the previously existing gaps in the labour marker were filled, and from all over the world, people wanted to come to this great nation, to be a part of this great nation.

One section of society however, did not fully embrace this new age, this new dawn. They were the young of the country - old enough to recall to some small extent the days when causing casual offence was not a crime, but young enough still to question all before their eyes. It is accepted that radical ideas will be entertained while one is young and ignorant. It is also however assumed that education will enlighten young people as they progress through their adolescence, and that they will soon realise the fallaciousness of their former outlooks. After all, were not the previous generation often student radicals in the 1960's and 1970's?

That of course was a common argument put forward by leading youth activists of the time. The critical flaw though was that the world had changed, and the simple truth is that many were just unwilling to accept that. Nobody denies that the social change implemented in decades gone by was essential, after all before the 1960's it was considered acceptable to discriminate on grounds of mere race or gender. Mistakes were made in the past and it was thanks to those willing to stand up and fight that they were corrected.

This time however the cause did not make sense to those in power. The issue was the right to offend, and the question of whether one's freedom of speech - bringing with it the freedom to offend - took priority over one's right not to be offended by the free speech of others. Now any person of common sense living today understands that this should never have been an argument. It is obvious to anyone that ... were in the right. Yet at that time, neither side was willing to back down.

An Escalating Conflict

The Government's initial response to the criticism of the culture of Political Correctness was to accuse them directly of the various "Isms" that they claimed to so decry; the logic was that if one is defending the right to be racist, one is implying inherently racist tendencies in one's self. The converse is that if one is not racist, and if it is accepted that racism is not a good thing, then there is no logical reason why it should be permissible. There was no shortage of people from ethnic backgrounds willing to claim offence either. This attempt to quell the disquiet backfired spectacularly however due to the unexpected intervention of adult organisations as powerful as the Muslim Council for Britain. For they, while supporting the aims of political correctness as a whole, condemned the notion of British Muslims being told what offended them by the government, an attitude which they rapidly extended to other areas of society such as the Catholic community. This was the result of the Government cancelling a planned fireworks display at the Houses of Parliament to celebrate the 400th Anniversary of Guy Fawkes' Day in 2005 in order to avoid offending Catholics.

In reflecting on how a potential stalemate degenerated into something far worse, the author at this point recalls two sayings which perhaps both sides in this conflict should have taken greater heed of: "Let he who is without sin throw the first stone" and "People living in glass houses should not throw stones". The debate as to what exactly constituted the "first stone" will likely never end, but the first use of violence motivated by the debate over the validity of Political Correctness Doctrine was certainly by a youth activist.

That incident was the throwing of a Molatov Cocktail through the window of Kent County Council's Police Headquarters, after it emerged that in order to protect minority interests, racist crimes committed by black people against whites were to be considered with less seriousness than the converse. The boy responsible was arrested, but committed suicide before he could stand trial in an attempt to bring greater publicity to his actions, which the Government had attempted to hide through increasing control of local media. His plan succeeded and he became a martyr to those who opposed the Government, many of whom now relinquished any reluctance they held towards taking their own action. And that is when the war of words became more akin to an actual war.

News reports of activists being arrested were now a daily headline; the Government refused to suppress the stories, despite their repetitive nature, in order to keep it in the public conscience. The propaganda battle raged, and it was again the Government who were prevailing. After all, with people realising the fallacy of causing offence to others, crime rates were down and the economy was booming. Between the constant reminder of this and the regular arrests, resisters of the Government rapidly stopped resisting. Groups such as the Muslim Council for Britain realised that their credibility was seriously threatened if they opposed an administration which had done much to eliminate bigotry and racism, and thus were unable to continue their support for youth activist groups like the Alliance of the Condemned Ones ...

Faced with what seemed like few alternatives, individuals and groups such as the Alliance resorted to ever-increasing violence as a political tool. Ironically, some of these collectives proved the Government's depiction of them as wild and feral correct by their own actions. Some success was had, though not of the kind intended - an economic impact was felt. Companies supplying or contracted to the Government found themselves increasingly the victims of youth violence, with firebombings, kidnappings, and even the murder of leading employees and managers among the depths to which they sank.

The result was unfortunately inevitable: many of these companies suspended the rendering of services until the security situation could be resolved; others were unable to survive at all and went bankrupt. What had looked until recently a paradigm economy was starting to collapse. And those responsible still continued to protest and to riot, even in the face of every other area of society united against them. One may partially blame manipulation of the media for that, indeed one could hardly doubt that attention was deliberately displaced from what the protesting was about to the damage it was causing for the country. Readers of a certain age will recall though that damage was done, and to hide this would have been an equal disservice. The United Kingdom was trying to show itself to the world as a nation free of intolerance and where everyone could live free. Yet how could it, when this supposedly simple idea was so violently opposed by such a large fraction of its populace?

...

The culmination of the conflict was in January 2019, when the Prime Minister's own son...led a large riot of 20,000 people in London. Suppressing the riot, armed police proceeded to carry out the orders of the Cabinet and execute him without trial in Trafalgar Square in front of supporters and bystanders. Time had run out, and an immediate resolution to the crisis was required.

Final Solution

As a stopgap solution all persons under the age of 19 were banned from entering any public place after 7 pm whilst the Cabinet deliberated as to how best to address the problem. They had ordered the death of the beloved son of their employer, and if they backed down now they would certainly lose power. Every youth-supporting group in the country was directly accusing the Cabinet of treason in denying...a trial and of betraying their country by killing him at all. It was not clear however how to ensure that such a rebellion would never again occur without appearing Fascist or losing sight of political correctness and it was deemed impossible under existing British legislation. Such a blanket restriction on liberties as they had employed temporarily most certainly could not last, given the international reaction was condemnation.

Left with no option, they looked to other countries which had previously experienced problems with the youth. Japan theorised a number of ideas before deciding to grant the young economic and political rights of a kind unheard of in any part of the world ever before. Such a thing would fall foul of that ancient law, "give them an inch and they will think they have a foot" and would invariably lead to the collapse of the government so this idea was quickly rejected. Japan's population after all, while discontent, were never as openly violent as their British equivalents, and their government was generally seen as sycophantic towards dissenting citizens anyway.

A more promising idea was found with the United States of America, who trialled a significant and powerful disciplinary programme, previously tabled but swiftly rejected by the Japanese. This programme lasted for 72 Hours at a time and was held once a fortnight, from Friday to Sunday. It was said to lead to the dissolution of the youth leadership; however, the reaction was far from expected: by the time of the starting of the fourth such exercise some 10 million Americans below the age of 20 had committed suicide. Faced with the destruction of an entire nation within a generation the government caved entirely. This was certainly not an option. But the death of the entire youth of the country was considered acceptable by the British Cabinet; it would provide adequate opportunity to start afresh. And so it came to pass that in May 2019 the 6th years of St. Barnabus College, Perth in Scotland became the first participants in a programme known only to the British public as "Battle Royale Caledonia"...