Eagle Guardian: The War of 2010

Thirty–Six

Back in 2004, the Blair-led Labour government had brought in the Civil Contingencies Act (CCA). This replaced much of the emergency powers and civil defence acts previously in-place from the Cold War. It had been controversial in its drafting with comments made that should it be brought into force, Britain overnight would become a totalitarian state; its defenders pointed to the guarantees within, such as ensuring that the powers couldn’t overturn the Human Rights Act, which would see to it that that could never happen. The CCA was said to be needed to prepare Britain for 21st Century threats of terrorism and such like. Passed by Parliament, the Act was on the statue book. To come into force, for a sitting government to make use of the many powers within, the CCA needed either Royal Assent from the Monarch via an order-in-council or, in dire emergency, a Minister of the Crown could do that: the former was preferred but the latter was possible.

In the late afternoon of Friday 30th July, the Act came into force. Britain truly prepared for war with this.


All through that day, starting in the early hours and continuing without break, there had been high-level meetings ongoing within the heart of London. These took place in Downing Street and among the ministerial buildings along & near Whitehall as well as across at Buckingham Palace too. News coming in from Germany and Norway of the Russian state terror attacks, then what was being discussed over in Brussels where both NATO and EU foreign ministers and officials were, were a focus of these London meetings though there was also something else going on. The top tier of the British government met in the Cabinet Office building – in the COBRA room – following two violent events which had taken place on British soil the night beforehand. First there had been two deaths at Heathrow Airport where a pair of civilian security guards had been murdered – one had his throat slit; the other shot with a poison-laced bullet (that poison an unknown and lethal substance) – and then there had been a shooting incident out in Gloucestershire near the GCHQ complex where British soldiers had opened fired on a man and killed him. A terror attack on Britain’s biggest airport had been averted by the second of those two guards who raised the alert on time but it had only been luck which had seen that. The other event had been an intelligence-led operation conducted by MI-5 where they were supported by the SAS yet problems had cropped up and the man they were following had gotten free of their surveillance and rushed towards the vital facility which was GCHQ Cheltenham with a vehicle which (correctly) was suspected of containing a bomb. These were Russian attacks. The evidence was there for this, especially with the second attempted attack and the defusing of that bomb. That terrorist in question – believed to be a GRU agent – had arrived in Britain after coming in on a Serbian passport: he’d flown from Belgrade to Amsterdam then on to Dublin before finally ending up at the small Bristol Airport. He’d gotten through Dutch, Irish and then British airport security but gone to a suspected Russian safehouse – one which was hours away from being raided anyway – in Bath to pick up that vehicle. After his shooting a couple of miles short of his target, there’d been that raid on the residential property where others were meant to be yet they had unexplainably disappeared. MI-5 had waited too long and the SAS had no one to nab for them. This whole thing was a mess. The Irish authorities had another man, someone who’d flown to Dublin alongside the supposed Serbian, in their custody because they – not the Dutch who’d let him pass – hadn’t suspected his passport was fake. This man was due to fly to Liverpool but was now being held by the Irish. Flight records showed the two men as travelling together before splitting up and the Irish were being cooperative in holding the man (they had legitimate reason to) but there was no indication of what this man had been planning to do after reaching Britain’s shores coming in through Ireland. As had been the case with the watch on the house in Bristol, the failed watch it must be said for the men inside got away, there were other operations ongoing up and down the country where the authorities had surveillance upon people and properties. Police support for MI-5 was there in most cases; the presence of SAS troopers (in plain clothes but armed to the teeth) was supposed to be for the most-dangerous of threats. Following the Bristol-Cheltenham incident, and the news from Dublin, other raids were authorised. Dawn saw most of these commence where doors were broken down and people arrested: those detainees had passports denoting them as citizens from several countries though all were suspected to be Russians. Five arrests were made while two others sought were shot and killed in exchanges of fire; COBRA had issued the authorisation after the other incidents. The ministers and officials in London where COBRA was meeting were given fragmentary news, issued to them as it came in, and there wasn’t much good in that. At two of the incidents, each where the suspects were killed, there was evidence there that these were certainly Russians due to weapons and equipment seized. With the others in custody, it quickly started to look like the intelligence was faulty and these people were innocent. They were taken away for questioning but nothing looked promising with that. Questions were asked as to how could these apparent multiple mistakes have been made? Had someone set these people up to be watched – using many resources – for the motive of hiding what they were up to elsewhere? The now three deaths of these actual Russians wasn’t something which they were happy to hear at COBRA. Dead men can tell no tales. There had already been the issue in recent days with those men who had been killed by the Germans in Munich rather than captured alive for questioning. Unfortunate diplomatic comments had already been made in recent days coming from Italy’s prime minister about this, which had led to a Berlin-Rome diplomatic spat, and it was something raised among critics here in Britain too. Now a trio of Russians had been killed in Britain. It would be said by some that that was mightily suspicious, wasn’t it? Such people had gone out shooting though and the military teams had had no choice but… there were those who would make trouble from this.

These incidents led to more meetings and decisions being taken. Russian activities like this on British soil were clearly a prelude to attacks such had been seen in Germany and Norway. The country had been lucky so far: that luck wasn’t going to hold. Prime Minister Cameron met with his full Cabinet and then also the Leader of the Opposition. He spoke on the phone to allies abroad from Obama to Sarkozy to Merkel. He attended a military briefing giving the latest news on military preparations observed with Russia’s conventional forces. The decision was made by the afternoon. There were objections, many of them worthy points raised though, unfortunately, a few petty ones too, but there was no other option. War couldn’t be averted with Russia hell-bent on conflict. Thus, the country now needed to be more ready than it already was to face that. He went to see the Queen and then came back to Downing Street again. It was a quarter after three when the Civil Contingencies Act came into force though no announcement was made yet. Time was needed to get things moving: many things had to be done first by the government acting in secret to get ahead of the curve. It was five o’clock before that announcement occurred. Cameron spoke live to the nation from outside Downing Street and told the country that security measures which were going to effect everyday life were now in effect. He explained things as best as he could, striking an even tone of strength but regret, and urged people not to panic. What was being done was to protect the country and the people. Both Clegg and Harman made separate speeches within the hour afterwards (the latter making a big deal out of Parliament being recalled to meet the coming Monday), the Mayor of London made an improvised bombastic speech and Buckingham Palace put out a statement that the Queen would be speaking to the country tomorrow in another live broadcast.


Britain didn’t turn into a totalitarian state.

There were all those powers which the government could use though chose not to do so, not at this time anyway. The CCA was drafted to be flexible in its use. Cameron wasn’t that sort of politician either… plus one day he did hope to be re-elected! Fudges were made, some things weren’t done which with later hindsight they should have been. A lot of the half-measures which were put into place were due to the desire not to utterly collapse the economy. That was going to take a big hit regardless of what was done but national economic suicide wasn’t wanted. There were some civil liberties concerns which saw a few things scaled back too. This was where much of the later regret would come.

The CCA covered many transition to war factors and these were those which were quickly going to have a major impact on the lives of many ordinary people. Airlines, ferry companies and the Channel Tunnel came under state control with the Department of Transport and the MOD but also other government departments empowered to make use of them for the public good. A lot of people were about to have their holidays cancelled – it was summer and the school holidays had just started! – and others were going to end up temporarily stuck. Transportation issues elsewhere across the country were going to be affected too with airports, ports and railways impacted. Internal passenger rail services weren’t cancelled and the roads weren’t shut but the knock-on effects were fast going to be immense: far beyond expectations. There would be petrol rationing as well: the chaos there was also something to be fast occurring as people didn’t listen to the ‘don’t panic’ message. Telecommunications out of the country were also going to be restricted and so too international mail services. Schools and universities were already closed for the holidays so the issues there weren’t what they would have been at other times of the year though there would be no gathering of spectators at public events for sports, music or other events. Those would be exposed targets for hostile action. The Department of Health began instructing hospitals that they were to cancel non-urgent appointments and prepare for casualties. Moving significant sums of money out of the country or making big withdrawals from banks were to be stopped from occurring.

The government put this information out over the airwaves that night with newspapers instructed to print more the coming day. Broadcasters weren’t going to come under direct censorship though the Department of Culture, Media & Sport reserved the powers to see this done. The non-restrictions here where there were CCA powers were typical of the measured approach which Cameron wanted to see done and what he had domestic political support for. There was no dusk-to-dawn curfew nationwide. Civilian conscription wasn’t taking place. Blackouts weren’t about to happen and businesses weren’t about to be nationalised en masse. What was being done wasn’t all that could have been done here.


However, out of the public eye there were things being done where CCA powers were used for Cold War era recognised forms that this modern legislation replaced. More arrests were made nationwide and these weren’t made public. Foreign nationals – especially Russians and those from Russian-friendly nations (the former USSR countries) – were detained in large numbers. The most dangerous ones were to be kept in detention long term though the idea was that most would be released from custody on ‘control orders’. There was confidence at the top in Whitehall that this would work yet others in the know decried this as a sop to soft politicians which was bound to go wrong. There would be those who were correct on this issue and those who were wrong: time would tell on that. Other arrests targeted domestic extremists on the left and the right. Of note, a businessman named Arron Banks and his Russian-born wife, the latter whose naturalisation had a connection to the MP Mike Hancock, were both detained. These detentions would look very political with hindsight and came alongside others which were seen as being a case of politics rather than national security: the government would be later accused of misusing CCA powers.

Security measures nationwide meant that the military was called upon to support the police. There were SAS soldiers and other special forces personnel who would now act openly. So many of Britain’s soldiers were being sent overseas yet those who remained behind – a lot of reservists among them who were recalled to uniform – were to stay to help with national security. There wouldn’t be soldiers patrolling ordinary streets as if this was now a police state yet important infrastructure would have a military presence. The middle of the country’s capital city would have that too with both regular men from the Foot Guards and the Household Cavalry as well as TA soldiers (the London Regiment) present. They were meant to be there only to support the police in public order duties if things got very far out of hand. Their main job was to free up officers from guarding tasks and also provide a stronger anti-terror force than the police could. Royalty, politicians and government buildings were going to be guarded by soldiers now. Given increased powers, plus with their numbers bolstered, the Met. Police faced a challenge the next morning where they stopped the gathering of crowds for a pre-planned but now-cancelled peace march. The Stop the War Coalition, supported by the Socialist Workers Party and other groups, had previously applied for and been granted permission to hold a march for Saturday 31st. This wasn’t going to be allowed to happen under CCA measures and official cancellation had already been announced. Still some people tried to come. They wanted to protest against military deployments and any possible war. These weren’t people supporting Russia: they just didn’t want a war. The police did well yet they did fail to get a-hold of many troublemakers in the end. Those people would be back. The impact of the CCA was going to drive a lot of people to do many crazy things in the coming weeks and months: chief among them fighting the authorities.

British military dependants abroad were finally brought home from mainland Europe and the Foreign Office also announced that British civilians overseas would be aided in returning home. There was going to be an almighty mess with the latter with transport problems and bureaucratic cock-ups aplenty taking place there; other Britons chose to stay overseas too even when their host countries wanted them to go. While this was going on, people coming to the UK, others remained flying out. Military personnel were on the move as Britain’s military commitment to support its NATO allies continued. The British Army had its 3rd Mechanised Division was being formed ready to deploy to Poland. This would take some time to achieve yet when it did move, during the coming week, it would also be joined by a Canadian brigade attachment too. Instead of those Canadians, there could have been a reinforcement of the unit by significant numbers of TA troops forming battalions and thus a brigade but the MOD chose not to go down that route. Men and women from Britain’s Territorial Army were instead undergoing refresher training nationwide after being mobilised following the shooting down of that Ryanair passenger jet. The better-trained and already organised Canadians would go with the 3rd Division in their place. At three military airbases in southern and eastern parts of England where the Americans had a significant foot-print, the US Army sent some soldiers to aid them. RAF Fairford, RAF Lakenheath and RAF Mildenhall had other soldiers flying through them but these men came to deploy to protect each. Three batteries of the four attached to the battalion which was the 3rd of the 2nd Air Defence Artillery Regiment (the other battery being sent to a base in the Netherlands) arrived complete with equipment. That equipment was their Patriot PAC-3 missiles. There were eighteen mobile launchers for these missiles now spread across the countryside – away from the actual bases themselves – where they would provide defence against air and missile attack from hidden dispersed positions. The Patriot had a mixed combat record though the US Army had sent them here to aid the US Air Force. There had been a request made from Fox where the defence secretary had personally asked his counterpart in Washington if another battery could be spared to provide coverage for London; Gates had turned him down on this matter. There wasn’t the spare capacity to go around. The MOD was providing much support in terms of securing ease of basing for this dispersed set up (among woodland and on hill tops, often on private property, the launchers plus gear to allow them to function was located) but the Americans just couldn’t help there with providing coverage over London. As to the 3-2 ADA and its Patriots guarding military sites, they were going to see combat use next month.