2020

by Kenneth Steven

  *

  THE NUMBER OF passengers who died when the sleeper from Edinburgh to King’s Cross was blown up close to the hamlet of Burroway, some sixty miles north of London, has risen to a hundred and sixty-eight. Four of those who were seriously injured—an elderly man from Nottingham and three French students who were visiting the country as part of an exchange programme—have all died from the severe burns they suffered in one of the carriages that caught fire after the explosion on board. Police have now confirmed that all four of the suspects on the train were killed when the bomb they were carrying exploded at almost exactly four thirty this morning. The line is likely to remain closed for several days while every possible piece of evidence can be obtained, and as every attempt is made to establish the identities of a number of passengers who were caught in the worst of the firestorm that followed the explosion. Candlelit vigils will be held tonight in a number of cities, and many parish churches have already opened their doors to allow people to remember those who have died and those who have been left bereaved. There are growing calls for much more stringent controls on luggage at mainline stations, with some politicians saying that airport-style scanners must be brought in as swiftly as possible. The Home Secretary has said that while such measures will be considered again, it would be all but impossible to implement controls like these because of the sheer volume of passengers using the network on a daily basis. However, it seems likely that an inquiry will be set up to consider emergency measures in the light of the bombing and the risk of similar terrorist attacks.

  *

  I THINK BURROWAY was the last straw for Eric Semple. He believed we had been too liberal, that we were sleepwalking into catastrophe. He saw it in his own part of the north of England in particular, but that was essentially because he’d grown up there. It wasn’t that he was blind to the situation elsewhere—in London, Birmingham and Manchester, as well as in other cities—it’s that he had seen the effects of immigration on his home soil. I think the viciousness of the assault he’d suffered had an effect too. No charges were ever brought against those who’d most likely carried out the attack, and that stayed with him. The injustice of that. It was somehow symptomatic of the whole problem. Political correctness gone mad. You couldn’t talk about this and you couldn’t deal with that. If whites were guilty they were charged at once and the papers had a field day with the story. If the boot was on the other foot it was all nicely hushed up; it was better not to say anything at all. That enraged Eric. He had evidence of Sharia law being practised in the community and he took that to the police. Not a thing was done. A nice report was probably written and the whole thing shoved into a file that was pushed into a back drawer. Nothing made Eric more angry than that. I mean truly enraged. He could be frightening when he was like that, and at his most eloquent. The worst things always brought out the best in him, if that makes any sense. The best time to get Eric to make a political speech and really rouse people was when he was furious, when the fire inside him had been lit. He was a man who truly believed in his own politics, not like the vast majority of career politicians today who’ve learned their manifestos and their party scripts. He had no time for that either, whether they were on the left or the right or stuck in the centre.

  He believed passionately that there was a section of Islam that wanted to take this country over. That lay at the heart of Eric. The conviction that that was their ultimate goal and that we were letting them get there, step by tiny step. He felt certain there was some kind of secret movement that had that at the top of its agenda. I don’t think he had any proof; I suspect he didn’t have a shred of actual proof. But he would have said that was partly because we were so bloody obsessed with political correctness! We were too frightened to turn over the stones that needed to be turned over. We were so busy pussy-footing around the Muslim community, bending over backwards to sort out their grievances and build them schools and mosques and the rest of it, that we turned a totally blind eye to what was crying out to be investigated. He felt very sorry for the police in particular because he felt their hands were tied more and more tightly politically. Of course he blamed his local force for having two left feet and being inefficient, but he was well aware of the politics too. How do you arrest a black man with a gun when he immediately accuses you of racist treatment? Eric Semple just thought we had lost the plot and thrown away the script. That was why he stood for election in the Sudburgh constituency however many weeks after the Burroway bombing. He was still full of rage against those young idiots who had destroyed so many lives. He wanted to make a difference, to wake people up.

  I think he thought twice about it. His daughter was at an important stage in secondary school and he was concerned for her and concerned for his wife. He and Trish were very close. He was a good father and husband, whatever rubbish the press come out with now. They know nothing: they’ll use whatever ammunition they can find and chuck in anything else that comes to hand. I know that the only doubt Eric Semple had over standing for election was in regard to the effect that it might have on his family.

  Of course he stood as an independent: what else would he have done? He would never have been so stupid as to stand on a White Rose platform. That would have been madness. No, I’m not about to say whether or not he was a member of White Rose at that time or before it—I simply refuse. All I can say is that of course he stood as an independent: it was the best thing to do and in fact it was the only thing to do.

  *

  I THINK I was radicalised, whatever that really means. I think there are different degrees, obviously, and I know people who were far more extreme than I was ever likely to become. I was at university in Manchester, studying science. I’m from a mixed background: my father’s parents came over from Pakistan, but my mum’s from North Wales. I suspect school was probably toughest: I was at a rough comprehensive, which had better remain nameless, and I got bullied like hell. I was good at sport and everything, but I was just a mess racially! I don’t think I had a clue who I really was. We drove up to North Wales for the summer holidays and my mother’s cousins were all chattering in Welsh. You want to be part of a world; you want to fit in and be accepted, and some of the time I suppose I felt that. I learned a few words of the language and that helped a bit, but it wasn’t enough. It could never be enough. I was just left feeling frustrated. Then I went with my Dad to Pakistan when I was probably seventeen; I knew bits and pieces of Urdu, really from my grandparents, but it wasn’t enough. So on both sides I had this really huge sense of inadequacy, that I really didn’t fit in anywhere and probably never would.

  It was worthwhile in one respect because it meant I worked incredibly hard over the last two years of secondary, when it really counted. I did that pretty much by myself; I can’t remember one teacher at school who pushed or encouraged me. I think the whole lot of them were too knackered. Most of the time what they were doing was crowd control. There was at least one fight every day. Fights were actually planned ahead of time; it was probably the most exciting thing that happened. I suppose if you’ve been facing that year after year, with classes of kids who don’t want to be there and don’t want to learn, you give up trying in the end.

  I’m not sure the staff even realised I was working; I’m not even certain it would have bothered them to know. There were perhaps one or two who would have cared, but it wasn’t something I was about to show either. You kept your head down, pretended the whole thing was boring. If it looked as though you were working hard, your life would have been a nightmare. But I think I started to push myself because of that inner identity crisis. I didn’t know who I was and I almost wanted to stop thinking about it, going over it and over it in my head. This was a kind of burying your head in the sand. In a strange way I wasn’t thinking; I was filling myself with scientific facts, and maybe that felt good because everything else around me was blurred.

  I don’t think I talked to my parents about it at all. I’m not sure I would have known where to start; I don’
t think I’d have had the right language. My mother was working and out till all hours; I only learned midway through university that she was also having an affair. But I did know that she and Dad didn’t get on well, hadn’t really for many years. That was another reason to hide in the house, to live behind a closed door.

  Anyway, I got myself to university—the first from my family. I’m not sure any of the rest of them would have known how to spell university. What I found from the beginning were friends, the first real friends I’d had in my life. And it so happened they were Islamic; they were really excited about religion and about politics. Yeah, I did vaguely know three of those who went on to commit the Burroway bombing—I was aware of the guys. I’m not even certain I ever spoke to any of them, but I did know who they were. They tended to go round as a group; they were their own inner circle, if you like. I’m not sure how the girl fitted in; it may have been she joined them later. But yes, I suppose you can say I was on the edge of the same set. I still don’t feel I truly belonged; I was always conscious of half belonging and half not. But the paradox is that that may have made me all the more committed. I desperately wanted to have an identity in my life; I was longing to be accepted. I was excited by the fact I had real friends for the first time. I wanted to learn their language in every sense. And the irony is that during my first year I hardly attended lectures; I had slaved away to get to university, but now that I had got there, I had somehow found something better, more valuable. One girl in the group even started teaching me Urdu; I can remember we did hours in the library. I hardly went home at all in that first year; I was far happier meeting up with the group at weekends, just spending hours talking and arguing. Not all of it was political by any means, but a lot of it was. A lot of it was about being a Muslim in Britain and what that meant, what it was going to mean in the future. About the rise of the right and in particular White Rose, to what lengths we should fight against it. How far we should go. Effectively what was right and what was too far. We were living in our own world. I think we were almost unaware of what was going on outside, if you like. It was dangerous in so much as it was a virtual reality. I suppose that can be true whatever set of people you swirl around you. I think I came to believe some pretty frightening things. I think I would have done some pretty scary things. If you’re fired up by four hours of talk and it’s two in the morning and you’re twenty-one, you’re willing to go out and do pretty much anything. But I’ll tell you what I honestly believe: I reckon it’s always been that way. I think it’s been that way since the beginning of time.

  *

  I NEVER SAW the Prime Minister as disturbed as he was in the days immediately following the Burroway bombing. I had been his Private Secretary for two years by then, and we had been through some pretty tough waters. We all know the role becomes tougher almost with each new election: the pressure from journalists, the scrutiny of select committees, the demands of lobby groups. We know our leaders are mortal and it seems that almost the moment we elect them we blame them for being so.

  But the bombing brought him to his knees. He was quite shattered by the implications. It came from nowhere and left him reeling. He cared deeply about community relations and had good friends in the Islamic world. He almost took it as a personal insult. I think that for several days he simply didn’t know what to do and blamed himself for that. It was a vicious circle and he couldn’t escape.

  He talked to me quite openly about his confusion and depression. Our relationship had always been warm and with room for a good degree of humour, but never before had he confided in me to such a degree. He simply wanted to talk, to talk the whole thing out. To begin with I didn’t feel confident enough to offer answers, but he almost brushed that to one side. It was as though he considered it irrelevant. It was clear he felt his vulnerability as never before, and there was no one else to whom he could reveal such vulnerability. I mean, no one else in his political circle; I’m not talking about those outwith that circle.

  Perhaps it made a difference that I was a woman, that he knew I was a listener—and that he could confide in me, obviously. I think certainly he was aware I wasn’t judgemental, that I wasn’t about to be shocked at his apparent weakness. I think I was glad he chose to confide in me as he did. I don’t simply mean honoured in some petty, vainglorious way. I mean I did care about his personal well-being; I had learned to respect the man he was—beyond the politician—and it meant something to talk on that level.

  Not that I remember offering solutions, and not that I think he sought them from me. It was somehow as though he was unfolding a map on the floor, bit by bit; that’s the best analogy I can find. He was trying to fold out all the corners, to get a sense of the lie of the land.

  I don’t think it was the opposition that frightened him. Yes, of course, he had to face the baying and the baiting at the weekly ordeal of Prime Minister’s Question Time, but he had somehow got used to that by then. He was a quick thinker and a good orator, and he knew it. No, what I think he feared far more was quite simply what was going to happen next. He had been genuinely moved visiting the scene of the bombing; he had found it very difficult to stand in the middle of it all and speak to camera. But if this could happen out of the blue, with no warning whatsoever, then what on earth was next? It was that sheer sense of powerlessness to control the forces that now seemed to have been unleashed, and set against him. He took it very personally, and I cannot say I blame him. Who wouldn’t have? It was all about putting the genie back in the bottle, and how on earth do you do that?

  *

  “THIS MORNING WE’RE joined by the leader of White Rose, Andrew Gregory, and I’m going to begin, Mr Gregory, by rather boldly asking you about your own role in that position. You’re certainly not the kind of leader we might imagine: you’re very much what we would describe as middle class, you’re university educated and you’re well spoken…”

  “But I think all that you’re listing actually says far more about you than it does about me! You’ve created some kind of preconceived idea as to what the leader of this sort of organisation should be, and that’s patent nonsense. It’s as stupid—and pointless—as my having an idea of you as a beer-swilling, chain-smoking journalist who does only liquid lunches! I think you know as well as I do that we have to get away from stereotypes in this world, that stereotypes are far more unhelpful than helpful in the long run.”

  “All right, point taken, but can we all the same think about the average member of White Rose? Would you not admit that most of our viewers will have some kind of idea, rightly or wrongly, of the standard White Rose supporter?”

  “No, I will certainly admit that! I am well aware that many of our members—though not all of them by any means—are white working-class men. But I believe that says a great deal about our political system and the way in which a great swathe of our society has been neglected over the past decades. The Labour Party simply ceased to be for working people. All the major political parties focused their primary attention on the middle-class vote, and they simply disregarded an underclass that in their opinion wasn’t worth bothering about because most of its members didn’t vote! So if I think of White Rose as anything, I think of it as a political party. It’s unashamedly for the white people of this island who have been neglected and even discriminated against for the past decades.”

  “Would you say that you hate immigrants?”

  “No, I do not hate immigrants. I do have a huge problem with those who come here and who want to import their belief systems and their laws and who, in the end, actually want to take over our country. I have a huge problem with those who seek to achieve that by planting bombs and creating carnage among innocent, law-abiding citizens of this country, which has been generous enough to adopt them. I believe strongly that there are people who shouldn’t be allowed to come here to begin with, and I believe equally strongly that there are people who should be deported. And in both cases, it should not be nearly so difficult to achieve those ends. I
think those are entirely reasonable aspirations.”

  “So will White Rose become a political party?”

  “Well, that’s not for me to decide, but I actually believe it’s better that we remain political with a small p. There are certainly no formal plans to have candidates standing for election, either at local or national level, and I would definitely prefer that that remains the case. The fact of the matter is that we are campaigning on one major issue. Party political candidates are there to cover a multitude of issues; they are dealing with everything from new roads to nuclear weapons. I think you see something of the difficulty of that transition from protest organisation to political party in the operations of the Scottish National Party. In the 1970s they were much more of a romantic movement than any kind of fully fledged party. They were about one major issue. The difficulty came, paradoxically enough, when they were swept into office after growing exponentially. They then had to become men—and women—in grey suits, and it became harder and harder to deal with the very issue that had brought them to power in the first place!”

  “I want to ask you about an issue that has drawn a lot of attention to you since you came into being, and that’s the burka. You think it should be illegal, don’t you?”