”Elon Musk’s comment about the inevitability of civil war in Britain might have been flippant. But similar concerns have been raised by journalists and academics within established democracies that over the possibility of civil conflict escalating to civil war”
It is an article by an individual academic not "The LSE" - the disclaimer at the top says "All articles posted on this blog give the views of the author(s), and not the position of LSE British Politics and Policy, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science."
It is not even clear whether the author is endorsing his views, or merely reporting those of former diplomat Barbara Woodword who has written a book on civil wars.
His views on the UK all seem oddly out of touch and I get the impression a lot of info comes from people on X/twitter who don't live in the UK.
For now they are just shaping the information landscape to convince people that certain very bad things are happening and that they need to take action but let's say they start providing the material and the training, who's going to stop them? They happen to be close allies of a much larger country's administration that built a reputation for disdain towards the rule of law. If a Billionaire finances the shipping a few thousand rifles and explosive to UK in drug induced rage night, will the UK politicians and law enforcement or the intelligence services be able to do anything about that?
So IMHO the premise isn't implausible at all. These things happen all over the world, all those civil war torn countries are fighting with real military grade weapons being shipped to them from Europe, Russia and USA. At this very time CIA is apparently trying to orchestrate something like that in Venezuela, it's not even secret, Trump recently authorized covert CIA operation in Venezuela and Trump's claim that Venezuela is doin something similar in USA isn't implausible either: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/us/politics/trump-covert-...
Once you have enough distrust in the society, others can do a lot of things to that society.
I lived in Sri Lanka during part of its civil war. It started as a terrorism, The backing came not billionaires but ordinary people: rising ethnic tensions caused by terrorism increased the support the separatists had, and an overseas diaspora able to fund them was hugely expanded by people fleeing the civil war - and became more willing to do so in reaction to race riots and the like.
> If a Billionaire finances the shipping a few thousand rifles and explosive to UK in drug induced rage night, will the UK politicians and law enforcement or the intelligence services be able to do anything about that?
I think they would. its a crime, and its very hard to maintain secrecy at the scale needed to distribute large numbers of weapons.
The IRA had thousands of rifles and stocks of ammunition. Islamic terrorists have billionaire backers. Neither has been able to scale up beyond bombings and similar small scale attacks in mainland Britain. The IRA were able to in Northern Ireland, but that was with a large proportion of the population backing their cause (though not necessarily their use of violence).
They would certainly have a go. I wouldn't recommend to Musk or similar to try that one.
You can make arguments for restricting immigration and getting rid of illegals but that happens in all countries and is business as usual really, not war.
We do not have the history that people such as black Americans do. Our ancestors came here voluntarily, never faced lynch mobs or segregation or bans on marrying someone of a different race.
It shows in a lot of things. For example, we usually speak the same dialect of English as people from the same background and region - it might be PR or Brummie, but there is nothing that corresponds to Africa American vernacular (some communities do speak an ancestral dialect, of course, but that is different tends to die out over a few generations). As you pointed out ,someone's race is less important in politics (having a non-white PM was nothing like as revolutionary here as having a non-white president in the US).
The most successful of those figures (at least in the UK) has been Tommy Robinson with the EDL, but the EDL is a highly unstable coalition of people who hate each other (neo-Nazis, gays, Jews, some ethnic minorities/immigrant groups)
On the whole, the long term trend in the UK has been away from racism. Both my experience as a visible ethnic minority person who has lived in multiple places (London, Manchester, Midlands, Cheshire) over the years, and the data from surveys and studies confirm this.
Yes, he does, he gets his view of the UK from Americans who share his political leanings and engagement bait on social media.
That said British politicians are right here in the country and can be very out of touch too. If we ever have political violence that will be the underlying cause, whatever form it takes.
The most consistent trend in British politics has been people moving away from the long established big three (Conservatives, Labour, Libdems) to anyone who is not them (Scottish and Welsh Nationalists, Reform, Greens..).
Ah yes, 21st of April, date of the failed Algiers putsch against De Gaulle.
It is IMHO a mistake to view Elon Musk’s comment as merely "flippant". We should take the risk from "Elon Musk’s comments stoking civil war", and his personal platform to amplify radicalism and propagandise hatred, very seriously.
Even if the civil war that he fantasises about is currently a nonsense.
In this case, Musk (and many others) only extrapolate the trends at play for 50+ years to their logical conclusion, and actually I'd say that denying this it's becoming more and more a case of ostrich syndrome.
I think this too is utter nonsense. Too much of the twitter brainrot.
But it does highlight the dangers that this poses, that people can easily fall into it as you have done. So, Mr Musk's incitement is a danger to you and others. Even if the "civil war" remains someone's fantasy.
Or it's just wishful thinking. Musk's comments generally suggest he has no idea about the UK.
Like a lot of Americans (and, unfortunately, quite a lot of British people) he assumes the UK is far more similar to the US than it really is.
Elon doesn't profit from chaos, he is just using psychological manipulation to empower his allies.
Yes that will act to consolidate a voting bloc for Musk's allies. If it were additionally to cause chaos that would be a bonus. Right-wingers in the US love nothing more than to point to a situation in a foreign country as a warning of the perils of leftism. Usually they just make shit up but of course it's better not to have to.
What 50+ year trends? Less racism?