Skip to main content
‘I predict a riot?’
Socialist historian KEITH FLETT is unconvinced by right-wing scaremongering regarding the inevitability of a 'Brexit betrayal' rampage
Riot squad

ACCORDING to a recent front page of Rupert Murdoch’s Times (not a source one should take too seriously) a “senior Cabinet minister” has claimed that there will be civil unrest and riots similar to the gilets jaunes movement in France (whose protests continue largely unreported in Britain) if Brexit doesn’t happen on October 31.

The anonymous source was backed up on a BBC politics programme by right-wing blogger Brendan O’Neill, who not only predicted riots but argued that they should take place.

Predicting riots is not such a simple matter, however.

Donate to the Fighting Fund
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Features / 18 April 2025
18 April 2025
From bemoaning London’s ‘cockneys’ invading seaside towns to negotiating holiday rents, the founders of scientific socialism maintained a wry detachment from Victorian Easter customs while using the break for health and politics, writes KEITH FLETT
Karl Marx 1
Features / 14 April 2025
14 April 2025
From bemoaning London’s ‘cockneys’ invading seaside towns to negotiating holiday rents, the founders of scientific socialism maintained a wry detachment from Victorian Easter customs while using the break for health and politics, writes KEITH FLETT
TURNING POINT: The anti-cuts plan put forward by Tony Benn (
Features / 31 March 2025
31 March 2025
Facing economic turmoil, Jim Callaghan’s government rejected Tony Benn’s alternative economic strategy in favour of cuts that paved the way for Thatcherism — and the cuts-loving Labour of the present era, writes KEITH FLETT
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Chancellor of the Excheq
Features / 17 March 2025
17 March 2025
Starmer’s slash-and-burn approach to disability benefits represents a fundamental break with Labour’s founding mission to challenge the idle rich rather than punish the vulnerable poor, argues KEITH FLETT
Similar stories
8birminghamantiracism
Features / 26 August 2024
26 August 2024
The shortsighted moves of out-of-touch politicians put in jeopardy the great traditions of dissent that have long been a hallmark of this country, argue DAVID MORGAN and ESTELLA SCHMID
riot+
Features / 24 August 2024
24 August 2024
DIANE ABBOTT takes issue with the way politicians and the media are portraying the recent wave of violence which lets racists off the hook
9 - Priestley riots
Features / 19 August 2024
19 August 2024
Socialist historian KEITH FLETT traces the parallel evolution of violent loyalist rampages and the workers' movement's peaceful democratic crowds, highlighting the stark contrast between recent far-right thuggery and mass Gaza protests
brum
Features / 15 August 2024
15 August 2024
Following the wave of far-right violence, people came together across the land, demonstrating that we are so much better than the racists would have you believe and a better Britain can be built, writes ALAN SIMPSON