Laura Cleary and Graeme Olley worked together at the Defence Academy over a six-year period, delivering Defence Engagement. During that time they fielded a range of questions from students regarding international security, operational commitments, governance and management. Here they reunite to reflect on the impact of COVID-19.
LC: The UK isn’t the US, so my personal view is that internal unrest is far less likely. In the US, restrictions on the public were pretty modest in comparison with China, South Korea or France, yet we saw wide scale demonstrations with people claiming that the government was abusing their human rights.
The British public has, for the most part, been compliant with Government regulations. That said, there may be an increased risk of civil disobedience if the welfare system is seen to be failing, people are going hungry and there is no clear end in sight to the restrictions.
GO: Yes pandemonium is unlikely though civil disobedience has happened in the past over lesser impact issues such as the poll tax and seen in the riots in 2011. These are thought to have occurred due to nationwide racial tension, class tension, economic decline and the unemployment that it had brought.
We may well see confrontation if the recession really begins to bite and the government simply runs out of resources to subsidise the economy. It will be in areas of most disadvantage, where there are always axes to grind anyway. I return to triple I, if interest and identity are believed to be exploited on the basis of inequality a minority may react.
