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By Alek Yerbury

Party Leader

 

As it approaches November 5th, we reach Bonfire Night. The night associated with Guy Fawkes and his failed plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605. The popular understanding of this plot is that some kind of Reformation-era terrorist wanted to kill the King and government, and his plot failed, and he was executed. That is the most basic version, but there is much more detail to it than that.

 

It was, in fact, an attempt at political revolution, albeit a terrible one. One that was doomed to fail from the moment it was devised, for a variety of reasons. It is also one that we can learn from in our work towards political revolution, by understanding why it failed so spectacularly.

 

What was the plot?

 

The goal of the plot was, in a nutshell, Catholic revolution. Guy Fawkes himself was not one of the leaders, he was just the man chosen for the task of setting the explosives. The closest thing to an ultimate leader of the plot was a man called Robert Catesby, a prominent Catholic. The plotters were a group of friends and associates of Catesby, who were all staunch Catholics who felt that Catholic revolution was the only way to end what they saw as persecution of their faith in England.

 

How the plot was to unfold, in very simplistic points, was this:

 

1. Fawkes would detonate a bomb in London, blowing up parliament and killing the King (James I) as well as most if not all of the Lords, Ministers and government administrators.

2. An ‘army’ of Catholics led by Catesby would descend on London, at the same time an army from Catholic Spain would invade England and join forces with them.

3. Catesby’s army would then seize power in London, impose a Catholic regime, and install the King’s 9-year old niece, Princess Elizabeth, as ruler, with the Earl of Northumberland (a Catholic ally) as regent (effectively, Prime Minister).

 

What actually happened?

 

Virtually every part of this plan went wrong, in a way that would have been totally predictable to everyone except the plotters themselves. In chronological order:

 

1. The Spanish were approached by Catesby and his allies, but refused to participate. As much as they sympathised with the Catholics in England, they had only recently made peace with England after nearly 20 years of economically gruelling warfare. They were not going to jeopardise that for what they saw as an insane plot that had no real support and no chance of working.

2. The plotters decided to warn various Catholics in parliament secretly, so they could avoid being killed and assist in the ‘revolution’. The warnings more or less inferred that parliament was to be blown up during the state opening. The various Catholics immediately went to the King and government and informed on the plotters. They correctly realised that the plot was crazy, that it would kill thousands of innocent people, and that the aftermath would be the disintegration of the state. The Earl of Northumberland likely wasn’t even aware of the plot or the fact that he was supposed to be a leading figure in it.

3. The authorities, deducing that a bomb existed, searched likely places around parliament and found it, arresting Fawkes in the process.

4. The ‘army of Catholics’ supposed to be assembled by Catesby actually turned out to be a few dozen individuals. With Fawkes caught, they had no choice but to hole themselves up at Catesby’s resident near Dudley. The authorities quickly descended on the house with 200 armed men, killing most of the plotters very quickly including Catesby, and arresting the survivors (who were later all executed).

5. Hundreds of Catholics were arrested in the aftermath on suspicion of having been involved, and there was a wave of persecution directed at them. Catholic ‘revolutionaries’ never recovered in England.

 

Why did it fail so badly, and what can revolutionaries of the present learn from it?

 

The real question here being: How did none of the plotters recognise that these very predictable things would go wrong? Once the full detail is spelled out, it seems absolutely ludicrous that they could have even believed that what they were doing would work. There are three main reasons why it all went wrong, and they have parallels in the National movements of Britain:

 

Living in a sectarian bubble. The plotters were an extremely close-knit group of people, and this was partly because most Catholics at the time were. They were effectively sectarians. They rarely had complex interactions with people outside of their bubble, and as such they developed an incredibly warped view of what the average person in England did or didn’t believe. They honestly believed that an ‘army’ of Catholics would materialise to seize power, because they ended up (wrongly) believing that there were thousands of other people who thought the exact same as they did. In reality, Catholics and their sympathisers were an extreme minority, and even then the overwhelming majority of them were horrified when they learned of the plot after it had been foiled.

 

Fanatical hubris. The plotters genuinely believed that there was no real possibility of what they were doing going wrong. They didn’t even consider that the Catholic Lords that they decided to tip off would have the senses to inform on them.

 

Total miscalculation of their own strength. The plotters imagined having support from tens of thousands of English Catholics, and entire armies from Spain and other Catholic countries. They also believed that they had genuine support from various Catholic Lords and Earls. In reality, they had none of this. They worked on the false assumption that just because those people were Catholic, it meant that they would automatically support a Catholic revolution that blew up the King and government, and killed thousands of people.

 

How to avoid these mistakes in our own Revolution:

 

Time and time again we have seen in Britain how political movements have been needlessly sunk and failed in their objectives, because of these same three flaws.

 

Firstly, there are many Nationalist groups which exist in extreme sectarian bubbles that have no functional relationship with wider society. This has been exasperated by the internet, where the block button makes it easy to just remove oneself from disagreement or questions. As a consequence, many nationalist groups (and political parties) have a totally erroneous view of what the average person in society actually thinks about major political issues. Many genuinely believe that the things they are saying, EVERYONE but them already agrees with, but this is a complete fantasy. People can be persuaded, but the idea that they already inherently agree is nonsense. The solution to the sectarian problem is that Nationalists must actively engage with society, NOT remove themselves from it. Even if they do not agree with the way that society is, they must be part of it, not make themselves outsiders. They must learn to have functional relations with people that they do not agree with, rather than treating everyone whose political views differ to their own with suspicion and hatred. After all, if people are treated like that, they will never be persuaded.

 

Secondly, there have been extreme levels of hubris. This has led to an almost pathological level of arrogance in various groups and organisations, and the ‘leadership’ circles within them. Obvious problems are ignored (or the people who point them out shunned), because those in control truly believe that they are the smartest, most capable leaders ever to have existed, and won’t countenance the possibility that they might have something to learn or be wrong. The way out of this is for us to understand that there are always things to learn. Always improvements to be made. Always problems that we might have missed. We have to be able to hold our ideas to each other’s scrutiny, otherwise they will fail spectacularly the moment our enemies scrutinise them.

 

Finally, many nationalist causes have been derailed over the years by false exaggerations and assumptions of their own strength (usually in an attempt to impress other ‘nationalists’ or to obtain allies by deception). The secondary problem here is that by making such obvious false assumptions, it makes the leaders look stupid or insane to the majority of people, which makes them even less likely to support them, not more. Nationalist movements must always make accurate assessments of their own resources and position, both internally and (in most cases) externally. We cannot gerrymander people’s support through lies or false exaggeration, because those falsehoods will be exposed the second one’s strength is genuinely tested.

 

Whilst it may seem far-fetched to take something like Bonfire Night and use it as the basis for political strategy, there is always something to learn from history, and from political revolutions (or failed attempts at revolution) from times past. Good leaders learn from their mistakes. Great leaders learn from the mistakes of others, so that they don’t make mistakes to begin with.