Civil war in the UK: nightmare or far-right fantasy

Jonathan Portes reflects on the language used in political discourse following a debate he partook in to debunk the notion that the UK could be heading towards a civil war. 

Is civil war coming to the UK? My King’s College London colleague David Betz has suggested that it might. In a recent debate at the Oxford Literary Festival, I set out why this claim is not only unconvincing, but potentially harmful.

There is no credible evidence that the UK is anywhere close to civil war, defined in the political science literature as sustained, organised violence between a state and non-state actors. Could it happen? Nothing is impossible, but Professor Betz’s estimate of a ‘18.5% chance over five years’ is the sort of speculative extrapolation of invented numbers that brings serious quantitative social science into disrepute.

More broadly, the UK remains a stable, high-income democracy, with functioning institutions, competitive elections and peaceful transfers of power.  Comparative research shows that civil wars are strongly associated with weak state capacity and low levels of democratic accountability, rather than with established democracies like the UK. While trust in institutions has declined, this is neither new nor unique to the UK – and long-term data from the British Social Attitudes Survey shows it remains far from collapse. Protest is not insurgency, and polarisation is not civil war.

Professor Betz’s thesis became even more absurd when he tried to explain to a bemused audience the “sides” in this civil war, which will apparently be a three-way contest between the non-white population and their allies in the metropolitan elite, the “white British” outside the cities, and the remains of the state. My family, like millions of others, contains representatives of all three factions. While of course there are occasional tensions, I find it difficult to picture us “drilling out each others’ kneecaps” in Professor Betz’s lurid language.

More broadly, the idea that the UK is dividing into coherent blocs along racial or geographic lines does not withstand scrutiny. Social and political identities in the UK are overlapping and complex. Most families and communities span multiple such categories. This is not a society organising itself for violent internal conflict. Indeed, where civil wars do emerge, the actors and cleavages are typically visible well in advance, with organised groups, territorial control and escalating violence. There is no evidence of such dynamics in the UK,

The more relevant question is why this language is being used at all. References to ‘civil war’ are no longer confined to fringe spaces; they increasingly appear in parts of mainstream commentary. But this is not a neutral description of political conditions. It is a framing – one that shapes how those conditions are understood.

That framing matters. Language influences how people interpret politics. Repeated claims that institutions are illegitimate, that democratic outcomes cannot be trusted, or that the state no longer represents “people like you” do not simply reflect dissatisfaction. They help construct a narrative in which democratic processes are seen as fundamentally compromised.  The claim by Reform that they lost the recent Gorton and Denham byelection because of “foreign” voters is just one example. A substantial body of research suggests that democratic institutions reduce the likelihood of political violence by providing channels for the peaceful resolution of differences. Framing politics in terms of impending civil war implies that these mechanisms have already failed.

This rhetoric is also rarely confined to abstract concerns about governance. It is frequently tied to arguments about identity – about who belongs, and who does not. Claims of crisis are often linked to the idea that “ordinary” Britons are under threat, whether from immigration, from ethnic or religious minorities, or from broader social and cultural change. The structure of the argument is familiar: an “us” that is being displaced, and a “them” that is being privileged.

There is nothing new about this as a political strategy. What is different is the escalation in language. Talking about “civil war” suggests that social and cultural divisions are not only a matter of concern but fundamental – and potentially irreconcilable except through violence.

This has several consequences.

First, it makes serious policy debate more difficult. Take immigration. It is entirely legitimate to disagree about its economic and social impacts, or about the appropriate policy response. But if immigration is framed primarily as a threat to national or ethnic survival, those debates become harder to conduct in a meaningful way.

Second, it risks weakening social cohesion. Democratic politics depends on a basic level of mutual recognition: that even where we disagree, we accept one another as legitimate participants in a shared political community. Evidence from UK-focused research highlights both the extent of perceived polarisation and the risks of misperceiving divisions.

Third, while the UK is not remotely close to civil war, such rhetoric may have effects at the margins. A small number of individuals may take it literally, or use it to justify confrontational or even violent behaviour. Studies of political violence in democratic contexts suggest that inflammatory narratives can play a role in legitimising such actions.

None of this is to suggest that the UK does not face serious economic and social challenges. Weak productivity growth, pressure on public services, regional inequalities and political dysfunction are all real issues. Analysing these problems – and proposing workable solutions – should be the focus of serious debate.

Framing the situation as one of impending civil war does the opposite. It distracts from underlying issues, while contributing to a more polarised and less constructive political environment.

So the answer to the original question is straightforward. No, the UK is not heading towards civil war. But the increasing use of that language is not a harmless exaggeration. It reflects – and reinforces – a way of thinking about politics that is more polarised, more exclusionary, and ultimately less helpful for understanding the challenges the UK actually faces.

By Professor Jonathan Portes, Professor of Economics and Public Policy, Department of Political Economy, King’s College London.