More than three years after a knife-edge public vote, a hung parliament seethes with talk of “plots”, “coups” and “conspiracies”. Protestors march on Westminster, demanding the resignation of the government. Conservatives urge the monarch to veto legislation, to stop a treacherous parliament defying “the will of the people”. Violence is in the air, most ominously in Northern Ireland. Welcome to the United Kingdom in the summer of 1914.
The crisis of 1914 far eclipsed Brexit, and brought Britain closer to revolution than at any time since the 17th century. The Times called it “one of the greatest crises in the history of the British race”, while Conservative election literature warned that Britain might soon be “stained with the blood of civil war”. Yet it offers some striking similarities with the present, and a warning of what could lie ahead.
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