Former Shadow Cabinet Minister, Chris Williamson, compares 1605 with 2024.
THOUGHT FOR TODAY
— Chris Williamson (@DerbyChrisW) November 5, 2024
It was state persecution of Catholics that drove Guy Fawkes' attempt to blow up parliament 419 years ago today.
In the 21st century, the state is persecuting the British working class. pic.twitter.com/FB30hfNsTm
A Modern Day Guy Fawkes Has A Clear Reason To Be Inspired
If a modern-day Guy Fawkes were to find himself in 2024, masked and contemplative before a parliament as symbolic as it is structurally significant, what, one wonders, would be the grievances that might light his fire? In 1605, Fawkes’s motivation was a complex web of religious persecution, political exclusion, and a deep-seated sense of disenfranchisement. Four centuries later, a contemporary Fawkes would find himself in a nation where social inequality and class division persist in ways that are more insidious but no less infuriating. Fawkes wouldn’t need religious persecution to set his teeth on edge; the very layout of modern British society could likely do the trick.
Imagine a figure looking up at Westminster from the heart of London’s costliest real estate, glaring through his modern-day “V for Vendetta” mask. Fawkes, in today’s world, would be less concerned with Protestant versus Catholic, and more with the aristocratic establishment versus the rest of Britain. The social class divide, once neatly demarcated by titles and noble estates, now is a subtler beast, cloaked in inherited privilege, unequal opportunity, and a system built around the haves and the have-nots.
As Fawkes would quickly realise, the disparity between the top and bottom rungs of British society has reached grotesque proportions. The super-rich seem to live in a separate world, behind gates and in exclusive postcodes. Where Fawkes once may have burned with anger at an unjust king and his court, today’s fury would focus on an economic elite that lives in penthouses, owns multi-million-pound townhouses, and drives cars that cost more than a family’s annual income. They stride about the streets of London, draped in luxury and cloaked in a kind of benign indifference, leaving behind the less fortunate in a waking nightmare of rising rents, stagnant wages, and dwindling hope.
The indignation would hardly stop at the housing crisis, though housing is the sort of flashpoint that could make even a stoic revolutionary fume. The average rent for a modest one-bedroom flat in central London is higher than what a significant percentage of British workers take home in a month. Home ownership has become a pipedream, with prices soaring beyond what most could afford in a lifetime, let alone at an entry-level salary. Social housing, once a mainstay of British life, has been whittled away by austerity, neglect, and a disdain for public welfare. The luxury developments continue to rise—gleaming towers sold off to foreign investors while thousands of ordinary Britons remain stuck on interminable housing waiting lists.
Today’s Guy Fawkes would likely be a working-class Brit, or perhaps a public sector employee, struggling with the fallout of underfunded hospitals, crowded classrooms, and transportation infrastructure that borders on the farcical. The ‘levelling up’ mantra of recent governments sounds hollow in communities ravaged by years of austerity. The public sector, once seen as a bastion of fair work and reliable services, is a shadow of its former self. Nurses and teachers find themselves working punishing hours for diminishing returns, while politicians debate the trivialities of expense claims. And on the rare occasions when politicians do address the nation’s woes, it’s usually from the comfort of a leather-bound armchair and without a hint of lived experience.
For Fawkes, the perpetual mockery that is Britain’s education system might hit as close to the heart as anything. Private schools, those engines of privilege, churn out politicians, judges, and CEOs who then perpetuate the cycle of elitism that keeps themselves and their kind in power. Meanwhile, state school funding is slashed, teachers are stretched, and pupils face a dearth of opportunities beyond the basics. The future that state school children are offered is stark in comparison. With increasing cuts and ballooning class sizes, a quality education has become a commodity as rare as genuine social mobility. And even for those who claw their way into university, they do so under a cloud of debt that will likely follow them into middle age. The modern Guy Fawkes would surely be struck by the grim irony: education, once seen as the great leveller, has become yet another arena for perpetuating inequality.
In his exploration of contemporary Britain, Fawkes might find himself fascinated, albeit darkly, by the nature of work in the twenty-first century. Where once labour was physical, tangible, and sometimes even rewarding, today’s jobs often leave workers exhausted, demoralised, and at the mercy of ‘flexible’ contracts and zero-hour arrangements. The gig economy, sold as liberating and flexible, turns out to be a rebranding of the oldest exploitations, where workers have no guaranteed hours, no benefits, and no sense of stability. Taxi drivers, couriers, food delivery workers; they represent the new face of urban poverty, a working poor, grinding out a living with little hope of advancement. The government, meanwhile, assures these “entrepreneurs” that all is well, so long as the economy is ‘growing.’
But Fawkes would soon see that growth is a mirage for all but the wealthiest. Today’s Britain boasts one of the highest levels of income inequality in Europe, and its government’s fiscal policies, rather than redressing this imbalance, only seem to widen the chasm. Tax cuts for the wealthy and deregulation for large corporations stand in stark contrast to the welfare cuts and benefit sanctions imposed on those struggling to make ends meet. The very architecture of the welfare state has been warped from a safety net into a punitive system, designed to deter claimants rather than support them. This is not the welfare state that the post-war generation envisioned, but a system built on suspicion and shaming.
The malaise, Fawkes might decide, is not confined to economic policy or political rhetoric but has infected the cultural fabric of Britain itself. The British stiff upper lip has evolved, it seems, into a tacit acceptance of inequality, a quiet nod of approval to the status quo. Reality TV, tabloid headlines, and social media influencer culture all tell a similar story: aspire to be wealthy, to be beautiful, to be admired, and never mind the ethics. And those who don’t “make it”, those without the right connections, without the right education, or without the right looks, are left to languish, shamed for their failure to manifest the elusive “British dream.”
Of course, Fawkes would take note of the political apparatus that makes all this possible. The House of Commons, with its endless partisan bickering and seemingly entrenched divides, would likely strike him as a circus of theatrics more focused on spectacle than on substance. Political scandals, of which there are plenty, often result in little more than public outrage followed by a swift return to business as usual. MPs are criticised, they apologise, and then they proceed as if nothing happened, leaving the average citizen in a perpetual state of disillusionment. And if Fawkes happened upon the House of Lords, that archaic bastion of inherited power, his contempt would be as fresh as ever. The notion that an unelected body could wield such influence over a supposedly democratic system would surely ignite a revolutionary spark within him.
A modern Fawkes would also be appalled by the lack of accountability that has become endemic to Britain’s highest institutions. Take, for instance, the revolving door between government and corporate interests, with former ministers walking straight into cushy boardroom jobs. Regulatory bodies ostensibly set up to protect the public interest are often populated by former industry insiders. This, to Fawkes, would appear to be not merely conflict of interest but rather a systemic betrayal, where policymakers and corporations collude to enrich themselves while turning a blind eye to the social cost.
Adding a layer of deep irony, Fawkes might note the way public protest is now monitored and controlled with unnerving zeal. Modern-day surveillance technology is used to keep tabs on citizens, recording their movements, their purchases, even their expressions of dissent on social media. The very right to protest has been curtailed, with police powers to disperse crowds and restrict gatherings growing in recent years. Where Fawkes once envisioned explosions, today’s subversives must contend with a state apparatus that watches, catalogues, and neutralises dissent before it even takes root.
Even the climate crisis, with its vast, existential implications, becomes another arena for class-based disparity and injustice. In the comfortable neighbourhoods, where wealth allows residents to install solar panels, double glazing, and electric cars, “going green” is a fashionable choice. In the impoverished boroughs, however, families continue to rely on draughty council housing, struggling with sky-high energy bills, and watching as their streets are sacrificed to relentless development. The government’s commitment to ‘net zero’ sounds noble in speeches, but to the working class, it means more taxes, more restrictions, and little change in their daily lives.
So what would drive a modern Guy Fawkes to drastic measures? It might be the recognition that, in today’s Britain, the avenues for real change seem blocked. Democracy exists yes but in name only. Its existence is in an exhausted, performative form where votes seem to accomplish little beyond switching one ineffectual figurehead for another. To take action against such a system would be, for Fawkes, not an expression of treason but an act of justice. The inability of government to address fundamental societal issues, from healthcare to housing, from education to employment, could drive any individual with a conscience to question the very structure of British governance.
In his frustrations, Fawkes would not be alone. Across the nation, the sense of a broken social contract looms large. There is a fatigue among ordinary Britons, a weariness with the parade of broken promises and hollow rhetoric. Perhaps Fawkes would be inspired by the sporadic uprisings around the world, protests in France, in the United States, in countries where citizens are beginning to demand what Britain has long suppressed. He might, indeed, feel a kinship with those who refuse to simply ‘keep calm and carry on.’
A modern-day Guy Fawkes would have to confront a nation deeply divided but curiously passive. Britain today is not a powder keg in the traditional sense but rather a system sustained by its own inertia, a society more stratified than mobilised. But just as Fawkes believed in the power of a single explosive gesture, perhaps he would still believe that there is a spark, somewhere, capable of igniting change. The issues he would face are complex and deeply embedded; yet, for a man driven by the desire for justice, such complexity might only serve as fuel.
In the end, what would motivate a new Fawkes? Not a straightforward battle of faiths or an obvious despot, but rather a smothering, institutional indifference, a society in which inequality is normalised, where political apathy prevails, and where the dignity of ordinary people is sacrificed on the altar of convenience and profit. This would be a fight for the soul of Britain; a Britain that, for far too long, has chosen complacency over compassion, acceptance over action. And perhaps, just perhaps, this time, the message wouldn’t come in the form of smoke and fire but in a loud, collective refusal to tolerate the unacceptable any longer.
