SUGGESTI ONS 4 Briti sh people be lieve that there is more crime in Britain than there used to be.. What alternative form s of puni shm ent in use in Britain or in your country do yo u t
Trang 1I I 2 I I The law
for them tobe dismi ssed Theonly waythat thi s can bedoneisb a
resolutionof both Hou sesof Parliament,and this is so me thing that has ne ver happened Moreo ver, their retiring age is later than in most
o ther occ upations They also ge t very high salaries These thing s are
consi dered n ecessary in order to ensure the ir indep ende nce fro m interference , by thestareor any other party How eve r, the result of their backgroun d and their abso lute security in their jobs is that,
although theyare often people of great learningandintelligence
some judgesappearto havedifficultyunderstandingtheproblems andcircums tances oford in ary people , a nd to be out of step wi th
general public opinion.The judgem ent sandopinionsthatthey give
in court some times make the headlin es because they are so spec
tacu-larly out of date (Theinabilityof someofthem to com p rehend the mean ingof racialeq ualityis oneexample.A seniorOld Baileyjud ge
in the I 980s once referred to black people as 'nig-nogs' and to some Asians invo lved in a case as 'murderou sSikhs")
I Thepublicperception of Britishpolice officers
has changedover the lastthirty years In what
ways hasitchanged , and whydoyou think
this is?
2 It sone of the principles ofthe Britishlegal
system that you are inn ocent until prov en
g uilty However, mi scarriages o f ustice do occur How did the ones described in this chapter co me about ?
3 What are themain differencesbetweenthelegal
sys tem in you r co untry and that in Britain? I
there anyth inglike the 'right tosilence" Are
there any unpaid 'amateur 'legal office rs sim ilar
toJustices ofthe Peace ? Whatkindoftraining
d law yersundergo ? Com paredwith the
system in you r country, w hat do yo u see as the strengths and wea knessesof the B ritish system?
SUGGESTI ONS
4 Briti sh people be lieve that there is more crime
in Britain than there used to be W hat r eason s
co uld there be for this?Isit true ' Do yo u think
ofBritainas a 'safe' or 'dangerou s' place? What abou t you r own coun try - has crime increased
there, ordo peoplethink thatit ha '
5 Many people in Br itain argue that impri sonme nt
is an ineffecti ve and expensive form o f puni sh-ment Do yo u agree w ith this view? What alternative form s of puni shm ent in use in Britain or in your country do yo u think are
bett er,if any'
• There are man y co ntemporary Briti sh writer s who concentrat e on thethemeof crim e and detection , among them Colin Dexter, whose
books(suchasTheDead afjericho,LatBusto Waodstockand The Wench is
Deod) featureInspector Morse (Manyof them havebeen adap ted for television ) PDJam esand RuthRendellare two othe r highly
respected wri ter s of crime fictio n.
Trang 2International relations
The relationshipbetween anycountryand there toftheworldcan
revealagreat deal aboutthatcountry
T he e nd of e mpire
Themap belowshow s theBritish empirein 19 I9,at thetim e ofis
greatestextent.Bythis time, ho w ever ,i was alread y beco ming less
ofan empireand1110 reof aconfederation.At hesameinternational
conference at which Britainacquirednew p ssession s (formerly
German) und er theTreatyofVersailles ,Australia , Canada, New
ZealandandSouthAfrica were all representedseparatelyfrom
Britain
The real dismantling ofthe em piretookplaceinthetw ent y-five
yearsfollow in g the SecondWorldWar and with thelossofempire
wentalossofpow er andstatus.These days,Britain'sarmedforces
can nolo ger act unilaterally,withoutreferencetothe inter national
communi ty.Two events illustra tethi s First,Suez.In 1 5 6,Egypt
withoutprior agreement, took over theSuezcana l from the in
terna-tionalcomp anyownedbyBritain andFrance Bri shandFren ch
• £ <rio<
_ ~T~ oLf-"I'~ _ -:- _ _ _
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( at the Equafor)
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Trang 3[ 14 12Internationalrelations
The openingceremonyof the C
om-monweal thGamesin1994 This
athletics contestisheldeveryfour
years
The Co mmo nwea lt h
The dismantling of the British
em pire took place comparatively peacefully, so [hat good relations between Britain and the ne wly i nde-pendent countries were established.
As a result and w ith t he encourage-ment of Q ueen Elizabeth II, an international organization ca lled the Commonwealth composed o f t he countries that used to be pan of t he empire, has continued to hold annual meetings Some countries in the Commonwea lth have even ke pt the B ritish mo narch as head of state There are no forma l eco nomic or poli tical advantages invo lved i n belong ing to t he Com monwealth, but it has helped to kee p cu ltura l
contacts alive, a nd does at l east mea n that every year the lea ders of a six th
of the wor ld's po pulation s it down and talk together U ntil quite recently it did have economic impo rtance, with special trading agreements between members But
si nce B ritain became a fu ll me mber
of the EEC a ll but a few of t hese agreements have gradua lly been dis -continued.
militaryactionto stop thiswas adiplomaticdisaster.TheUSAdid
not suppo rt them andtheirtroop s were forcedto withdraw.Second,
o eof the guarantorsofits independencefrom anyothercountry However, when Turkeyinvad d theislan d in 1974,British military
activitywasrestrictedto airlifting the personnelofits military base
there to safety
under stoodthat aconferenc eoftheworld's great powersinvolved
th USA,th SovietUnion and Britain.How ever , in 19 6 2, theCuban
missile crisis,oneofthe greatesllhreats to globalpeace sincethe
war,wasresol ved witho utrefere nce toBrit ain By the J970Sit was
generallyacceptedthat a 'superpower'conference involved onlythe
USA an d theSoviet Un ion
Despite Britain 's lossof powerandstatusonthe worldstage,some
sm all remnant s oftheempireremai n Whatevertheir racialorigins,
the inhabitant s of Gibr altar, StHelena, the Ascension Islands, the
nearestneighbou rs) ForBritishgovernments, on theone hand thi s
isaso rce of pride,but ontheother hand itcauses embarrassment
and irri tatio n :pride, becausei suggestshowbeneficialthe Briti sh
th possessionof colonialter ritoriesdoesnotfit with the imageofa modern democrat ic state;andirritation becau se it costs theBritish
Theoldim peri al spiritisn tquite dead In 1982the British go
vern-men tspenthundredsofmillio sof pounds torecapturethe
Falklands/MalvinasIslandsfrom the invadingArge n tin ians.We
canno t knowi fi wo uld havedone so if the inhabi tantshad notb en
infavo ur of remainingBritishandifArgentinahadno thad a military dictatorshipat thetime.Butwhatwed know is that the gove
rn-ment 'saction receivedenormouspopul ar support athom e.Before
the 'Falklands War', opini o n polls showedthat thegovern mentwas
e trem ely un popula r; afterwards ,i suddenlybecameextre mely
po pul ar andeasily wonthe gener alelectio nearly in thefollowing
year
Trang 4Th e a rmed f orces
The loyaltyof the leadersof the British armedforcestoth e govern
-ment has notbeen in doubtsince the Civil War (withthepossib le
exceptionof a few yearsat the begin ningofthetw ent ieth cent
ury-see chapter 2).In addition,andwith th e exceptio nofNonhern
Ireland, the armyhasonlyrarely been used to keeporde rwithin
GreatBritain inthe last 1 0 0 years
'Nation al Service' (ape riodofcompulsory military service forall
men) wasabolishedin 19 5 7.It had neverbeenverypo pu lar It was
contraryto the tradition alview thatBritainshould nothave alarge
stand ing armyin peacetime.Moreover, the en dofempire,together
withtheincreasin g mechanizato nofthemilitar y,mean t th ati was
more importan tlOhave sm all, professional forces staffedbyspec
ial-ists.The mostobviouslyspecialistare of themodern militar yis
nuclearweapons Since the 19 50S ,th e Campa ig nforNuclearDis
-armament (CND) has argued,on both moralandecono m icgrounds,
that Britain should ceasetobe anu clearpow er At cert ain peri ods
the CND hashad a lot of popularsupport( e-GreenhornCommon)
However, th issupport hasno t beencons iste n t Britain still has a
nuclear for ce,altho u ghit istiny comparedtothat of theUSA
The endofthe'ColdWar' between thewestan theSoviet Union
atthe end ofI 9805caused the British govermnen t tolo kforthe
'pecedividend' a d to reducefurther thesizeof thearmed forces
This caused pro testfrompoliticiansandmilitarypro fession alswho
wereafraidthat Bri tainwouldI1Qlbe abletomeetis'co m mi tments'
inthewor ld.These com m itmen ts,ofco rse,arcnowmostly on
behalf of the United Nations or the European Un ion.Thereis stlla
feelin gin Britain tha tthecount ryshouldbe able to make sign ificant
contr ibu tio nstointerna tional peacekeeping efforts.Thereduction
also causedbad feeling with insectio nsofth e armed forcesthem
-selves.Its threebranches(the Army , theRo yal Navyand the Ro yal
AirForce) have distinct trad itionsand historiesthai itwasfelt were
bein g threate ned The army in particularwas unhappywhen several
famous old regi m ents,eachwiththeirow ndistinct rad itions,were
forced tomerge withothers.Ato e time, anumber of upper-m iddle
class familiesmain tain ed atradi tio nd wn thegenerationsof
belongingtoa particul ar regiment Fewerand fewersuchfam ilies
exist today, How ever , ac reerin the arme d force is tillhigh ly
respectable.In fact ,Bri tain'sarmed forcesarcon e of the few institu
-tionsthatitspeople adm it to being pro ud of
Tra n sat lantic r elati o n s
SincetheSecondWorldWar,Britishgovernme nts have often referred
tothe 'special relatio nsh ip ' whic hexists betwee n Britainand th e
USA.There have beenoccasion al low points.suchas Sue z(see above)
andwhen the USAinvad ed the Caribbean islandof Grenada(a
member oftheBri ish Commonwealth) Butgene rallyspe aking it
The senio rservice Thi s i s a ph rase some times use d to
describe t he R o yal Navy It w as t he
fi rst of t he t hree a rme d f orces to be est ablished T radi tionally i t tr aces
it s hi stor y ng ht bac k t o K ing A lfred ( see c hapter 2 ).
Gre e n ha m Common
Greenham Comm on is t he Roya l A ir
F orce ba se in Be rksh ire wh ich became the f ocu s for a nt i-nuclear
c am p a igners ( m a i nly wo men) in
t he [980s American Cru ise nuclear
mi ssiles were based t here from [ 9 83 to 1991.
Protestorsat Greenhorn Common
Trang 5I 6 12International relations
IsBritainreally part of Europe?
The government says it is, but look
at this report from The Sunday Times of
18 April 1993.
B r itain bans E C me dals
British members of the European
former Yugoslavia have been banned from a formal presentation
of m edals struck by the Ee to h on our their bravery.
The British monitors have been told that they may only receive the medals privately an d keep the m as
t hem on their uniforms because of government ru les against the acceptance of decorations f rom 'foreign powers '.
Many are angered by the decision (Q count the EC as a foreign power
haspersisted.It survivedtheFalklan dsWar, whenth e USA offere d
Britainimp rtant materialhelp,b tlittlepublicsupport,and
rega in edis strength in '99I durin gthe Gulf Waragainst Iraq, whe n Britaingave more active materialsupport to theAmericansthan any
othe rEurop ean country
Publicfeeling about the relationsh ip is ambiguous.On the one
hand, t isreassu rin g tobe so diplomat icallyclosetoth e mos t pow er
-ful nationin the world,and thesh ared lan guage gives peo ple so me
senseofbroth erho odwith Americans Onthe other hand, hereis
mildbittern ess about the sheerpow erof the USA Thereisno distrust,
bu trem arksare often madeabou t Bri tain beingnothing more tha n
th efifty-first stateoftheUSA Similarly,while some olderpeople
remem ber withgratit ude the Americanswho cameto their aid in
twoworld wars,othe rsresentth e fact that it took them so long to get invol ved!
Inany case, the special relationsh ip has inevita blydeclinedin
sign ificance since Britain joinedthe EuropeanCommunity In th e world tradenego tiations of th e earlyI990S, th ere wasnoth ingspecial
aboutBritain 's positio nwith regar d to the USA - it was just pan of
theEuro pe antradi ng bloc The ope ningof the Channel tunnelin
19 94has em phasized that Britain 'slinksare now mainlywith
Europ e Touris tstatisticsalsopointth is way In 1993, for th efirst tim e ,it was not Americanvisitorswho arrived in th e greatest
numbers ,itwas the Fren ch, andthere were ahnostas many German
visito rs as Americans.Themajority of visitorstoBritain are now from Europe
Th e so vereignty o f th e un i on: E urope
Whe n theEuro pean Coal an d SteelCommuni tywas formedin 19 5I ,
Britain th ou ght it was an excellen t ide a, but nothing to do with
Britain! Longyears ofan em pire basedon sea power meantth atth e
trad itonalattitude to Euro pe had beento encourage stability th ere ,
to discourageany expansionistpowers there,bu tothe rwise to leave
itwell alone
Astheempiredisap peared , an dtherole of' th e world'spoliceman'
was taken over by th e USA, th e British govern mentdecide dto ask for
membership ofth e newly-formed Eu ropean Com m unities It ook
mor eth an ten years for this tobe achieved (in 1973).From the very
stan ,the British attitude to membership has been ambiguous.Onthe
one hand ,itis seen asan econom icnecessityand a politicaladva n tage
(increasin g Britain 's statusas a regionalpower) The referen dumon continued membership in 19 7 5 (thefirstinBritish history) p
ro-duced atwo-to -onemajority infavour.On the otherhand , acceptance
do esnot meanent h us iasm The underlying attitude - that Britainis
somehowspe cial- hasnotreallycha ngedand the re are fearsth at
Britain is graduallygiving up its autonomy.Changesin Eu ropean
Trang 6domesticpoli cy, socialpolicy orso vereignty arrangementstend to
be seenin Britain asa threat ( 0)The Britishsausage) Throughout the
J9805 an J990S it hasbeen Britain mor e than any other member of
the Euro pe an Union (asit isnowcalled) whichhas slow ed dow n
progress towards furtherEu ro p ean unity.Meanwh ile,thereisa
certainamount ofpopular distrustoftheBrusselsbureaucracy
Thisambiguo us attit udecan partlybe explained by the factthat
lines.Therearepeople bothfor and againstcloser tieswithEurope
in both themain parties.Asa result,'Europe' hasno t been promoted
asasu bj ect fo r debateto the electorate.Neitherpartywishesl Oraise
within tha t party(asurevote- loser)
I'm a good European I believe in Europe I believe in the European
Europe is here tostay
from every bureaucraticBonaparte inBrussels.We are a sovereignnation
stilland proud of it [applause]
British lorr y drivers carryinggood British lambtotheFrenc hpublic
cheek But I say enough is enough! [prolongedapplause]
The Europeanshave gone too far.Th ey are now threa teni ng theBriti sh
sausage.Th ey wanttostandardize it - by whichthey mean they'llforce
the Britishpeople to eat salamiand bratw urst and other garlic-ridden
greasy foods that aretot ally a lie nto the Britishway ofl tfe.[criesof 'hear
hear', 'right on' and 'you tell 'em, Jim']
Do you wantto eatsalam ifor breakfast withyour egg and bacon? I
don't AndI won't! [massivea pplause]
They've turned our pintsinto litresandour yards intometres, we
gave upthe tannerandth ethreepenn y bit, thetwo bob and the
half-crown Butth ey cannotandwillnot destroy theBritish sausage ![applause
and cheers) Not while I'mhere [tumultuousapplause)
In the wordsof Mart in Luther:Her eIstand,Icando no other [Hacker
sits down Shot oflargecrowd risingtoits feet inappreciation]
The British sausage
Below is an extract from the script of
It is fiction, of course, but it does
capture part of the British attitude to
sover-e ignt y is no t conn ected w ith matte rs
of co nvent ional p olitical p ow er , but
and hab its ( For t he references t o
chap ter5 )
Up yours, Delors
gives voice, in a vulgar manner, to
of the European Commission at the
the spoken equivalent of a rude, two -fingered gesture Notice how the full effect of the phrase is only
is pronounced in an English way,
so -called 'quality' British news -papers can sometimes get rather
government refused to agree the
Tr eaty,T heSu nday Times published an article warning that the EU might still try to impose the chapter on
Br itain The headline described this
The Europ e an history book
English hist or ical character In t 5'88
he h elped to defea t the Spanish
Eng land Or did he? Historians know
comm ittee of historians from every
it was the weather which caused the failure of the Spanish invasion, the
was published at the same time in
D utch, French, Germa n, Greek, Italian an d P ort uguese B ut , stra ngely eno ugh, n o publisher for either a B ritish or a Spanish ed itio n
Trang 7I 8 12Internat ional relatio ns
nat io nal flag of Scotland
i n the U K It i s th e n ame o f one of
th e four ancient kingdom s of Ireland (The o the rs arc Lehmer.
Munst er and C onnaught) I n fact,
the Brit ish provin ce d oc s n ot
e m brace a ll of Ulste r 's n ine c oun
There is another reason for a distrust ofgreaterEuropean cohesion among politiciansat Westminster.Itisfear ed thatthismay not JUSt
be a matterof givingextra power to Brussels.It mayalsob a matter
of giving extra powerstotheregionsof Britain,especiall yits
different nations
Untilrecent lymostScottishpeople,althoughthey insistedo
manydifferen cesbetweenth mselves andth English,were happy
to bepartoftheUK But herehas alwa ysbeen some resentmentin Scotland about he way that it s tre ated bythe centralgovernmcm
in London In th I980s andearly I990S thisresentment increased
because ofthe contin uat ion in power of th Con servativepany.for
which onlyarou nd a quarterofthe Scottishelectoratehad voted
Opinion pollsconsistentl y show ed that betweenhalf and thre
e-quartersoftheSco ttish population want ed eithe r'ho me rule'
(internalself-government ) withinthe UKorcom plete indep enden ce
Th realization that, in the EU,homerule oreven indep endence ,
neednot mean isolationhascaused the Sco tt ish attitude to Euro pe
tochange Originally,Scotlandwas justas cautio us asEngland.But nowthe Scottish,asa group.have becomethe most ent hus iastic Europeans in the UK Scotlandnow has itsown parliamentwhich contro lsisinternal affairs andeven hasthe powertovary slightly
the levelsof incometaximposedby the UK government It sno t
clearwhe thercompleteindepend ence willeventua lly follow,but
thisisthepolicy of th Scott ishNatio na l Part y (SNP), wh ich iswell
representedinthe new parliament
In Wales,the situat ion isdifferen t.Theso uthernpartof thisnatio
istho ro ughly Anglicized and thecountryasa wholeh sbeen fully
incorporated int o the Englishgovernmentalstructure formorethan
400years Nationalism in Walesisfelt mostlyin the cent ral and northern partof the co untry, where it tendsto express itselfnot politically,butculturally (seechapter4) Manypeoplein Wales
would like to havegreater controlover Welshaffairs,but notmuch
mo rethan somepeople insome regions of Englandwould like th
same.Wales alsonow h sits own assemblywithresponsibilityfor manyinternalaffairs
T h e s ov er e i g n t y o f t h e u nion : No rt he rn Ir e land
Inthis section ,the word 'Ulster'isused to stand for the British province ofNorthernIreland (e-Ulster).Politicsher eisdominated b
the historicanimositybetween the two communitiesthere (see
chapter 4).The Catholicviewpointisknownas'nationalist ' or
'republican ' (in suppor t of the idea of asingle Irishnationand its
republicangovernment); theProt estantview point isknownas
'unio nist'or'loyalist' (lo yalto the unionwith Britain )
Trang 8No r t her n Ire land I 19
Aloyalistmural
UlITEIflEEOOMFWHT
nlLl IESIST ANYEIRE
IlJOt rEMENTINQUR
C OII I I
help ed 1O w in Ir ish i ndep endence
a lso kn o w n a s ' the P rc visionals'.
T hey ar e grou p t ha t s pli t off f rom
t he 'offi cial' IR A i n the I 9 60s Th ey
a pp ea l to I ish p atrio tic sen umerus
I n fa ct , the I R A has li ule s upporl in
con nection at all w ith its govern
-ment.
T he m ost well -known loyali st
Arepublicanmessage (therepublicans
call Londonderry 'Derry')
Alittlemodernhistoryisnecessary to explain thepresent situation
Bythe beginn ing ofth twentiethcentury,whe n Ireland wasstill
partofthe United King om, the vast majority ofpeoplein Ireland
wantedeithe rhomeruleorcom ple teindependence from Britain
Liberalgovernmentsin Britainhad accepted this and had attempted
at vario us timestomak i a reality.However,theo emillio n
Protestants in Ulster wereviolen tlyopposedto thisidea.Theydid
notwant tobelo ng to a countrydominated by Catholics They
formed less than aquart er ofthetotalpopulation of thecount ry,but
in Ulsterthey were ina 6)%majority
After the FirstWorld War the British governmentpartitionedthe
countrybetween the(ma inlyCatholic) so th andthe (m ainly
Protestant) north,givinge chpartsomec ntrolof itsint ern alaffairs
BUlthiswasn lo nger enoug hfo rthe so th.There,su po rt for
completeindep endencehadgro\vn asaresult of theBritish gov
ern-men t's savage repression ofthe 'Easter Rising' in 1916.War
fol-lowed.The event ualresult wasthatthe so ut h became independ en t
ofBritain Ulster ,however, rem ain ed withintheUnited Kingd o m
withits own Parliamentand Prim e Minister.The Pro testants had
alwayshad the econom icpow erin thesix counties( 0-Ulster).Int ernal
self-govern mentallowe them to take allthe politicalpo w er as well
Matterswere arra ngedsothatpositionsof official power wer e always
filled by Protestants
Inth late I960sa Catholiccivil rightsmovement began There
was violent Protestantreacti onandfrequent fighti ng brok e out In
1969Britishtroopsweresent intokeep orde r.At firstthey were
welcome d, particularlyamong theCatho lics.But troops,inevitab ly,
often actwithoutregard todem ocratic rights.In th ten seatm
o-sphere, the welcomedisappeared.Extrem istorganizato sfrom
both communitiesbeganc mm itting actsofterro rism, such as s
hoot-ingsand bombings.On ofthese groups, he Pro visional IRA
( 0-Extremistgroups),then starte da bombingc mpaig on the British
mainland.Inresponse, the Britishgovernm ent relu ctantlyimposed
c rtainmeasu res no t norma lly acceptabl einamod erndemocracy,
such asimprisonment without trialand the outlaw ing oforgan iza
-tions suchastheIRA.The applicationofthesemeasures ca sed
resentmen t togrow There was a hardeningof attitudes in b th
comm unities andsuppo rt for extremistpoliticalparties increased
There havebeen many efforts to find a solut ion to 'thetrou bles'
(astheyare known in Ireland) In 1972 th British government
decided to ruledirectlyfrom Lo ndo Over the nexttwo decade s
most ofthe prev io uspoliticalabusesdisappeared, and Catholics
now havealmostthe same political rightsasProtestants.In addition,
theBritishand Irishgovernments havedevelopedgoodrelation sand
new initiativesarepresented[oin tlyThe tro ubles may soo n be over
However,despitereforms.ineq ualities rema in.At the time of
writing, unemployment among Ulster'sCatholicsisthehigh estof