Without their monopoly on force, the police are just the second biggest gang

Nick Timothy writes in the Telegraph:

It was last summer when Aston Villa drew Maccabi Tel Aviv in the Europa League. Immediately, the local, “Gaza Independent” MP Ayoub Khan launched a campaign to cancel the match. His petition demanded the match be cancelled because Aston is, in his words, a “predominantly Muslim community”.

After police planning started for the match, due to be played on November 6, officers met Birmingham councillors and officials at the Safety Advisory Group meeting on October 7. Two local councillors present said the “community want it stopped”. They met behind closed doors, but the minutes now show the truth. Even in the “absence of intelligence” the “planning assumption” of the police was that no away fans would attend the match.

The chairman of the Safety Advisory Group contacted the police two days later asking for a “more clear rationale”. A position had been reached, but the police were asked retrospectively to drum up a justification. The chairman warned the police to make sure the decision did not look like “anti-Jewish sentiment”.

When the committee met again on October 16, the police magicked their “significant intelligence” about the supposed violence of the Maccabi fans.

The police thought they could get away with it. Instead, their case has utterly collapsed. The “intelligence”, which the Chief Constable said had “changed the assessment”, focused on disorder in Amsterdam in 2024. It said the Maccabi fans were “linked to the Israel Defence Force” and targeted Muslim areas, throwing people into the river. Their report claimed the Dutch police sent 5,000 officers to tackle the violence. But none of it was true.

The fabricated “intelligence” supposedly came from an unminuted meeting between West Midlands Police and Dutch commanders on 1 October. This meeting was held six days before the meeting when the police said there was an “absence of intelligence”.

Amsterdam’s mayor, local police chief, and chief public prosecutor have all contradicted the “intelligence” – even calling it “nonsensical”. The disorder in Amsterdam was in fact violence against the Maccabi fans, which was described as a “Jew hunt”. It was an Israeli who was pushed into the river. Only 1,200 officers were deployed.

And it gets worse. West Midlands Police received intelligence on September 5, before the Safety Advisory Group meetings, saying local Islamists planned to “arm themselves” and attack Maccabi fans. But this information was suppressed, seemingly because the police did not want to admit that the true source of the threat lay closer to home. Instead of confronting the mob, the police gave in and banned the Israelis.

The social contract was meant to be that we, the people, give up the right to use force to protect ourselves in exchange for the police protecting us. Cue Libertarian grumbling “I do not recall signing this contract”, but that is the Britain we used to live in. It wasn’t ideal but it wasn’t bad either. It was one of the better societies that have ever existed.

The social contract relied on the idea that the only people permitted to arm themselves were servants of the state such as police officers or soldiers. If the state got wind that members of any other group – a white nationalist militia for example – were preparing to arm themselves in order to attack their enemies, an armed response unit would be kicking down their doors faster than you can say “Terrorism Act 2000”.

Now that some sections of the police have acquiesced in other groups taking the right to arm themselves, and, worse yet, have covered up their shame by reversing the roles of aggressor and victim, what reason do we have to continue to grant them special status as the sole bearers of the right and responsibility to bear arms? Without the majestic aura of the law around them, the police are just another gang. They are not even the dominant gang.