Boxing Day Putsch

The **1999 British coup d'état attempt**, popularly known as the **Boxing Day Putsch**, was a failed attempt by syndicalist hardliners of the Labour Party to overthrow the government of Tony Blair on December 26th 1999, five days before Blair was scheduled to transfer power to Kenny Ashdown's democratically-elected United Democrats. The coup was led by the so-called Second Gang of Four; their foremost member was Ken Livingstone, who had been elected Chairman of the Trade Union Congress in 1998 after its separation from the British government by Blair. The other three were Jack Straw, the Home Minister, Richard Dearlove, Director of the SID, and Derek Hatton, Chairman of the National Executive Committee.

The coup attempt was carried out on Boxing Day, chosen for its symbolic significance as the anniversary of the Fall of London in the British Revolution, and because the plotters thought many officials, suffering the after-effects of festivities the day before, would be slower to respond. The putsch was poorly planned, however, and quickly fell apart when met with a civil campaign of resistance spearheaded by the Mayor of London Frank Dobson and Minister of Truth Alastair Campbell. The plotters detained Blair at a morning service in St Paul's Cathedral, but after taking a wrong-turn en route to the TUC became stranded on Blackfriars Bridge when both ends were surrounded by protestors. The decision by John Scarlett, head of the ISA, not to join the coup sealed its fate; the plotters on Blackfriars Bridge surrendered, whilst Derek Hatton, besieged in the TUC by protestors and the ISA, committed suicide.

The failed coup destroyed what remained of the TUC's legitimacy, and left a lasting image in the public eye that Labour sought to overturn the Counterrevolution's democratic reforms: many in the party blamed their disastrous electoral performance in 2004 on the putsch. The coup's events and images - the siege of County Hall by SOFOR troops, Tony Blair leaving Blackfriars Bridge, the Union Jack flying from the TUC - have become instantly recognisable in British pop culture. Three people died during the coup's events - two ISA men during Blair's arrest at St Paul's, and Derek Hatton.

## Chronology of the coup

### 10 AM

#### Blair's arrest

At around 10:15am, Tony Blair arrived at St Paul's Cathedral to attend Sunday service, scheduled to begin at 10:30. His wife was with him, as was Jack Straw. Blair's ISA security detachment was far smaller than was the norm - the holiday period meant the security force in London was short-staffed, an issue compounded by many officers having quit in anticipation of the United Democrats dissolving the agency come the New Year. For that reason, the Chairman's security entourage had been bolstered at Straw's suggestion by troops of the Social Order Force - all had been handpicked by the Home Minister and briefed of the coup's plans.

The plan in question was that once Blair had been arrested, Straw would give the order for SOFOR units placed across London to secure key positions. Yet, as clear evidence as any as to the poorly organised state of the plotters, by that point in the morning only about half of the intended SOFOR units had actually reached their intended targets. What had first attracted the plotters to choose Boxing Day as the date of the operation, that their opponents would be suffering from the revelries of the night before and therefore be slower to react, proved to be just as much an issue for the mutineers' own men. Furthermore, in the service of ensuring complete secrecy Straw had only briefed many of his officers the day before - they had thus had no opportunity to stop their own men from visiting friends and family, meaning some the pre-planned coup units were missing as much as a third of their strength. Most notoriously, the commanding officer of the unit tasked with securing Broadcasting House, headquarters of the state broadcaster BCT, could not be located for upwards of two hours after the events of the coup had begun - he was eventually found badly hungover in a nightclub, having apparently believed the instructions of the coup to be a joke. The plotters' failure to control the narrative and flow of information would have disastrous consequences throughout the day.