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Britain’s Muslims Are Ready to Rebuild the UK — But is the UK Ready to Let Them?
Two weeks ago, UK Armed Forces Minister Al Carns joined Defense Minister John Healey in resigning from the British Government.
Carns explained, in an article for The Telegraph, that a nation’s security can no longer be viewed as the responsibility of just the Defense Ministry or any other government department. Supply chains have become strategic assets, energy security can no longer be separated from national security, and technological dependence can create vulnerability.
Economic strength, technological capability, energy independence and military preparedness are central questions of national survival. They must become the organizing principle around which policy is built.
In many ways, Carns’ conclusions echo realist thinkers and students of grand strategy. In his book The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, John Mearsheimer argues that the behaviour of states is shaped by five enduring realities: the international system is anarchic; states possess offensive capabilities; they can never be certain of one another’s intentions; survival is their primary objective; and states are assumed to act rationally in pursuit of that survival.
Where Carns’ analysis becomes more interesting is in what it leaves out.
If states act rationally in pursuit of survival, an uncomfortable question emerges. Is Britain behaving rationally when it comes to one of the most important sources of national security in the 21st century: the cohesion, trust and resilience of its own society?
Britain’s Greatest Vulnerability
For years, UK politicians, commentators and media outlets have fed a steady diet of culture war politics into public life. Communities are increasingly encouraged to view one another through the lens of suspicion.
This may produce short-term political gains, but it carries long-term strategic costs. Citizens become less willing to trust one another, less willing to make sacrifices for the common good, and less likely to feel invested in a shared national future.
Government officials have recognised this. The Resilience Action Plan adopts a “whole-of-society” approach to national security, explicitly recognising communities, faith organizations, and civic participation as essential components of resilience.
However, in practice, the state has failed with minority communities. The most striking example is in its treatment of British Muslims who have borne the brunt of the government’s security architecture. They are the disproportionate focuse of discussions of extremism, radicalization, counter-terrorism and the government’s Prevent strategy.
Trust is built through repeated interactions between citizens and state institutions. When large sections of the population come to believe they are viewed through a lens of suspicion, that trust begins to erode.
The issue extends beyond Muslims to sections of the population such as migrants, those who claim social welfare, and others who are less privileged. Treating them as problems to be managed rather than stakeholders to be cultivated weakens the bonds upon which national resilience ultimately depends.
A society does not simply wake up one morning fragmented and distrustful. Divisions are fostered, amplified, and exploited over time. They are reinforced when perpetual outrage becomes a business model through which online “influencers” and foreign billionaires spread their poison, and when state institutions fail to apply principles consistently across different communities.
See also The Pogrom in Belfast: We Ignore It At Our Peril
The warning signs are apparent. Research by More in Common found that 44% of Britons sometimes feel like strangers to those around them. Only 1/3rd of young Britons believe that most people can be trusted.
The Foundations of National Security
The UK’s challenge is not just whether we can build more warships, secure more energy supplies, or develop sovereign AI capabilities. It is whether we can rebuild the civic foundations that make those ambitions sustainable.
Historically, Britain’s resilience has rested not merely on military capability but on a sense of common purpose. During both World Wars, the economic crisis from 2008, and the Covid-19 pandemic, ordinary citizens were willing to endure hardship together because they believed they were part of a shared national project.
Al Carns is right that Britain needs a broader understanding of security. He is right that resilience matters. He is right that the assumptions of the post-Cold War era are fading. But his analysis ultimately falls short of recognising that civic resilience is not merely one component of national security — it is the foundation upon which much of that security rests.
In Britain we are alive to the dangers we face. But we must also begin to recognize that a country that treats trust as expendable, belonging as conditional, and division as a politically useful tool may soon discover that it has undermined its resilience — long before any external adversary has the chance to do so.
