The action of this book takes place in the England of the 2020s. A collapse into chaos which few had anticipated, but which could be traced back to waves of disruptive social change, has occurred. The turmoil is seen through the eyes mainly of foreigners who had been drawn to a humane, vibrant and peaceable island. But they are amazed to find how this this tolerance disappear before their very eyes as an extremist movement sweeps to power and blood is spilled across the land..



Instead True Vanguard soon rules in London under Clive Sutton, an implacable middle-class revolutionary. He had started out as a hedonist, determined to sweep away the conventions that had once made England a place of order and stability. Despite years spent as a drifter and an agitator, he soon found himself at the head of a mass movement.



Sutton’s call for a transfer of power from the old to the young had produced an electrifying effect. Aided by cultural changes which had popularised risk-taking and experimentation among a self-absorbed generation, his rise is fast and complete.



In practice his new moral settlement consists of confiscating the wealth of the elderly and removing most of their civil rights. A ruling elite which had lost its nerve proved remarkably easy (even for a man without any obvious qualities like him) to overawe and crush.



Soon the dregs of society are mobilised. The police, much of the civil service and even the Church of England fall into line. But the army is unbiddable. Resistance flared into violence after the election of October 2021 was rigged. Following the Remembrance day massacre in London a month later the country slides into outright civil war.



The novel describes how altruistic foreigners Anatoly, Zach, Nadia and Javier soon find themselves playing central roles in British Liberty, the resistance movement with its capital in Liverpool. They manage to escape from London by the skin of their teeth. Their destination is the Cheshire town of Wilford. It has become a symbol of enduring English freedom. Civic leaders work with the heads of its university, world-renowned for rejecting extremist dogma, to give relief to the victims of war.



The savagery of the inter-generational conflict shocks many of Sutton’s earlier supporters. Hipsters, ecologists and gays fall foul of his toughs as his purges intensify. The scale of the bloodshed forces America to discard its neutrality. A struggle for mastery of England ensues between British Liberty (and its North American allies) and Vanguard which, in a brilliant coup, recruits thousands of well-armed foreign fighters.



The conflict lays bare severe fractures which have polarised early 21st century Britain. Wilford is the scene of a stark confrontation which will decide if the flame of freedom is extinguished completely.



A range of intrepid characters are pitted against an arsenal of repression. They are determined to play their part in banishing the evil regime enthroned in London or else die in the attempt.





About the author:



Tom Gallagher lives in Edinburgh. This is his 15th single-authored book and his second novel. He taught political science and contemporary history in higher education for one-third of a century during which time he had the opportunity to study various conflicts of identity across the world. A companion novel to this one, Flight of Novel: A North British Intrigue was published at the start of 2018.



His twitter account is @cultfree54

