Last night’s inferno in Belfast was not merely a house fire. It was a signal fire from the frontier of a disintegrating political order. The UK Government’s pledge to restore order is noble but utterly predictable: a tired incantation from a regime that has long since ceased to inspire confidence.
As the embers glow, one is reminded of the late Roman Empire, where the central authority’s hollow promises to the provinces were met with ever more desperate rebellions. The Victorian era’s careful management of sectarian tensions has given way to a pagan chaos of neglect and grievance. This is not an accident of history.
It is the logical endpoint of intellectual decadence, where our elites prefer slogans to statesmanship, and blame culture to bridge-building. National identity, once a source of cohesion, has become a weapon. To restore Belfast, we must first restore the very idea of a common British purpose, something that has been allowed to atrophy for decades.
The fire will burn again unless we learn that empires die by inches, not by conflagrations.
