Why the UK won't riot like the French?

Last night when I was thinking about a could it happen here?, UK v. France analysis, I thought - thank goodness, at least no one's said "it couldn't happen here, we're so much better than that..." which is usually a precursor, sooner or later, to it happening. The British are particularly prone to do this. For example, after 9/11 it was "It couldn't happen here, those Americans don't understand airport security*, they get on planes like we get on buses." But last night on tv, I heard someone say it "No, it could never happen here," but without much reason for why that was the case.

I always want to shake the commenter by the lapels and say "Listen up, you complacent SOB, so long as you say that and don't take steps to avoid a similar fate, it can and it will happen here."

Social conditions in the UK are different from those in France, so it probably wouldn't happen here in exactly the same way. An Englishman living in France comments on the French riots, here, here and here (well pretty much all over his blog recently as you might expect). He has been observing the public disorder from the Cote d'Azur (which must be a good vantage point even at the worst of times).

But he has a specific post on "why it couldn't happen in the UK", that doesn't rely on easy certainties and observes the English national character well. (Emphasis all mine)

However my deeper point, and I'm getting to it finally, is that there is one other difference between England and France and that is that, despite attempts by the multicultis and the police, people in England persist in fighting back when they see others trashing their property or their friends. Furthermore, as we have seen in now and again, while English people are generally law abiding and tolerant, there is a long history of fighting which means that immigrants who want to have a riot get attacked by native rioters who are just as deadly. I do believe that on the whole England will not suffer from the French disease even if the rest of Europe succumbs. The threat of retaliation, unfortunately demonstrated in the increase in "paki-bashing" after July 7th, is also key. If the "muslim community" in the UK starts burning things outside its own ghettoes it will face a spontaneous response that will require that the police actually defend the immigrants.

Of course, does this act as a deterrent or does this lead to full scale civil war should something similar happen here?

A view on the 'bellicose Brits' from my British husband here.
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*post 9/11 we've inadvertently gotten knives through airport security at two different British airports. Once on a domestic flight and once on an international flight to Holland. On one occasion the security guy fingered the Vol-in-Law's knife and then handed it back to him.