Debate: Will the Erosion of Trust in Institutions Lead to Civil Unrest in the UK? w/ Prof. David Betz and Dr Ben Jones

The motion we will be debating is this: "This House Believes the Erosion of Trust in Institutions Will Lead to Civil Strife".  

The debate will mainly focus on the UK, but may also cover other countries where relevant. Are we seeing the first signs of a country that is going towards an ever greater breakdown of civil order. If people don't trust democracy to work, what might they try instead?

Ticket price includes a free drinks reception from 6pm onwards.

The Debaters:

Proposition: 

Professor David Betz is a Canadian-born war studies scholar, author and academic based in London. He obtained his BA and MA at Carleton University, Ottawa, and completed his PhD at the University of Glasgow in 2002, joining the Department of War Studies at King's College London the same year. He is now Professor of War in the Modern World at King's, where he heads the Insurgency Research Group and has served as Academic Director of the War Studies Online MA. He is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and has advised the Ministry of Defence's Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre and the British Army Land Warfare Centre. His research covers insurgency and counterinsurgency, information warfare and cyberwar, propaganda, civil-military relations, Russia and hybrid warfare, and the history and contemporary practice of fortification.

His latest book, The Guarded Age: Fortification in the Twenty-First Century, argues that rather than dismantling barriers, the modern world is living through an intense period of "wallification" — physical and digital fortification, and pervasive surveillance, becoming defining features of contemporary security and civic life.

He will be Proposing the motion.

Dr Ben Jones is Director of Case Management at the Free Speech Union, where he has spent five years helping members who have been penalised for lawful speech, and is a regular media commentator on free speech issues for the BBC, Sunday Morning Live, LBC, TalkTV, Talk Radio, GB News and Times Radio. He holds degrees in history and politics, and completed his PhD on the experiences of British ex-Muslims. His interest in free speech began during his time as President and Chairman of the University of Exeter Debating Society from 2010 to 2012.

His latest book, Island of Strangers: Diversity, Decline and Free Speech in Crisis, argues that mass migration, the decline of Christianity, and the state's management of multiculturalism have combined to produce a new and more insidious form of censorship in Britain, reaching from official policing into the private sector and everyday life.
He will be Proposing the motion.

Opposition:

TBC