Post-pandemic Britain: Going to the dogs

WHAT with this year’s Brexit Independence Day, coronavirus, and the post-pandemic prospect of the United Kingdom falling apart, everyone missed the half-centenary of a defining moment in British politics.

I’m referring of course – as Londoners may already have guessed, but maybe not – to the historic 1970 unilateral declaration of independence by the Isle of Dogs.

At a time when future Brexiteers such as the one-year-old Jacob Rees-Mogg were still having their nappies changed by nanny and were yet to dream of going it alone, the islanders rejected the rule of faceless bureaucrats in the Tower Hamlets Council and struck out on their own.

For the guidance of non-Londoners, the Isle of Dogs is at the southern end of the large, scrotum-shaped peninsula formed by a meander in the Thames a couple of miles east of the City.

The favourite theory of how it got its name is that Henry VIII kept his hounds there to avoid their yapping when he was staying at Greenwich Palace on the opposite bank.

Others have claimed it was a refuge for Edward III’s greyhounds. He had a hunting lodge over the river at Rotherhithe. Some say its a corruption of the Isle of Ducks, or the Isle of Dykes, say others.

The area was a sparsely populated foothold in isolated marshland until it was drained and planted in the 13th century. Not much changed for half a millennium until the construction of the East India and West India Docks early in the 19th century and Millwall Dock towards the end of it.

With the River Lea to the east and the Thames to the south, the addition of the docks restored the area to its island status, connected to its neighbours by just a couple of raising bridges.

It was these crossing-points that the rebels seized on March 1, 1970, cutting off the Isle of Dogs from the rest of the country, before declaring independence under the leadership of President Ted Johns, a local Labour councillor. He had two prime ministers, one a lighterman and the other a stevedore.

The insurgents claimed their municipal masters had “let the island go to the dogs”. A copy of the independence declaration was dispatched to Prime Minister Harold Wilson.

Many of the island’s 10,000 residents flocked to the barricades, including women in hair curlers and kids on bikes. A Swedish cargo ship was among the vessels stranded.

The revolution had been sparked by the lack of amenities and services in the predominantly white working class enclave, which had been badly battered in the blitz.

Low-rent municipal housing had gone up post-war but there was a shortage of schools while poor transport links virtually cut the neighbourhood off from the rest of London.

Since the demise of the local Poplar Council in the municipal reforms of the 1960s, the Isle of Dogs had lost its sovereignty to Stepney and Bethnal Green to the north.

Sadly, Dogxit didn’t last long. Two weeks, in fact, by which time the President and First Lady had been interviewed by most of the world’s press.

A counter-revolutionary tendency had by that time set in and had started to whinge that dad couldn’t get to work and granny wasn’t getting her Meals-on-Wheels delivery. Maybe going it alone was not such a good idea after all. They were the Remoaners of their day.

Although independence was abandoned, President Johns had been right about most things. Within a few years, the docks and warehouses were abandoned to be replaced by the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf and luxury flats along the waterways.

(I snapped today’s picture at the chi-chi bridge at Millwall Dock that the developers put in to replace the once-barricaded original.)

The locals got next to nothing. Many drifted firstly to the far right, which had stirred them up against displaced immigrants moving in from nearby Limehouse, and then to Essex where they were free to pursue their go-it-alone fantasies.

In retrospect, I think the islanders were on to something. With the prospect of post-Brexit Britain breaking up into its constituent parts, it might be time for UDI for London.

Together, our population is a thousand times that of the old Isle of Dogs and almost twice that of Scotland. If the Jocks can go it alone, why not us?

So, raise the bridges! Man the barricades! Put your curlers in! If the Isle of Dogs could do it, so can we!