Even in a world of ever more bloodshed the Glastonbury 2031 terror attack was shocking. An irony was that Martyn’s Law, the UK-wide duty on premises and events to take steps to counter the threat of terrorism, had only just fully come into effect. Britain inquired into what went wrong in a painstaking and lawyerly way, something that, for all its shortcomings, the country did so well .The overriding sense (though some sought to lay blame, understandably) was that the event organisers had done all they could to mitigate risk, quite apart from complying with the law and the Security Industry Authority (SIA) inspectors (who had already been around; the SIA as in its days of only badging security contract staff had made a point of checking such big, high-profile places).
As at the Manchester Arena terrorist attack, which had prompted the campaign for Martyn’s Law, while you could pick over what was done or not done on the day, the crucial failings happened far upwind; the security services had failed to stop the plotters. For Glastonbury 2031 showed that plotting, on a 9-11 diabolical scale, was back. The terrorists had funded themselves and their equipment with online fraud. They had carried off multiple types of attack, that overwhelmed defences and led to the greatest loss of life, as the melancholy tally showed. A pair of marauding attackers who strangled lone people – not wanting to risk exposure by trying to bring in knives at the gate – had killed four; only one had died at the hands of a pair using acid as a weapon and making a concert tent collapse. Thirteen had died shot by armed response police including a steward who (so his family and friends insisted; video surveillance footage was inconclusive) may not have been one of the terrorists.
Drones
Worst of all, 35 had been crushed to death and hundreds injured when a further terrorist, outside the Glastonbury perimeter, flew drones, using them as weapons and dropping powder (some toxic, some found to be talcum) on the main stage crowd. For years Glastonbury had been mitigating the threat of drones – whether flown to take commercial footage, or for a laugh. Unrelated drones and reported sightings only caused further confusion.
High-vis
It perhaps needed stating more strongly and more often that the ones to condemn were not police or event organisers but the attackers with their murderous tactics. The four attackers inside the perimeter were wearing lemon-coloured steward tabards; while reports differed, it seemed two terrorists had signed on as stewards while two simply put on the high-vis. In fact the authorities were unable to confirm the number of attackers; naturally, the surviving terrorists enjoyed leaving the authorities in suspense; had some terrorists spread fear by word of mouth or on social media, and melted back into the crowd?
As so often after such tragedies, with hindsight you could be wise. Some commentators argued that Glastonbury with 200,000 paying spectators, let alone the Notting Hill Carnival with – who could count? – about a million, was simply too many people in too little space. Sooner or later a fatal crush would have happened even without the terrorists’ malicious intent. Hadn’t the mob violence outside Wembley during the 2028 Euro tournament, echoing the mass gate-crashing of the England-Italy final of July 2021, proved that Britain had more anti-social people than it could handle? And that despite the litany of official apologies, lessons were never learned?
I would not want to give the attackers their names, nor dignify their cause with publicity. Again, after the event, you could trace where they came from; Russia had known them in the late 19th century as nihilists; they had assassinated a czar. Perhaps they had links to the incel movement (all five at Glastonbury 2031 were young men); or even to the likes of the Christchurch mosque attacker of 2019. While they had come together thanks to online forums, they could keep their secrets; while they were intelligent enough not to leave internet traces, they came up with a coordinated set of attacks that spread fear (the definition of terror) from the Saturday mid-afternoon to nightfall, making it even harder for the 999 services to reach those in need (those who had acid thrown at them, notably intervening security staff and good Samaritans, suffered particularly). The grim fact was that some things had become too complex to manage. The task of sifting through who among the 200,000 could add what to the investigation, who was passing on rumour and nonsense, and who was spreading disinformation, was impossible.
Perhaps the most melancholy truth of all was that the attackers succeeded in one of their aims, broadcasting their beliefs; online searches about their cause spiked. The authorities warned of copy-cat attacks.
