End for Special Branch after 122 Years

Scotland Yard’s Special Branch, the world’s oldest unit dedicated to tackling political violence, is to disappear under a major reform of the way the Metropolitan Police deals with terrorism. The unit was established in 1883 to counter Irish Fenian terrorism on mainland Britain and has remained an autonomous unit, with its own selection and promotion systems and a culture seen by some mainstream officers as high-brow and at times elitist