5 Best Political Moves By Thomas Shelby in Peaky Blinders | Political Strategies Played by Genius Thomas Shelby for His Personal Gain

Politics helps organize society, set rules, and ensure that everyone can live together peacefully and fairly. It is about working together to create a better community for everyone. Well, that was the general approach, but as we can see in today’s world, we don’t get to see the positive side of it. Politics is indeed a dirty work. I’m not going to delve into much detail, but you can have a look at today’s modern world politics for a general overview. In today’s article, we’ll look at something more exciting: political moves by cunning Thomas Shelby.

Thomas Shelby, enigmatic leader of the Peaky Blinders, is famous in television history due to his unparalleled political intelligence, brutality, and ruthlessness. We can see Thomas’s rise from the small streets of Birmingham to the halls of power in Westminster. The series portrays a gypsy family that also believes in dark spells and magical stuff but Thomas believes in strategies that directly influence the people and make them do what he really wants. We’ll be looking at examples from each season with details of Shelby’s cunning moves.

Best Political Moves by Thomas Shelby

Taking out Billy Kimber

After his return from France, Tommy (Cillian Murphy) was an ordinary bookkeeper, making his living by gambling and illegal betting on races. He loved horses but he didn’t have an official license to fix a race. And for that purpose, he needed permission from Billy Kimber (Charlie Creed-Miles) who officially fixed races at that time in Birmingham.

But, as we know Tommy was a gypsy and he didn’t have any strong background so a man of that standing couldn’t arrange a meeting with someone like Billy Kimber. Tommy made a very smart move he fixed a race and won and there he got his attention. Billy came to threaten him and Tommy turned that meeting to a business objective to take out the Lee boys.

Later on, when he got his betting license, Tommy wanted to surpass Billy’s position, which was not an easy task as a beginner in betting. So he made a very clever and political move. Actually, Tommy was at war with the Lee family, so he married his youngest brother John (Joe Cole) to Esme Lee (Aimee Ffion Edwards) and officially war between the two gypsy tribes came to an end. And then Thomas took out Billy Kimber with the help of the Lee boys.

That was a tricky move, a cunning one but not very trustworthy. Thomas knew how to put a war between two families to an end and at the same time he knew to rise up in royal races he had to take out Billy. So, he took a political approach, he made a pact with the enemy and took out the other one. This is the way of politics, and maybe that’s why politics is considered a dirty game. Thomas got rid of Billy for good and at the same time he put a rivalry to an end.

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Undermining the Irish Republican Army (IRA)

By the end of season 1, Tommy made himself clear to whole Birmingham that he’s a man with power and a strategic mindset. He established new businesses and owned the very pub (The Garrison) in which he used to drink. But when he began to make his mark in the world, a few enemies from the past tried to knock him down by manipulating him, and the best part is he wasn’t ready for this at that time. Here comes Major Campbell (Sam Neill) from the Secret Services, the man who personally hated him.

Major Chester Campbell tried to involve Tommy with the IRA (Irish Republican Army) in the nasty business of killing a high-ranking member of the Military Establishment named Rusell. Tommy tried to avoid this assassination at first but he couldn’t. But Tommy was clever, he completed his mission and made his escape very smartly, and by the end of season 2, Major Cambell was buried beneath the ground.

Tommy wasn’t sure about his plan and he had a suspicious feeling he might go dead if anything went wrong, so he made sure Campbell pays for this and his family will be safe after him. He wrote a letter to the New York Times in which he mentioned the whole story and asked his sister Ada (Sophie Rundle) to post this letter if he doesn’t come back alive. He made a smart and political move in which he carried out his mission, brought down the IRA, made sure his family was safe after the mission, and most clever move he made his links with Winston Churchill.

Ending the war with Darby Sabini

Darby Sabini (Noah Taylor) only hated Thomas because he was a gypsy, and he was beating him in the races. He didn’t like losing to a gypsy. After all, he was a Jew, a man of particular standing with a famous name in the royal races. He tried to kill Thomas but failed to do so because he was saved by Major Campbell. Thomas was very clever, he wanted to draw more attention to Sabini so he could bring him down. He attacked his club in London (Eden Club) and put Arthur in charge so no one could dare come close to it.

Fun fact: Major Campbell hated Thomas as much as Sabini, but still he saved him from Sabini's attack, because he wanted him alive to carry out his own assissination and putting all the blame on Thomas and his family. That's how politics works.

Sabini hated Thomas so much that he even made ties with Solomon Alfie to put him aside and bring him to the ground. He made sure, all Peaky Blinders suffered and their business across Birmingham could be brought down. But Tommy was a man of sound and splendid mindset, he knew how to trick a man like Sabini and even dealing with so many enemies at the same time, he made a very clever move at the end of season 2 and put Sabini out of business by burning his all gaming licenses.

Tommy knew how Jewish people do business, and even after he got badly betrayed by Solomon, he took advantage of the situation when Sabini broke his alliance with Solomon. Tommy put himself back to business with Solomon, burned all the licenses of Sabini, teased him at the races, and put his whole racing career to an end.

Getting rid of the Russian Plot

Season 3 came with a lot of surprises, although the beginning was good with Tommy’s wedding with Grace (Annabelle Wallis) even at the end of episode one of season 3, we noticed something was wrong, Tommy was hiding everything from his family. He didn’t want to involve himself in the Russian business because he realized that they couldn’t be trusted. On the other hand, even Russian Grand Dutchess Izabella Petrovna (Dina Korzun) plotted to kill Shelby after the mission and Tommy wasn’t aware of that but he somehow knew they’d try to get rid of him to erase pieces of evidence.

In these circumstances, there is a possibility that your plan might not work, and the same happened with Thomas. The whole season was full of surprises, he had to face severe head injuries, made himself guilty, and even at one point lost his boy in the kidnapping. So, after his recovery, he made a pact with Solomon Alfie (Tom Hardy), and with his help they managed to sort out how to get payment from the Russians by stealing from their treasury. That’s another fact, he got trapped because of Solomon, but he still managed to carry out the mission and got his payment.

In politics, sometimes we have to shake hands with the people we don’t like for our personal gain, and he followed the same strategy. Although, Solomon was not trustworthy, but Tommy was a complete diplomatic person when it came to business. He forced Arthur to make peace with Solomon, got his help to understand the actual price of the Russian treasury, paid him well, and later on he sold all the stolen items officially to Tatiana Petrovna (Gaite Jansen) as proof of legal purchase, and finally, he got his payment after so much trouble and sacrifice.

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Breaking down the Fascist Movement

The British Union of Fascists was among the strong political parties in England in the 1930s founded by Sir Oswald Mosley (Sam Claflin). Their motto was “Perish Judah”, which clearly shows their objective that they want to put out Jews from England by root and stem. Thomas was a member of the Labour Party and he was acting differently in Westminster, House of Commons. But Mosley knew his history and his links with Winston Churchill. He manipulated Tommy and asked him to work undercover for him, renounce his party, and join him as a fascist.

Tommy knew his plans from the very beginning, and he didn’t want to be a part of such a criminal organization. He could have refused but he joined his party and acted exactly as Oswald wanted him to act. The clever part is Tommy never told anyone about his plans for Mosley, not even Jessie Eden (Charlie Murphy) who was acting as a spokesperson for laborers. Tommy was a smart man and now when he was in politics, he knew all the consequences if he had shared his plans with others, even with his family members.

Tommy wasn’t able to succeed in his mission to put Mosley down, but somehow he was able to manipulate his moves from inside the party. We all know how season 5 ended, and it was the only season in the series when Tommy felt unsafe and betrayed and then he even tried to suicide because of his failure. But, he made very dangerous moves throughout the series and his political insights were very strong. He couldn’t bring down Mosley but he somehow manipulated his party and used every chance for his personal gain.

Being a politician is a tough thing, making amendments in your personal life, making promises with your party members and your people, making new alliances, and breaking the existing ones, it comes with a lot of hectic decisions. In the modern world, we see a lot of politicians, some become inspiring characters for their people and some become corrupt leaders.

Peaky Blinders is only a fiction series based on politics, thrill, action, and violence. But if you ever plan to become a politician, it is strictly advised to serve your country with all your heart, and never use an opportunity for your gain.