If you think dictatorship always arrives on the barrel of a tank, think again. In the UK, the framework of an autocratic state is being hurriedly assembled by the Johnson government through its overwhelming majority in Parliament.
Using Orwellian-style propaganda, the measures are dressed up in the language of “freedom” while, in practice, they are the exact opposite.
Not for nothing was the UK’s political system once described – by a former Tory Lord Chancellor – as an “elective dictatorship”. The government has relatively unchecked executive powers that far exceed those, say, of the US president.
Parliament is essentially a lapdog, seldom letting out more than an occasional whimper.
Despite major street protests and widespread opposition from senior lawyers and human rights campaigners, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill completed its passage through the House of Commons early in July and is likely to become law soon.
The 300-page bill would allow police to impose restrictions on protests based on noise and ban demonstrations by a single person. So-called “static protests” can be declared unlawful. Pre-emptive raids have already taken place.
Someone found guilty of causing “serious annoyance” could face a 10-year prison sentence. The bill also creates a new criminal offence of “public nuisance”. Gipsy and Traveller communities say the bill threatens their way of life.
Effectively, the police – who operate in a relatively autonomous manner as part of the state as a whole – will become an arm of government when it comes to protests, a fact not lost on Owen West, a former chief superintendent who said: “Once a lower threshold for police intervention is provided in law there will be an expectation, not least at the political level, for the police to exercise that power which may lead to conflict.”
Next up in the clampdown on rights are new laws on the conduct of elections, introduced within 48 hours of the police bill going through. The Elections Bill brings in voter ID, which is likely to disenfranchise millions.
Taking their cue from the Republican Party’s suppression of voters’ rights across America in the wake of Trump’s defeat, the proposals aim to enshrine the Tories in government in perpetuity. The role of the independent Electoral Commission is reduced to a shell and ministers get huge powers to change the definition of “campaigning”.
There are to be limits on groups like trade unions and charities doing anything considered to be “intended to achieve a common purpose”. Campaigner Naomi Smith adds: “To that end, the bill means ministers can designate booking a meeting room as a criminal offence.”
As the dust settled on this bill, home secretary Pritti Patel, whose attacks on Black Lives Matter spurred the policing bill, had published her draconian Nationality and Borders Bill . This severely reduces the rights of asylum seekers who despite the odds make the hazardous journey to the UK. The numbers who get through are already so small that this legislation is primarily aimed at pandering to racism.
“The Bill proposes changes to the law to criminalise people who seek asylum on the basis of their mode of travel. This is based on the logic that refugees should seek asylum in the first safe country that they reach. But this demand, to apply at the first place possible, is, in fact, not a rule contained within the Refugee Convention,” says Lucy Mayblin, senior lecturer in Sociology, University of Sheffield.
Meanwhile, the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill continues its passage through Parliament. Naturally, this is intended to ensure that ultra right-wing speakers are given a platform in universities. A briefing paper on the bill for Universities UK, which represents 140 universities, warns that it could “make it easier for those who promote conspiracy theories or ‘alternative facts’ to speak on university campuses”.
When you add in the dog-whistle racism of leading Tories, which prompted the booing of England players taking a knee as well as national anthems of opposing teams, and a sinister bigger picture takes shape.
The pandemic has bottled up social reactions to an extent that they can run wild given half a chance. Witness the co-ordinated, violent break-in to Wembley by hundreds of ticketless fans determined to watch the England-Italy final.
So the Tories are rolling up liberal democracy and going for right-wing populism, with the danger that they unleash reactionary forces along the way that they will not be able to control. Naturally, they benefit enormously from the pathetic Labour leadership under Keir Starmer, which itself is not averse to playing the race card as it did in Batley recently.
How can this seemingly irreversible process be stopped? Liberty director Gracie Bradley says: “Those in power must listen to the chorus of opposition they are facing and scrap these plans.” That is a doomed strategy if there ever was one.
The onslaught on our rights is a global phenomenon which is bound up with the crisis of neoliberal capitalism. Representative democracy has been hollowed out to the point where the majority are effectively disenfranchised and powerless. The Tory Bills are a pointer to its future and it’s not a pleasant one.
As the system is in terminal decline, protests however big, are in themselves insufficient to turn the tide. Writing this on Bastille Day is salutary. It is a reminder that the state is the problem and not the solution. Involving people in a citizens-led process to create a true democracy is surely a priority now.
…with Johnson at the heart of all this. God forbid that the unions be consulted, or the head-teachers, or the working people. It is government by decree from within the Tory Party, and wholly unrepresentative, as if Johnson cannot bear to give any credence to his critics. He can bump elbows in extravagant fashion with people, but it`s a phoney gesture for the cameras only, or for the camera only, as he has his own personal Downing Street photographer at a cost of £100,000 a year, to push out cosy images for the media of him “taking back control” while chaos rules in the real world. A blinkered PM who has proved over and over again that he is unable to throw off the arrogant attitudes that come with an education at Eton College. For the moment the ruling classes and the forces of the state like him, because in the absence of any leadership from the Labour Party, he is popular. A scoundrel, notwithstanding.