Wednesday, 7 July 2021

Is the UK an authoritarian state?

(On voting rights, the US is? Read a dissenting Supreme Court Justice's furious attack on her colleagues, even as Texas seeks to join Arizona in extraordinary, sweeping voting laws widely perceived as a poll tax and Jim Crow 2)

The UK is a template for many democracies around the world - partly a reflection of its colonial past but also partly the historic age of democracy here.

But, just as with the US under Trump (and arguably under supposed liberal predecessors who oversaw massive prison populations), the UK is increasingly seen as little more democratic than states like Poland and Hungary where leaders openly critique liberal democracy and suppress forms of opposition and limits to their executive power.

Considering Johnson's record on media intimidation, threats to the independent judiciary (in league with a mostly allied press), increasing attempts to control or neuter independent broadcast media (BBC and C4, with attempts to place controversial ideologue Paul Dacre in OfCom on top of BBC appointments, license fee cuts and mooted C4 privatisation), race-baiting and extreme anti-immigration policies (frequently condemned by the courts here and internationally), proroguing parliament, perceived croneyism, refusal to enforce the minister's code, and now attempts to suppress voting, give police absolute power to suppress and prosecute virtually any form of protest ... There is a case to answer.

That is partly down to party politics and the electoral system, with the link to a highly biased press; populism and personality dominating policy; and a global pushback against democratic norms led by the Trump regime.

Can the UK be judged authoritarian now; or is it on the path towards this; or is that an exaggerated liberal outlook? You can make a good case for all 3 of those viewpoints, and should be able to identify one detail favouring each.

Here's a Guardian editorial which favours the middle position.

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