As Boris Johnson talks about building a ‘New Jerusalem’ I remind myself of any dystopian story I have ever read. I’m not sure I want to be part of his New Jerusalem. Anyone professing to be the architect of a new society makes me instinctively cautious. Someone with his track record for incompetence and general indifference to the wellbeing of the populace is someone whose Jerusalem reeks of inevitable failure. These are the type of people who will hoard the lifejackets as the ship sinks, or who in actuality are already hoarding the lifejackets as the system sinks.
I haven’t been getting caught up in cries of fascism and autocracy by the state but this lot in power at the moment are not playing by the rules of old. If they were anarchists decentralising and creating community I would be fine with it but when they’re right wing wannabe despots in the making it is more concerning. Teachers can’t teach about anti-capitalism anymore. The police have been given draconian powers to enforce their will on the people. Powers are rarely given up once they’ve been received. The opposition exists in name only. There are real and concerning things going on in the UK at present. Once we leave the EU this power grab will only be intensified.
Talking of the ‘opposition’, only twenty of them, one of whom was Jeremy Corbyn, voted against the Covert Human Intelligence Sources Bill. Officially this “authorise(s) conduct by officials and agents of the security and intelligence services, law enforcement, and certain other public authorities, which would otherwise constitute criminality”. In layman’s terms the state and it’s enforcers are now above the law. Effectively this allows the government a license to kill whoever it deems a danger to it’s existence. The US and Canada have similar laws but they specifically exclude certain crimes like murder and torture. This one rushed through Parliament omits such exclusions. Remarkably the bill extends these powers to various government bodies such as The Competition and Markets Authority, The Environment Agency, The Financial Conduct Authority, The Food Standards Agency and The Gambling Commission.
The bill allows for state actors to break the law in three scenarios – in the interests of national security, for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime or of preventing disorder and in the interests of the economic well-being of the United Kingdom. What is clear from this though is the ambiguity involved. ‘Preventing disorder’ seems as all encompassing as ‘breach of the peace’, what exactly is classed as disorder? And someone can be killed to protect the economic interests of the UK. Does this mean I can sign up for the police and kill the leaders of Brexit? But seriously if we think of the new teaching rules on sugar coating capitalism and then this, it’s clear who and what this mob represent.
Former Tory leader and Brexit Minister David Davis and former Tory Chief Whip Andrew Mitchell have even called the government out on there being a “whole series of weaknesses in (the bill), which at the end of the day will impinge on innocent people” and on the dangers of “granting such powers in a free society” respectively. Human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Unions such as Unite have also heavily cautioned about the dangers involved with passing such legislation. As ever the media have been silent. Not even a mention of Keir Starmer whipping his MPs into abstaining against the vote. Love or loath Corbyn, at least he was a man of integrity and one who actually acted as a real opposition. Like I said, I don’t usually get caught up in genuine despotic outcries but this is concerning and this is a system looking increasingly less capable of maintaining and standing up for itself by the day.
Observations and Misunderstandings 