Authoritarianism rising

[mtbc]

Last week, the New York Times published an essay by the London-based journalist Moya Lothian-McLean, Boris Johnson Is Revealing Who He Really Is, which draws attention to how the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, the Nationality and Borders Bill, the Elections Bill, and the Judicial Review and Courts Bill include provisions harmful to various civil liberties; needless to say, they are not optimistic about the coming Online Safety Bill. It feels as if autocratization is increasingly widespread; one fears sleepwalking into its entrenchment.

I do not know how best to appear as an upset citizen to the powers that be. In our form of democracy, my usual default would be to write to my MP, but they would be against it all anyway, and I wonder how much an overseas voter weighs in comparison to a local constituent. Perhaps my voter status is irrelevant and, like anybody else, I am left with donating to openDemocracy or whomever. Years ago, I imagined that the Liberal Democrats were the defenders to support but, even back when people off-hand even remembered who leads the party, my civil liberties concerns tended not to be among their headline issues and it takes much effort for a party to get even their highest priorities addressed.

I have also wondered how to weigh in as a voice of sanity^* more locally. I doubt I am much credible for, say, a school board, given how I have no children of my own in local schools. Ordinarily, I might look at pollworking or suchlike but the pandemic does not encourage me, locally I rather doubt that I can engage in such without considerable risk of infection. To give some context, this morning's local social media included fear of being killed by receiving blood from vaccinated donors, I nobly refrained from mentioning Darwin Awards.

^*What I think, rather than what others think!

Comments

[thewayne]

The UK is such a mess right now, it's such a tragedy. And my wife wants to get passports and move to Scotland, I guess in hopes of Scottish independence? I haven't been keeping track if the Scottish NHS has been faring any better than the English NHS. And from what I have heard, the poll numbers for independence have been sliding rather than growing, but that might be inaccurate.

[mtbc]

Scotland's generally done better because their pandemic rules have tended to be tighter. Scotland tends to be some left of England so, if England were to tilt further right still, calls for independence would increase, and can be resisted only so much. Getting residency there's not easy and, even up in Scotland, real estate's not cheap, especially near jobs. I can absolutely see it as being a good move strategically, though. Were my finances otherwise, I'd sure be open to staying around Dundee, I just have more disposable income here, at least for the moment. For me, much depends on what happens here over the coming decade.