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There oddly seems to be a concerted effort online to paint the UK as some kind of failing police state recently. This narrative seems to have really taken off w

• summerdown2 1y ago
  I suspect it's projection as a defense, because a number of Brits do see the US as some sort of failing police state that's snatching people off the streets. I guess if you get your attack in first you'll be able to go "we're not the fascists, you're the fascists." None of that is to excuse the legislation, of course, which is not very good and will have a lot of poor consequences.
• crinkly 1y ago
  If it was a police state, JD Vance wouldn’t be getting it on his holiday here from protesters and video vans driving around and being refused service in a pub. It could end up that way but we’re not there yet. If we do get there we tend to make the French look like amateur protestors (look up poll tax riots). I’m less worried about a police state than a corporate dystopia. The attendee list at Trump’s inauguration would be far scarier to me than the OSA is.
  • throwaway97202 1y ago
    >If it was a police state, JD Vance wouldn’t be getting it on his holiday here from protesters and video vans driving around and being refused service in a pub. "Is it true that there is freedom of speech in the USSR, just like in the USA?" "Yes. In the USA, you can stand in front of the White House in Washington, DC, and yell, "Down with Ronald Reagan," and you will not be punished. Equally, you can also stand in Red Square in Moscow and yell, "Down with Ronald Reagan," and you will not be punished."
  • runsWphotons 1y ago
    A politician disliked by the state facing criticism doesn't mean anything. What matters is when people say something the state doesn't approve of.
  • GeoAtreides 1y ago
    If it WASN'T a police state, 500 people wouldn't have been arrested for holding up a sign.
    • crinkly 1y ago
      Let's extrapolate on a simple point because it's not so simple... A sign for a proscribed terrorist organisation, which its members are backed by a Russian plant (Fergie Chambers - now hiding in North Africa) and have damaged military aircraft, military facilities and attacked police officers with sledgehammer. Things that, in the US, you would have been shot for. The protesters could have waved any other sign around in support for the cause without any problems, as hundreds more were doing, but not that specific organisation. However the 500 people are at best naive victims of their own incompetence and being used as political pawns, not for the cause but instigators. All this stuff is rather less black and white than it sounds.
  • hopelite 1y ago
    That is a very simple perspective. Nothing about the current British government would preclude being underhanded and manipulative, i.e., making sure that not only the current US government, but the next system’s candidate is made to feel discomfort and displeasure in order to manipulate. People do this kind of underhanded passive aggressive thing all the time, why would it not be the case for the British government to basically “neg” the VP that has on several occasions now dressed them and all the Europeans down and embarrassed them? I could very easily see this being the very kind of manipulative and passive aggressive thing that the British government would facilitate as a spit in the face of the guy who admonished them for their thought/speech control. You seem to have a “police state” model in your mind that is akin to a North Korea and less what it will most likely be in the west, far more manipulative and sophisticated, as depicted in Orwell’s 1984.
    • crinkly 1y ago
      I think you're overcomplicating it. Having actually worked for UK gov directly with politicians, they are mostly either trying not to look bad but way out of their depth in stuff and being propped up by civil service. In that circumstance they'd stay out of it and blame it on the citizens while trying to get favour with Vance some other way. Spend a few months in Azerbaijan if you want to experience a police state. I have :)
• nxm 1y ago
  What is happening in Britain is people are being actually arrested for “offensive” speech, which is of course subjective, subject to abuse, and open to totalitarian oppression. This is why the First Amendment in the US constitution is so important
  • crinkly 1y ago
    The US constitution is only valuable if enforced, which is clearly not the case at the moment.
  • matthewmacleod 1y ago
    There are very significant concerns about the actions of the Westminster government recently no doubt – this is stupid legislation, and it compounds with other stupid legislation (see the recent arrests for supporting proscribed groups). Everyone should be protesting this nonsense. That said, there is equally a clear and obvious effort to distort what is happening. And I don't think anybody should really be taking lessons about "totalitarian oppression" when current US government policy is to send gangs of masked thugs to round up brown people.
    • xienze 1y ago
      Ignoring the usual baiting about how those brown people are illegal aliens and that’s the underlying reason they’re being rounded up — European countries are always held up as the standard the US should strive towards. So yes, it’s fair game for us to criticize them when they do things like police “offensive” speech.
      • matthewmacleod 1y ago
        No, this isn't baiting – it's an actual thing that's happening, regardless of how much you want to remain in denial about it. And I don't care about whatever weird preconceptions you've imposed – European countries have their own struggles to deal with and equally can do it badly. None of this is interesting discussion, and focusing on these weird "purity tests" around hypothetical freedom when ignoring the actual substantive impacts of the policies is why these people keep getting away with their terrible legislation.
• crote 1y ago
  > who now seem completely convinced that the UK government is some kind of totalitarian oppressor who are snatching people off the streets It's a bit hard to argue otherwise when the draconian arrests are well-documented by pretty much every single media outlet.
  • squidbeak 1y ago
    Could you list some for the benefit of those of us who haven't seen any?
• Yeul 1y ago
  I'm not American and I find the English legal system hilarious. In practically all countries a bunch of smart people got together in the 19th century to write a constitution but the British thought that they were above such petty concerns.
  • omnicognate 1y ago
    Profound legal analysis there. The United States' experiences with its written constitution don't give me any reason to think one would be a good idea in the UK.
    • 1234letshaveatw 1y ago
      I know right? Just look at all the wrongthink in the US being bandied about
      • omnicognate 1y ago
        I see no greater diversity of viewpoints in the US than the UK. I do see a country that's falling apart, sadly.
        • 1234letshaveatw 1y ago
          I see the opposite, happily
  • rmccue 1y ago
    The UK has a constitution, it's just not written in a single place. Many (most?) western societies have a similar concept for civil and criminal law with common law jurisdictions, where precedent is used rather than an explicit, exhaustive legal code. Effectively, the UK's constitution is to written constitutions as common law is to civil law.
    • GeoAtreides 1y ago
      I will argue that the UK doesn't have a Constitution and that's because of this one thing: No parliament can bind a future parliament. A Constitution is exactly this: a contract binding all future Parliaments to a specific set of axioms that must be respected.
• kristianc 1y ago
  > Look, I'm against this legislation too, but if you actually live in the UK or even just consume mainstream British media, you'd soon realise that this narrative that's being pushed is a distortion that doesn't match day to day reality. The censorship in the UK isn't that overt. There's no masked gangs grabbing people off the street, what there are is government "nudge" units, media talking heads and government-aligned media trying to push you toward points of view acceptable to the establishment. We're the world leaders in manufactured consensus.
  • closewith 1y ago
    > The censorship in the UK isn't that overt. Yes, it is. > There's no masked gangs grabbing people off the street The British Government is definitely not above masked kidnapping gangs and worse. The Glenanne Gang, MRF, etc.
  • KaiserPro 1y ago
    > government-aligned media The telegraph and times are government aligned? so is GB news? Now thats a good joke. I have actually met the media teams for a number of government departments (including during the drafting of the OSA) They are almost the living embodyment of "the thick of it" clever people trying to do good, surrounded by industrial grade cunts.
• holoduke 1y ago
  The problem in the UK is that politics are not in any way looking after its citizens. Its a group of elitists that serve large financial institutes. If you look at the UK now it really is much worse than lets say 30 years ago. Infrastructure is in a bad shape. Poverty is pretty visible. Loads of people living paycheck by paycheck. The mighty UK empire is gone.
  • hgomersall 1y ago
    TINA /s
• dgroshev 1y ago
  It's not even internally consistent, although propaganda rarely needs to be consistent. The UK government is somehow both entirely powerless (can't do anything about crime at all), and exceptionally powerful (tightly policing the speech and thoughts of 70 million people). Very little odd about this btw. Those efforts are intentional and blatant, e.g. [0]. In that case, you can even see that the accounts listed in the article flaunt what they are, their first posts after the blackout are about Israel. [0]: https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/dozens-of-pro-indy-accounts-go-dark-after-israeli-strikes/ https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/dozens-of-pro-indy-accounts-...
  • DecoySalamander 1y ago
    This isn't necessarily contradictory. A government can choose not to prosecute certain crimes, such as property crimes targeting lower classes or crimes committed by certain social groups, while cracking down on what it perceives as a threat to its power. I'm not saying that this is happening in the UK now, but every piece of news I hear about it is less than great, to say the least.
    • dgroshev 1y ago
      Where do you get those news from, precisely? Who has influence over what does and doesn't get seen? I will just link instead of re-typing the same points: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44711336 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44711336
• Xelbair 1y ago
  Look, I've been visiting Britain as a tourist for years(since more than 10 years ago) - mostly to visit my friends who live there. Each time i come there it's worse than previous trip, and your whole infrastructure feels oppressive. Constant reminders to be vigilant because something bad might happen(train and metro jingles come to mind) - implying a terrorist attack. Constant reminders that you're watched by cameras, while crime itself is rampant. I come from Eastern Europe, yet visiting UK genuinely feels like visiting oppressive police state. I am aware about your history(first The Troubles, then terrorist scare of 2000s, now domestic problems) but this is NOT the normal state for modern western country. Most likely perspective of Brits who have been living through this since ww2 is heavily culturally skewed, rather than then outside observer's one.
  • nrawe 1y ago
    As a Brit, I'd agree that it's not ideal. However, the characterisation of terrorist scare in the 2000's, is somewhat off. Over the course of the last two decades, there have been numerous terrorist attacks, most notably 7/9, which have led to increased vigilance and securitisation. So while travelling in Hungary, Croatia, or Italy over the last few years I've noted the difference, I also appreciate that each country is dealing with its own internal context that can be difficult to grasp from the outside. Anyway, thank you for visiting our fair shores :)
    • zimpenfish 1y ago
      > Over the course of the last two decades, there have been numerous terrorist attacks And don't forget the 3-4 decades before that where terrorist attacks were just a fact of life in the UK.
      • closewith 1y ago
        > And don't forget the 3-4 decades before that where terrorist attacks were just a fact of life in the UK. Most of which were performed by the British Government through police, military, and paramilitary forces against its own citizens.
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• vidarh 1y ago
  As someone who does live in the UK, and has for 25 years, while I too see the distortion you talk about, things have taken a distinct turn towards authoritarianism to the point that I watch what I write under my own name.
  • hopelite 1y ago
    The funnest part about that is you better make sure no matter what you write is also future proof against any and all whims of any other regime that may rule at any point in the future. But that is ultimately the point of any abusive and toxic system created by psychopathic, megalomaniac, malignant and grandiose narcissistic people and groups; they want to broken and shattered, never sure what may set the abuse off, until the day you remain beaten down and submissive to the demigods.
    • vidarh 1y ago
      That is true anywhere, and one reason why I think UK constitutional law is fundamentally broken in that, as some will tell you, the UK does have a constitution; but also, that constitution includes the principle of "parliamentary sovereignty" which means that parliament can at any point strip away all rights and privileges - the most important element of a functioning constitution, and a functioning democracy, is how it protects against government over-reach - even when supported by the majority (perhaps especially then), but as you allude to, not just now but also in the future. And this is also a key argument when people try to justify oppressive laws by appealing to their own good nature: Protecting speech and protecting agaisnt the government isn't always - or even usually - against protecting against the present, but protecting against every future potential government, and especially protecting against those who might be attracted by tools of oppression created in the present to seek power. I'm quite free-spoken most places, and usually feel more constrained by not wanting to be too controversial for potential employers etc. when writing under my own name. But the shift in the UK recently has been particularly troubling to a degree I haven't experienced first-hand before, and while it makes me more cautious about how it will be interpreted now, you're right: It's scarier to consider how these tools will be abused in the future.
• ants_everywhere 1y ago
  it's become fashionable for people to just lie about things in order to shock the audience into their point of view. What's more, they try to bully other people into lying about things to get their way. For example, I can't tell you many times I've read comments saying we'll never get anywhere if we insist on playing by the rules. Playing by the rules here means things like being honest.
• jjgreen 1y ago
  This country where 80-year old vicars are arrested for holding up a small piece of paper expressing support for a non-violent proscribed organisation? Everything is fine citizen, move along...
• exe34 1y ago
  I think it's fair to say that the maggats will say whatever they need to achieve their aim, not what they believe to be true. They have the national guard deployed in their capital to stifle dissent by the same orange taint who said he wasn't allowed to do that when it was his people trying to stage a violent self-coup (and he has since pardoned those criminals). What they want is a similar fascist group in the UK to do well in the next election - and freedom of speech is one of the easiest things to moan about when criminals are getting nabbed.
• gadders 1y ago
  >> some kind of totalitarian oppressor Well, it's only really happening for people on the Right. If you're firmly within the left wing Overton Window (apart from perhaps Israel/Palestine), you don't have much to fear from Two Tier Kear.
• redeyedtreefrog 1y ago
  Yup entirely this. The biggest sign of this is Tommy Robinson, who has blatantly committed outrageous cases of stalking, harassment, and contempt of court, for which he has been convicted. But because his schtick is complaining about Muslims he is then treated as a hero of the US right, gets invited on right-wing talk shows and gets bigged up by Elon Musk. I recently had a guy sit next to me on a plane bring him up as supposed proof of the UK being an authoritarian state. I go absolutely out of my way to avoid politics nowadays, which makes it all the more frustrating when this nonsense is shoved in my face by idiots on HackerNews or dimwits sitting next to me on the plane.
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• Oarch 1y ago
  Am British, don't agree with you in the slightest. Our media is absurdly distorted itself. Sometimes it's more objective to look from the outside in.