[mcjiggerlog]

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 with some Americans, who now seem completely convinced that the UK government is some kind of totalitarian oppressor who are snatching people off the streets.

Meanwhile, Brits just look on at this narrative wondering what the hell they're talking about. 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.

[nxm]

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

[KaiserPro]

> Britain is people are being actually arrested for “offensive” speech

This isn't actually new though. The difference is that they'd normally be nicked for breaching the peace, which is loosey goosey enough to be used for most things.

ASBOs are far more totalitarian as they can legally stop people from doing legal things. (ie stop a child playing in a park)

But to tackle your main point, Yes people are being arrested for offensive speech, but thats normally only part of the reason for arrest.

I can call my MP a massive <pejorative that gets the Americans all abother>, I cannot however cause a race riot, as that's not allowed under freedom of expression.

I also cannot give advice on pensions.

I cannot threaten the lives of people

I also cannot claim to be a policeman

etc.

The thing you must understand is that _most_ people (ie not columnists or former PMs) accept that there is a tradeoff between "free speech" and a pleasant society. Sure we did look at your first amendment and think "ooo thats probably nice" but then we have the human rights act that enforces freedom of expression. (which the same columnists/former ministers are decrying freedom of speech are looking to get rid of "because it protects immigrants")

The Online safety act is a mess, because ofcom have not issued proper guidance, and the draft bill was directed by someone who was borderline insane (nadine dorris)

Age assurance is not actually a problem, what is a problem is asking me to hand over personal details so some fly by night US startup who'll get hacked/sell my data to blackmailers.

forcing websites to have moderation policies is fine, not having a flexible approach for smaller sites is not fine.

The act is flawed, but its not _actually_ that different from how Network TV is moderated in the USA.

[hn_throw2025]

You post recognises the boundary between free and illegal speech.

You have not addressed the fact that UK policing guidelines now have a third category of “legal but harmful” (which has resulted in real door knocks). This is subject to political outlook and therefore as “loosey goosey” as it gets.

[KaiserPro]

> now have a third category of “legal but harmful”

I'm sorry but the police always have had that. Again, ASBOs, public order offences, "please move along now", town dispersal orders.

Specifically ASBOs give the police the power to stop someone doing almost any action, the courts have deemed antisocial.

A good example of that is street preachers being stopped from using megaphones, which must have happened as early as ~2005

> which has resulted in real door knocks

from the OSA, I'm not aware of any cases yet?

> This is subject to political outlook and therefore as “loosey goosey” as it gets.

The law is always subject to political outlook. Even a constitution is no match for a concerted effort to undermine it. For example: article 124/125 of the 1936 USSR constitution allowed freedom of press, religion and the right to gather.

Look, unless we get someone extreme in power, and they are uniquely competent, they we are mostly safe. What will change that is the steady drip drip drip, of both economic hardship, and a willing medium to blame that on minorities.

So 2028 is around the time that jenrick will attempt to lock us all up.

[hn_throw2025]

I am talking about a Police visit over a sarcastic satirical tweet. There are other cases.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/31/kent-police-20k-...

> Look, unless we get someone extreme in power, and they are uniquely competent, they we are mostly safe. What will change that is the steady drip drip drip, of both economic hardship, and a willing medium to blame that on minorities. So 2028 is around the time that jenrick will attempt to lock us all up.

Sigh, I was half expecting drivel like that.

[KaiserPro]

Yes, but as the news piece clearly points out, it was incorrect and cost the police £20k.

> Sigh, I was half expecting drivel like that.

Look I have been railing against this shit for _years_ the Public Order Act 2023 is the latest in a looooong line of laws that have actually and practically curtailed our rights to protest.

I have organise, I have petitioned, I have shouted and screamed, and yet here we are. I have given up.

I look over at the states and just have to hope that it reeks enough that it puts people off the badenoch/jenrick/farage wank fest.

Sadly with the underfunding of courts, and the move to bench trials, means that we are probably fucked, no recourse unless you're rich

[amanaplanacanal]

I think you mean broadcast TV. Broadcast radio is similar. The legal justification is something about the limited supply of public airwaves. Those regulations wouldn't fly in the US for any other medium.

[KaiserPro]

It was about morals.

Hence the hollywood code, and all that sort of stuff.

The US really loved censorship, but just not in overt ways. Sure you could publish anything, but it'd never get syndicated by radio, newpaper, TV or cinema.

[nrawe]

I'm happy to be wrong, but I don't believe that's correct. There have been some people arrested for inciting violence via social media during the Southport riots.

There is also Tommy Robinson/Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who has been remanded in custody for contempt of court for continuing to libel an immigrant even after his claims were proven to be false. And by contempt of court, he literally has produced a movie continuing to slander said immigrant for his own ends.

Another is Palestine Action being made a proscribed terror group. While lots of people, as evidenced by recent protests, see this as problematic, its not particularly different to other groups like environmental activists that commit criminal acts being proscribed and there are numerous examples UK/abroad of that. PA members at the direction of PA leadership have fallen into that category not because of their beliefs, but because of their actions – like breaking into Israeli-owned security research company with a van, and into an RAF base, in both cases committing vandalism and destruction of property.

Some people believe there is a problem, but there really isn't a legislative agenda against free speech.

[moomin]

Vandalism and destruction of property is a shockingly low bar. The suffragettes threw an axe at the king and no-one said they should be a proscribed organisation.

[nrawe]

I'll stand to be wrong, but I believe in one case a member of staff and two police officers were also assaulted. Terrorism isn't necessarily about body count, it's about motivation. If the motive is political change, and the ends is violence/criminal damaged/anti-social behaviour that tends to be enough. Similar cases exist in the US, too.

I personally think its a bit of a stretch and will likely be undone. However, to pretend they are simply peaceful protests being unfairly targeted is also incorrect.

[tacticus]

Yeah the assault one is interesting cause they didn't end up charging them with it at all... perhaps reading the police statements without corroborating evidence is problematic.

[ChocolateGod]

Breaking into a military base and attempting to damage military equipment used to defend the country is a very high bar.

[KaiserPro]

> no-one said they should be a proscribed organisation.

That wasn't a thing back then, not really

https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/v/object-453005/...

Arrested for "obstructing a policeman"

All of the suffragettes that were caught were normally caused with vandalism

[foldr]

If I broke into a US military base and started vandalizing B-52s, I honestly think I'd be pretty lucky to escape with my life.

[normie3000]

> no-one said they should be a proscribed organisation

Is this true? I'd be surprised.

[zimpenfish]

> its not particularly different to other groups like environmental activists that commit criminal acts being proscribed

I can't find any on [0] - do you have examples?

[0] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/proscribed-terror...

[nrawe]

I should note that my comparison was to a US organisation proscribed as an eco-terror organisation, the name of which escapes me, and which I couldn't find in a quick scan back through my reading or here[0]. I came across them through a podcast interviewing both sides about a decade out. I'll keep looking though and try and qualify my source :)

I guess what I mean is this: while I think the PA proscription is probably misjudged, it's not without its precedent.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eco-terrorism

[vixen99]

In one area at least, there is progress: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/free-speech-rules-to-prot...

[gadders]

>>some people arrested for inciting violence via social media during the Southport riots.

Yes, but only on the right. The leader of Hope not Hate was not charged for his inflammatory tweets, and then you have this guy saying he hoped right wing protestors' throats would be cut being completely let off:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/15/suspended-labour...

[darrenf]

Arrests are up, but sentences are down — i.e. fewer convictions/criminal records

https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/select-communications-off...

> there are several reasons why an arrest may not result in a sentence, such as out-of-court resolutions, but said the “most common is “evidential difficulties””, specifically that the victim does not support taking further action.

As mentioned at the top of the above document, there was a debate in the Lords on 17th July on the topic where many of the participants were pretty scathing about the situation: https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2025-07-17/debates/F807C...

The minister was naturally defensive towards the end, albeit they did say:

> Importantly, the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the College of Policing, at the request of the Home Secretary, are currently undertaking a review of how non-crime hate incidents are dealt with. We expect to see some information from the police on that. It is self-evidently important that some of those incidents help us gather intelligence on potential future crime, but, equally, we do not want the police to do things that waste their time and not focus on the type of crime that the noble Lord rightly mentioned in his introduction.

[abtinf]

That quote could be taken straight out of “Yes, Minister”.

[xienze]

> Arrests are up, but sentences are down — i.e. fewer convictions/criminal records

Well that’s certainly a relief! People are only being _arrested_ for """offensive""" speech, not convicted!

[darrenf]

I mean … is it not a relief that “””offensive””” speech isn’t actually a crime?

There’s widespread recognition right up to the Lords that this is a shitty situation, dangerous/chilling, and a waste of police time. We all think it's nonsense, and it’s being called out for being nonsense in parliament. Literally no-one, AFAICT, thinks it’s a good thing that arrest numbers are rising for non-criminal speech.

TBH I would hope when the dust settles that more people will get in shit for wasting police time — either reporting non-crimes to the police, or not actually wanting any (further) action taken. Feels like in many cases the “victims” are just playing the system as it (rapidly) develops, to take an online beef offline, rather than totalitarianism. If it were totalitarianism they’d be locking folk up, or at least convicting them of something, but that’s where we came in — those numbers are falling.

[crinkly]

The US constitution is only valuable if enforced, which is clearly not the case at the moment.

[matthewmacleod]

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.

[dgroshev]

The government in power has little to do with the Act, it was passed two years ago by a different party that is now refusing to own the mess that they created. Sure, one can say that the government could be more diligent at repealing bad laws, but the Parliament had quite a few things on its plate already, so it's not surprising that this Act coming into power during the summer recess wasn't high on the agenda.

[matthewmacleod]

This is entirely not true, and the government is entirely free to withdraw this stupid, harmful legislation. Do not make excuses, because this is how the Labour Party get away with this sort of stupid action.

[dgroshev]

The government can't "withdraw" an Act of Parliament, only the Parliament can, by passing a new bill.

It's not a Labour Party's action, the deadline was written into the act two years ago.

[eftpotrm]

Passed with the support of the current governing party, it should be noted.

[xienze]

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]

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.

[lkramer]

Sure, but so are people in the US, despite the first amendment.

[te_chris]

Definitely not happening in the us too! Certainly no academic visas being cancelled.

[1234letshaveatw]

Yes, yes! This is all well and good, but whatabout America bad?!

[exe34]

No I think it's projection. It's happening over there, so they want to deflect attention and pretend "bad things" are happening over here instead, in a bid to support their chosen fascists in the next election.

[vidarh]

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]

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]

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.

[jjgreen]

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...

[crote]

> 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]

Could you list some for the benefit of those of us who haven't seen any?

[exe34]

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.

[Oarch]

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.

[Xelbair]

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.

[gadders]

>> then terrorist scare of 2000s

The Ariana Grande concert bombing was only five years ago. You can see a list of those in the 2020's here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in...

[hopelite]

Yes, and it was effectively facilitated by the British government through its actions and policies.

The whole highest order issue in the whole west is that there is not only effectively zero responsibility, zero accountability, but also zero consequences.

The easiest to understand example of this may be how corporations can commit all manner of what are effectively crimes (i.e., it is what you would be charged with) and they not only do not have any effective consequences, the consequences usually instill the lesson that it is extremely profitable to commit the crimes and just pay the meaningless fine as a cost of business.

In most cases corporations even just account for it as an expense and add it to the cost and price they charge. So, for example, all the EU fines they so concisely levied over the last years against American tech companies like Microsoft and Google; they had been charging the various European governments and companies for a reserve to pay such expected fines.

It always baffles me that people do not understand the basic premise that organizations of people are not their own entities, especially when you don’t punish the individuals that make them up in the same way that individuals that are not in corporations are. Is quite literally a kind of new stratified system. Joe if ACME Corp can commit financial crimes and get away with it, but you can’t. He can even commit homicide through negligence with impunity, while you are thrown in jail for decades.

It really should be the other way around, if a corporation commits crimes, if you did or should have known about the crimes, you are collectively also held criminally liable just like a getaway driver of a bank robbery is.

Somehow we have not evolved past the point that the most powerful and responsible are the least accountable and have the least consequences for their actions.

[gadders]

The rest of your text may have a bit of a point, but:

>>effectively facilitated by the British government through its actions and policies.

Nothing justifies blowing up teenage girls you deluded psychopath.

[const_cast]

> Nothing justifies blowing up teenage girls you deluded psychopath.

This is why there is zero accountability in the West. Because as soon as we say "hey, policy had some hand in this", people like yourself come out of the woodwork with language such as this to shut the conversation down.

Believe it or not, Terrorism IS a policy issue. If you have bad policy, then you are partially responsible when terrorism happens!

Even natural disasters are a policy issue. For example, here in Texas we had a flood where a lot of people, including young girls, drowned.

This is the type of thing that gets affected when you, say, cut budgets for weather and climate surveillance services. But when you point this out, braindead republicans will say "wowww so you're politicizing the death of little girls? Shame on you!"

But it is political, because everything is political, because politics is literally how modern humans structure their society. It's not team sports. If you cut money for thing X, things that rely on thing X will die, and that includes humans.

The reason people want to shut this coversation down over and over again is because they don't want to be accountable. They voted for something, knowing deep down it's bad and it's gonna lead to some people dying, and they feel immense shame for this. So, they would prefer to simply pretend the issue does not exist, then to have some accountability.

You see, they vote for policies for their direct consequences, but then they don't want to be responsible for those consequences either. That's not possible, those two don't compute together.

[nrawe]

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 :)

[hopelite]

What people like you seem to miss or maybe simply lack the sophistication (if I may say so) for, is understanding the nature of the ruling system and how far it will go to achieve its aims, which are also hidden from you. The ruling class are obviously a rather small group, so they inherently and by necessity rely on extreme manipulation, gaslighting, lying, deception, etc. to keep everyone off balance and not looking at them for causes or even accountability, let alone doing anything about them. It is why those who are extremely adept at manipulation and abuse are the ones who keep the ruling class in power in all places in the West, where the ruling class defers to them for that skill of manipulation and abuse.

It seems impossible to you that a government and its actors would e.g., not only allow, but even facilitate something like terrorist attacks specifically for the very purpose of making incremental, ratcheting moves towards an authoritarian system more palatable… for your safety of course.

It’s really not any different than how all abusers will incrementally test and press with various cycles of pressure and relief on their target of subjugation and abuse.

All the signs of manipulation, subjugation, and abuse are there in basically all western countries. Have you ever heard of Biderman’s chart of coercion[1]?

[1] https://www.strath.ac.uk/media/1newwebsite/departmentsubject...

[nrawe]

Hi hopelite. I typed out a decently detailed response to your message, but decided to cut it short. I think we probably have a profoundly different viewpoint and set of experiences which would be too much to try and reconcile here.

I'll say this: history, certainly British history, shows that bad actors are real and that power is simultaneously unavoidable, useful, and deeply dangerous, particularly for those who seek it out. I'm certainly not oblivious to that or "lack the sophistication" to see that the world is complex.

However, for all its ills, I'd rather live here, now, than anywhere else at any other time in history and I think there's better things ahead if we can stop see those who have different viewpoints as inferior, or as enemies, and find some common ground. I'd certainly rather be here than in Gaza, Iran, Russia, Belarus, Afganistan, China, etc.

Maybe I'll be proved wrong, but given the same outrage flew during the Snoopers Charter debacle and we are all still here and talking, maybe "they" are not out to get us all.

[hopelite]

Thank you for that measured response. I was unsure of whether I should use "sophisticated" as it was not mean as an insult or "put-down", than rather more of an indication that the vast majority of people simply do not have an understanding for just how complicated, intertwined, and complex that system is.

I can somewhat agree with the sentiment of "rather live here...", even though in many ways it seems likely we are very much on the tail end of an experience that would evoke such sympathies.

One of those challenges that many have today, largely because they very much have been conditioned, trained if you like, to not see those who do them ill, those who harm them as evil, or even enemies; setting aside "inferiority" as that is an unrelated matter.

It is a rather odd condition that has befallen what appears to be all of the western world for reasons that are too deep to go into right now, suffice it to say that they resemble the very kinds of sentiments and perspectives that one expects of any "spoiled" population, be it the Beautiful Ones of Calhoun's mouse population experiment, or the detachment captured in the "Then let them eat brioche (usually mistranslates as cake)". It is the same kind of ill that is befalling our societies all over the western world as the "democracies" have become not only non-responsive to the very people who are presumed represented by those they vote for, but in most cases they have even become not just hostile to their own populations, but they have become actively aggressive towards and against their own populations, which by any measure and standard would qualify such a person as an enemy.

So what do you do with that, when you objectively have enemies (from the latin inimicus, an anti-friend), but you and many if not most people are conditioned to oppose seeing the enemy, seeing the harm, presuming that the proverbial foreign horde streaming through the front gates may in fact not want peace and to live in harmony with you from imaginary endless resources?

It invariably causes conflict due to the waning diligence and order wrought. They are very likely not out to "get you" or us in a manner that is common in the public imagination, which is partially the their tactic and the commoners challenge. People are conditioned with movies to imagine that "get us" would entail all the sort of sudden and compounded actions that one can fit into a formulaic Hollywood format, when in fact they "get us" on such a long trajectory, plans devised by men long gone, maintained, adjusted, and kept on course by men multiples or ages.

The designs against major civilizations are rarely happenstance any more than anything today happens without it being acted upon, whether with intended or unintended outcomes. It is what the multitude does not have a perspective for, that basically nothing in their lives is actually their doing any more than a child is the master of their life.

The challenge is also to see, recognize, and accept the disguised trap prior to entering it, but surely before it snaps shut with fatal effects.

[kyleee]

Don’t look back in anger

[zimpenfish]

> 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]

> 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.

[kristianc]

> 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.

[KaiserPro]

> 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.

[closewith]

> 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.

[holoduke]

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]

TINA /s

[Yeul]

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]

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]

I know right? Just look at all the wrongthink in the US being bandied about

[omnicognate]

I see no greater diversity of viewpoints in the US than the UK. I do see a country that's falling apart, sadly.

[1234letshaveatw]

I see the opposite, happily

[rmccue]

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]

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.

[desas]

The US constitution is very similar, except in two important regards: amendments require two thirds majority votes in both houses and ratification by 75% of the states.

We don't have the state mechanism. You could argue the four nations could serve a similar purpose, though there's a debate about how democratic that is when England makes up something like 85% of the UK population (and doesn't have its own legislature).

[happymellon]

> The UK has a constitution, it's just not written in a single place.

No we don't. We have what is referred to as an "uncodified constitution".

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncodified_constitution

It is a collection of laws and conventions, but there is nothing set up as an overarching set of rules to guide the country. If something were to happen that was deeply unpopular with what the majority of the country feels "makes us British", there is little we could do about it.

Successful court cases against the government have usually been because the government of the day forgot to pass the law that gave them the power to do whatever move they wanted to make. A constitution change is a much bigger deal.

[closewith]

That's nonsense as there are plenty of common law countries with monolithic constitutions. Unlike common vs civil law systems which are both widespread globally, the UK is the outlier in having no written constitution.

[dgroshev]

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-...

[DecoySalamander]

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]

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

[redeyedtreefrog]

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.

[gadders]

>> 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.

[crinkly]

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.

[GeoAtreides]

If it WASN'T a police state, 500 people wouldn't have been arrested for holding up a sign.

[crinkly]

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.

[throwaway97202]

>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]

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.

[hopelite]

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]

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 :)

[summerdown2]

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.

[ants_everywhere]

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.