[SilverElfin]

It’s not just the use against protest groups but selective use of it, that makes this extra bad. From the article:

> The risk is magnified by the racist and colonial legacy of Britain’s intelligence and policing institutions, whereby ‘loyalties’ and ‘foreign influence’ are racially coded terms. It is clear who the state thinks may constitute an agent of ‘foreign power’. Hall acknowledges the risk of “putting certain nationalities under the spotlight or appearing to question their loyalties”, but this is brushed over by the alleged extraordinary threat of national security risk.

This type of abuse of powers is already becoming normalized in America. For example, Governor Abbott of Texas and other politicians from right-leaning states have explicitly condemned Sharia Law and Islam, and are taking various actions to marginalize those communities. The recent incident with an Afghan national has further radicalized the right.

I can see how Sharia Law has no place in a democratic constitutional republic, but Christianity shares many of the same issues as Islam in terms of supremacist tendencies. And many on the right have no issue openly claiming that America is a Christian nation, and advocate for puritanical integration of their religion into law. This gets no condemnation from the right, and I doubt they’ll use their powers to stop the push for theocracy.

[legsrunny]

> I can see how Sharia Law has no place in a democratic constitutional republic

If there is a sizable population of people who really want to live like this, then why not? Demographics should be politically represented, no?