Descent and Fall

Britain was once part of the free world. Today its increasingly authoritarian.

Imagine a world where you could face arrest simply for posting unkind or critical comments online. Or picture police knocking on your door because you voiced opposition to mass immigration.

You don’t need to imagine such a world – it is a reality in Britain, my former home and once part of the free world.

Parents Maxie Allen and Rosalind Levine from Hertfordshire, England, were arrested earlier this year in front of their children over disparaging remarks made in a private parents’ messaging group. They were among more than 10,000 people arrested in Britain this year for their online posts. Britain last year arrested more people for what they wrote online than communist China.

“What’s all this, then?” - British police arresting parents

Of course, not all those arrested are sent to prison. But plenty are. Lucy Connolly received a 31-month jail sentence after posting online, including a call for “mass deportation now.”

Lucy Connolly and others have received “exemplary” sentences - in other words, instead of the British courts dispensing justice dispassionately, they have handed down arbitrary sentences designed to make an example of people, as one might expect in a third-world country.

For most people arrested in these cases, the process itself - months of uncertainty, reputational damage, family stress and the inability to earn a living - is intended to be the punishment. Again, this is redolent of what you might find in a third world country, rather than the home of Magna Carta.

Is Britain today still a free country? Twenty or thirty years ago that would have been a ridiculous question. Today, it really isn’t. Free countries don’t behave this way.

England, the country that gave the world common law no longer applies the law equally to all. Indeed, there have been cases of individuals receiving longer prison sentences for things they said online than some of those convicted in child grooming gang cases.

Only last week, Luke Yarwood was sent to jail for one and a half years for what he said online. That same week, Demiesh Williams, who literally beat a man to death in a supermarket queue, was sent to jail for three years. This is not what happens in a civilized Western society.

Why should any of this matter to Americans? Because Britain is a bleak warning of what can happen to a formerly free society.

Britain’s descent into anarcho-tyranny - where authorities are lax with serial offenders yet draconian toward those who strive to live law-abiding lives – has happened incredibly quickly.

To understand why the British state has turned against its own people, consider what occurred just last week on the other side of the world in Australia.

During a Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach, two Pakistani men - one an immigrant to Australia, the other his son - massacred 16 people for being Jewish.

Now reflect for a moment on how the Australian authorities responded.

Did the Aussie government announce that they’d be reviewing how such fanatics were allowed into the country? I didn’t hear it. Did the Canberra government question how it could be that a man born and raised in Australia might live in such a parallel culture inside Australia that he was willing to shoot children on a beach? No sign yet.

What I did hear is the Aussie Prime Minister insisting that diversity is Australia’s strength, followed by plans to further restrict gun ownership and curb free speech.

Rather than curb Muslim immigration to Australia, the lanyard wearing classes in Australia prefer to limit Australians’ access to firearms.

The stated aim of the new free speech restrictions, apparently, is to prevent mobs chanting antisemitic messages - as occurred in the aftermath of Hamas’ October 7 atrocity near Sydney Opera House.

You don’t need powers of prophecy to grasp that Australia’s new free speech restrictions will end up being used to lock up those that complain about Muslim migration more than they’ll ever be used to tackle extremist Islam.

Instead of acknowledging and facing up to the problem of radical Islam, the authorities in Australia are trying to make it as much about tackling “hate” and “Islamophobia”.

Now do you begin to see why the authorities over in Britain have turned Soviet on their own citizens?

The British public now sees the consequences of mass immigration from the third world – and they don’t like what they see. In the five years since I left Britain, something like 4 million immigrants from third-world countries have arrived gross.

Before Elon Musk bought X, the British authorities were able to rely on algorithms to try to suppress all sorts of dissent.

Now they can’t. Instead, they appear to be intentionally suppressing dissent through targeted prosecutions and prison sentences. The situation in Britain really is that grim now.

How should America respond as Britain, and other Western states, descend into autocracy? What might the United States do to try to ensure that what is happening in formerly free countries is just a spasm, and not a collapse?

1. Cherish the First Amendment: I know it’s fashionable to claim that America has lost its way. Trust me, thanks to the Founders, the United States is looking far better than anywhere else on earth right now. Value the Constitution, defend liberty ever more aggressively at home and never abandon the principle that in America you should be free to say things even if others find them offensive or foolish.

1. Stop treating allies as America’s equals if they mistreat their own citizens: If Britain, Australia, and others start behaving like banana republics, treat their governments accordingly. Why should the United States provide defense subsidies and a diplomatic premium to a regime that fall so far short of Western standards of behavior?

1. End mass immigration: Control your country’s borders, or your government will end up trying to control you to prevent complaints about the consequences of uncontrolled borders.

1. Support dissidents: During the Cold War, Ronald Reagan made it clear that the United States stood with Soviet dissidents like Natan Sharansky. As Sharansky explained in his brilliant book, that moral support was crucial in the fight against tyranny. The US State Department should proactively identify and assist dissidents in Britain and elsewhere, in some cases offering asylum to those persecuted by their own governments.

A year or so ago, I facetiously suggested that if things got really bad in Britain, Donald Trump could apply the ultimate pressure by offering every Brit under the age of 30 the right to work in America. If he did so, there would be a mass exodus and the government in London would collapse. That idea no longer seems quite so absurd.