From voter ID rules to restrictions on protest, repressive measures are on the UK government’s post-pandemic agenda
As a bewildered country blinks in the tentative daylight of freedom, after nearly a year and a half of unprecedented restrictions, a wider struggle to restore our sacred freedoms is surely overdue. Despite cynical attempts by some commentators to brand Boris Johnson a “libertarian” – in practice, he is a man who cherishes freedoms only for his own class – his is a nakedly authoritarian government.
It would be unwise to concede this fact to Covid conspiracists, who are as noisy as they are peripheral in public opinion. It is possible to believe, for instance, that an extraordinary national emergency required lockdown, but that implementing it sooner in early 2020 would have suppressed the public health crisis more quickly, meaning restrictions on freedoms would have been shorter lived. The government’s focus on law-breaking during the pandemic – rather than greater financial support for self-isolation or the hiking of a statutory sick pay that remains among the lowest of the rich countries – is further evidence of its authoritarian credentials.
