"In Britain, as in the US, the people most likely to censor you or demand your employer fires you are “liberals,” rather than Conservatives."
Yet, various passages of this post diss "populists", e.g. "the populist tiger". Is there anything that populism's foes could do, to get you to label them "the anti-populist tiger"?
I'd find this more persuasive coming from someone who wasn't still grinding a Brexit axe.
For the record, Turkey EU membership may not have been imminent but it certainly isn't some wild notion, ever outside the Overton window of the Brussels wish list. And I would be surprised if there was a single EU country with popular support for the number of migrants they've been forced to accommodate by their leaders. When the will of the people is inconvenient, they sneer and call it "populism" and pretend they still support democracy.
Great article! In my opinion, the key concern is the Johnson government’s effect upon liberal democracy. As the article states, the UK is very different from the US and differences with Hungary and Poland are more pronounced. Admittedly, the Johnson government has attacked democratic institutions and precedents. There are issues associated with Brexit, such as the prorogation of parliament and the ‘specific and limited’ breach of international law. There are domestic issues, such as the proposed introduction of voting ID, this targeting non-Conservative voters.
But has this seriously eroded British democracy? I’m not sure. Whatever the intentions of Johnson, British institutions are very strong. Parliament is one of the oldest in the world, its procedures limiting government ambitions. Civil society habitually contests government policy, much opposition being concentrated in sociocultural sectors. The BBC remains independent. So whilst developments are worrying, we remain very far from Hungary and Poland.
"In Britain, as in the US, the people most likely to censor you or demand your employer fires you are “liberals,” rather than Conservatives."
Yet, various passages of this post diss "populists", e.g. "the populist tiger". Is there anything that populism's foes could do, to get you to label them "the anti-populist tiger"?
I'd find this more persuasive coming from someone who wasn't still grinding a Brexit axe.
For the record, Turkey EU membership may not have been imminent but it certainly isn't some wild notion, ever outside the Overton window of the Brussels wish list. And I would be surprised if there was a single EU country with popular support for the number of migrants they've been forced to accommodate by their leaders. When the will of the people is inconvenient, they sneer and call it "populism" and pretend they still support democracy.
Great article! In my opinion, the key concern is the Johnson government’s effect upon liberal democracy. As the article states, the UK is very different from the US and differences with Hungary and Poland are more pronounced. Admittedly, the Johnson government has attacked democratic institutions and precedents. There are issues associated with Brexit, such as the prorogation of parliament and the ‘specific and limited’ breach of international law. There are domestic issues, such as the proposed introduction of voting ID, this targeting non-Conservative voters.
But has this seriously eroded British democracy? I’m not sure. Whatever the intentions of Johnson, British institutions are very strong. Parliament is one of the oldest in the world, its procedures limiting government ambitions. Civil society habitually contests government policy, much opposition being concentrated in sociocultural sectors. The BBC remains independent. So whilst developments are worrying, we remain very far from Hungary and Poland.
If people are interested, I wrote more about this here: https://thomasprosser.substack.com/p/does-the-johnson-government-threaten