British people still hate the nanny state |
In recent years a popular assumption has arisen in Britain that we are a nation of ‘curtain twitchers’ with an affinity for petty authoritarianism. This claim is usually supported by issue-specific polling: historic support for ID cards, contemporary backing for lockdowns, public health interventions such as smoking restrictions, or proposals to ‘Keep Children safe online’.
I suspect that it is partly because of this narrative that Starmer and the people around him believe that he can even entertain the banning social media platforms like X, breaking from liberal democracies like Canada (who ruled it out) and joining a club with Iran, Russia and China.
It was also probably what led him to the erroneous view that he could impose a compulsory Digital ID system onto the public.
But the idea that we British people love nanny, and wish to be ruled by her, does not match well with our recent history. In fact, it is often the case that we have resisted attempts by the political establishment to impose restrictions upon us. In the last two decades, Britain has repeatedly resisted elite-driven attempts to expand state reach into our lives.
‘The cult of compulsory mask-wearing was also less extreme here than it was in Europe and much of the United States’
Just look at how the Blairite national ID card scheme, which had already been established on the continent, was killed despite overwhelming institutional support in 2010. The 2007 anti–road-pricing........