From Magna Carta to Mass Arrests: Britain’s Warning to America |
Imagine facing arrest simply for posting sharp or critical comments online. Picture the police at your door for expressing opposition to mass immigration. Envision a country where you could be imprisoned for years without a jury ever deciding your guilt.
This isn't dystopian fiction – it's the reality unfolding in Britain today, my former home and once part of the free world.
Earlier this year, parents Maxie Allen and Rosalind Levine from Hertfordshire were arrested in front of their children over disparaging remarks made in a private parents' messaging group. They were among the estimated 10,000 people arrested in Britain this year for online posts – more than in communist China.
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.
Clause 39 of Magna........