Britain slides closer towards authoritarianism

Rishi Sunak looks set to double down on the Rwanda asylum plan after the Supreme Court – the highest court in the country – ruled the landmark plan unlawful.

Addressing a Downing Street press conference, the prime minister set out plans to broker a new treaty with Kigali that will provide a legal guarantee that asylum seekers will not be removed from Rwanda.

“But we need to end the merry-go-round,” he said. “So I’m also announcing today that we will take the extraordinary step of introducing emergency legislation.

“This will enable Parliament to confirm that with our new treaty, Rwanda is safe.”

The move signals the latest step in Britain’s slide towards authoritarianism, with curbs on protests and restricted media access in government already in play.

In 2017, Princeton academics developed a ten-item checklist of signs of authoritarianism in the wake of the Donald Trump inauguration in a bid to “lay down a marker” about what may be to come.

Today, point 10 – Defying the orders of courts, including the Supreme Court – feels particularly poignant, and if you care about democracy as much as we do, you might want to consider keeping this list close:

An Authoritarian Checklist

1. Taking sides with a foreign power against domestic opposition.
2. Detention of journalists.
3. Loss of press access to the White House.
4. Made-up charges against those who disagree with the government.
5. Use of governmental power to target individual citizens for retribution.
6. Use of a terrorist or other incident to take away civil liberties.
7. Persecution of an ethnic or religious minority, either by the Administration or its supporters.
8. Removal of civil service employees for insufficient loyalty or membership in a suspect group.
9. Use of the Presidency to incite popular violence against individuals or organizations.
10. Defying the orders of courts, including the Supreme Court.

Jack Peat

Jack is a business and economics journalist and the founder of The London Economic (TLE). He has contributed articles to VICE, Huffington Post and Independent and is a published author. Jack read History at the University of Wales, Bangor and has a Masters in Journalism from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.