It strongly seems to me that the British establishment is incredibly pissed at Assange for the trouble he caused by holing up in the embassy, and is therefore making life as difficult for him as possible.
The truths that Wikileaks have published, can change the world - for the better. We have to prosecute the war criminals.
The leaks will continue. British establishment, or otherwise.
If that were the reason for this whole thing than its kindergartner level of spite.
I've seen similar, in all walks of life. Politicians and civil servants are by no means immune to pettiness. Especially when setting an example might spare them work and money in the future.
Its no wonder when you have to interact with politicians on a day to day basis that the cultures should mirror each other.
I would much prefer Microsoft Civil Servant sp4 or an IBM Civil Servant AI powered by Big Blue.
Depressing to see such low-quality nonsense on HackerNews.
It's like being rear-ended, and when you claim on your insurance, the other party says you cost them money. Except you didn't - they where to blame.
The only risk for British politicians is getting caught with their pants down messing this up (either way). A judge basically needs to sign off on the obvious political desire to please the Trump administration with this. For that to happen, there's a bunch of legal boxes to be ticked and the whole thing plays out in public, which is ever so embarrassing when there are some obvious moral and legal challenges to be made. Hence the glee in this article and the drama with lawyers and prosecutors having their day in court. This thing is obviously toxic at this point. But regardless, the legal precedent is such that they can probably make this happen provided the political will is there.
So, the only question is whether that political will is still real.
As of November, the political landscape in the US may change and I fully expect the legal proceedings to drag out at least that long thus providing both parties a way to get out of what will no doubt be a PR mess on both sides if it actually ever comes to an extradition. That basically largely just hangs on whether Trump is still there or not.
If Trump wins, the PR mess is just business as usual on the US side and it will barely register against the near constant state of media outrage. On the British side, they get some kudos for being nice which will no doubt help with their post-brexit trade negotiations.
If on the other hand Biden wins, I expect he'll be interested in repairing the damage of the past few years in terms of foreign relations and not getting associated with this stinking mess he just inherited and appeasing relations with the more liberal factions in his party.
Likewise, Trump might actually be wanting to pick his fights carefully if he should win. He already casually hinted at dropping the whole thing once or twice and it wouldn't surprise me if he opts for dropping this right after the election regardless of whether he wins them because after that it no longer serves him any political purpose whereas dropping this in some grand way would make him seem like a wise stateman. Win or lose, he'd have more to gain from shooting for that than some dragged out drama for the next years.
The easiest way to do that would basically be the US giving up on extradition after which the UK can grudgingly release Assange without further loss of face and put him on a plane to wherever. End of story. Assange on trial in the US is not a good outcome for anyone at this point.
I don't see Biden doing anything that inflammatory to the intelligence agencies or any arm of government for that matter (he just doesn't pick those kinds of public fights, that's not his style, whereas Trump seems to be very willing to try and screw anyone who he perceives has wronged him) and I don't see Trump doing anything that hard line republicans might disagree with so long as there's an election in the future so it's likely December or never.
Edit: And I'd be very willing to debate why I think this with any of the apparently many people who think this is so wrong.
This idea that defending his right to a fair hearing implies seeing him as a "messiah" or even as a nice person, is deeply disturbing.
Dodging jurisprudence, that's rich. His Swedish accusers were not even investigated for blatant evidence tampering.
If a normal person would face this kind of BS (not allowed to talk to lawyers in court, trumped up and dubious extradition charges), the then there is no justice.
You seem to be one of those people that still has not come to the realization that the whole system of western government has become inherently illegitimate in and of itself through its own actions and words. It leaves people like you still saying things akin to "well, the dictator did pass a law that he can apply to anything he wakes up one morning not liking" and it placates you, as the "laws" are meant to, by implying a sense of authority through process.
What should have really happened in a sane and healthy society and civilization, is that 1) the things the people that did commit crimes by stealing and handing over classified information, should never have had to do that because the system would have harshly punished the perpetrators of the violations they exposed with execution and, 2) it would have led to the prosecution of the people who were responsible for the information and systems that allowed the release of the information that was deemed classified, again, with execution.
But instead, we have a clearly broken and systematically rotten system that is violently persecuting and prosecuting the messenger, because they did not like that they were exposed as the evil people perpetrating evil they were and that their incompetence also led to that being revealed. What this is all about really, is vengeance for exposure, for embarrassment, for disclosure that the many little dictatorial emperors don't have any clothes on and are just LARPing with way too much undeserved and unearned money and power.