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Comment by LocutusOfBorges | Hacker News Reader

There’s still the option of appeal to the ECHR, but that’s more or less it - and there’s a quite strong push from the right to leave that as well.

This was absolutely an intended outcome for a lot of the figures responsible for the UK’s exit from the EU - European legislation/institutions were more or less the only real absolute check on the authoritarian tendencies of the British state, given the UK’s insane constitutional structures.

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One think I have never realised before moving here, is that UK has an authoritarian streak going back a long, long time.

The desire to join such beacon of democracy as Russia in jeaving ECHR is heartwarming.

The thing about the "authoritarian streak" in the UK is that historically as a people we have mostly trusted the government and its police and security services to use the powers they give themselves by law appropriately. And although obviously there have been some serious failings in the past it's probably fair to say that overall they have earned that trust more than some of their counterparts in some other Western democracies so enough of our people continue to give them that trust that the same culture can continue. The danger for us is that it's always possible for the needle to move towards more frequent or routine abuses of power but once those measures make it into statute our trust-based system has few checks and balances to help us recover if it turns out someone went too far that time. That in turn is because our political/electoral system is itself fundamentally broken but also self-sustaining, which is a much bigger problem than just the risks of authoritarianism that we're discussing here.

And also the government does such a good act of gross incompetence I think most people think its fairly harmless to just ignore what it's doing.

Most people believe it’s incompetence

Incompetence is easier to swallow than evil. Our leaders aren't stupid. They know what they are doing.

They might know what they are doing politically but in terms of modern technology and its implications I'm not convinced they know what they are doing technologically or socially. They are being driven by vocal advocacy from groups with an agenda and the media. Those advocates do make reasonable points about things we can all agree are good or bad in isolation and so the politicians often go along with it. But that doesn't mean they necessarily understand the full implications or have thought through the long-term consequences of the laws and regulations they propose.

> as a people we have mostly trusted the government and its police and security services to use the powers they give themselves by law appropriately. And although obviously there have been some serious failings in the past it's probably fair to say that overall they have earned that trust more than some of their counterparts in some other Western democracies

I am not so sure. The recent history of the elites in London, and the rampant corruption and incompetence in the Metropolitan police is, surely, wearing down the English people's trust?

What does it take?

Yes - this is exactly the kind of danger I was referring to in the GP comment. The historical trend here to trust in our authorities lets strong policing powers (mostly) work as long as that trust isn't abused. But we've been learning the hard way that our governments and police services don't always live up to the standards we expect of them and some of the laws that were passed with claimed - and perhaps even honestly believed - good intentions can still lead to abuse and bad results. Then because we lack the checks and balances that less trusting cultures tend to incorporate into their systems - such as a written constitution that establishes a layer of fundamental laws that no single government can arbitrarily change - it can be difficult to stop the runaway train.

A few columnists have noted this. Institutions like the police, parliament and the BBC are coasting on their previously-earned reputations.

I think the ornate Palace of Westminster gives the political class too much cover, and if they moved into a modernist structure it would be more fitting and reveal their brute disregard for anything virtuous.

Direct line back to monarchy...

Of course it has an authoritarian streak....

Given that the English constitution and the Scottish constitution are incompatible (insofar as where sovereignty lies), it is no real surprise that the UK has never got a single codified one.

As it is the Scottish constitution is generally ignored, and folks more or less assume that the English one applies to the whole UK. If there was an attempt to properly codify the UK constitution, that incompatibility would have to be addressed, and that would open a can of worms.

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