English writer George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four was intended to warn Western nations about the dangers of tyranny. However, rather than heeding Orwell’s warning, Western governments are using Orwell’s book as an instruction manual.
Democracies such as the United Kingdom are ruled by tyrannical leaders inserting their tentacles into every nook and cranny of daily living, controlling speech through censorship and either silencing or jailing anyone who dares speak out against their so-called democratically elected warmongering tax-grabbing dictators. The often-quoted phrase “Democracy and freedom” does not hold true. A more accurate statement is “Democracy or freedom”.
Contemporary political, celebrity and legal commentators from Rowan Atkinson to Lord Jonathan Sumption now openly speak about the decline of free speech and the rise of authoritarianism in Western democracies to the extent that Western societies are only allowed one view on any issue. In England, Harry Miller was visited by the police to “check his thinking” for tweeting “I was assigned mammal at birth, but my orientation is fish”. Orwellian thought crime is expanding in the UK under new Orwellian speech safety laws, with Big Brother deciding what is safe and what is to be censored.
In August, people in England were jailed for posting comments on X and Facebook of which newly elected UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer disapproved. However, when it comes to real crimes such as robbery, burglary, rape and carrying machetes in public, the British justice system ignores these serious crimes on the grounds that taking action would stir up racial tensions. British people have lost trust in the police, lawyers and judiciary. Keir Starmer is now known as “two-tier Keir standing over a two-tier police force and two-tier justice system”.
An English female social worker, out of sheer frustration at the British government’s failure to deal with massive illegal immigration into the UK, tweeted she wanted to blow up mosques. Although she had no intention of actually doing this, and did not have a previous criminal record, she was tracked down within hours, arrested and given an immediate prison sentence. However, when then-Labour prime minister Tony Blair lied about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction to justify invading Iraq, people in mosques were actually bombed and killed. Blair was knighted after these killings and lives a luxurious jet-setting lifestyle. In any rational legal system, it should have been Blair going to jail for bombing and killing, not a lady for simply tweeting a message. But the UK legal system is not rational; it is an irrational mess protecting warmongers and child sex abusers serving their elite masters.
Treating different groups differently was something identified by Lord Sumption in a recent talk at Cambridge University in which he made the following statement: “On 26th September 2020, the police cleared Trafalgar Square using batons with considerable violence, injuring about 20 people who were guilty of nothing other than attending a lawful protest. There is of course a notable selection involved in these actions. No such fines and police assaults had been seen in other demonstrations such as those organized by Black Lives Matter, which did not observe social distancing. The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, applauded the police actions on 26th September. Silence from Civil Rights organizations such as Liberty is deafening.”
Khan was elected London mayor with the support of a mere 17.2 percent of the eligible voters. He has banned English soccer fans wearing English flags during European championship soccer matches, but he did not ban pro-Palestine protesters wearing Palestinian flags during their marches in London. At the Black Lives Matter protests referenced by Lord Sumption, police were badly injured when protesters threw bottles at them. However, these violent protesters were not arrested. Instead, the police, and now-British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, went down on one knee and apologized for their whiteness to these violent protesters. The politically correct BBC reported these violent protests as peaceful. In England, freedom of expression is determined by beliefs of leaders, alien to most English people, and not equality before the law.
A similar state of affairs has been observed in the United States by Professor Niall Ferguson. In a June 2024 interview with the Unheard podcast, Ferguson stated: “If you are a white male working-class American, it has probably sunk in that the game is now explicitly rigged against you” and that “The American dream has turned into some progressive ideology about race and gender which now determine outcomes as opposed to individual merit and hard work. The critical point is that corrupt elites control a system with an ideology that ordinary people think is weird and hypocritical”.
America is hypocritical in accusing Hong Kong of lacking free speech. In a letter dated Aug 26, 2024, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that he had been instructed by the Biden administration to censor postings on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Those being censored were no cranks — they were experienced medical doctors specializing in cancer and heart disease trying to alert the public of the known risks associated with AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine. It was only after many deaths and serious injuries that AstraZeneca withdrew its vaccine. Had the information by these experienced medical doctors not been censored by the British and American governments, deaths and injuries caused by this vaccine could have been avoided.
The BBC has been a major critic of free speech in Hong Kong. However, in 1978 the BBC censored an interview with Johnny Rotten (former lead singer of the Sex Pistols) in which he correctly exposed Sir Jimmy Savile as a pedophile. Had that interview been broadcast, many vulnerable young children could have been spared the sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of BBC presenter Savile. A Channel Four Interview between presenter Jon Snow and former BBC employees confirmed that the BBC knew about Savile’s activities as early as 1971. The BBC’s own suppression of free speech, while criticizing others, is beyond hypocrisy extending to one of hiding child sex abuse carried out by its own employees.
Starmer in his previous role as head of the Crown Prosecution Service failed to prosecute Savile. There is strong speculation this may have been due to Savile’s strong connections to royalty, prime ministers and influential globalist billionaires who can make or break careers. Starmer became British prime minister in July with the support of less than 20 percent of eligible voters. Starmer, while claiming to have a democratic mandate to impose tyranny on the British public, does not represent the British people. Rather, he represents the elites at the United Nations and Davos. Just a few months prior to becoming British prime minister, Starmer was asked which was more important to him: Davos (The World Economic Forum) or Westminster (The British Parliament). His reply: “Davos”.
British and American politicians, and mainstream media news feeds constantly berate Hong Kong for “not having” free speech, democracy and a rule of law. These politicians and commentators need to take a long hard look in the mirror.
The author has an LLM, is a barrister in England and Wales and a Hong Kong permanent resident.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
