Britain's Big Brother state is already here - we just don't realise it yet

Britain's Big Brother state is already here - we just don't realise it yet Submitted by Jonathan Cook on Wed, 07/15/2026 - 05:00 While immigrants, Muslims and the left are conveniently scapegoated for the state's failures, our rights are being eroded under the guise of protection from these so-called bogeymen Protesters gather outside the Royal Courts of Justice, London, UK, as the ban on the activist group Palestine Action is ruled as lawful by the Court of Appeal. Judges overturned a previous ruling that said the ban on the group was wrong, 15 June 2026 (Vuk Valcic/Zuma Press Wire) On When is it possible to declare that a society has moved from liberal democracy, however imperfectly realised, to authoritarian rule? Is there a moment when it is suddenly obvious the change has occurred?

Does authoritarianism announce its arrival? Or is it a process that gradually unfolds, where restraints on executive power are dismantled piece by piece until the tide cannot be reversed? Is the turn to authoritarianism something that can only be understood after the event, when all opportunities to halt the slide have been missed?

And how do we admit to ourselves that we have been stripped of our most basic and cherished freedoms - of speech, assembly and protest - when we are no longer free to speak, meet or protest? (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); The unpalatable truth is that Britain is already far down this path. And if you are unaware of the earthquake that has been taking place, that may be because - just as you might expect when authoritarianism comes calling - the very first to be smothered are the voices sounding the alarm.

A media owned by billionaires and the state - the parties that, in an age of growing popular discontent, have most to gain from the accretion of executive power and the silencing of dissent - have no reason to illuminate the encroaching darkness. An ostensible Labour government under the outgoing Keir Starmer has done much of the foot work to usher in the new, ominous political climate. It was precisely Starmer’s credentials as a human rights lawyer that provided the British state with the cover story it needed for an unprecedented assault on the freedoms fought for by earlier generations.

There are few signs that his successors, whether it be a new figurehead in the genocide-supporting Labour Party or Nigel Farage’s immigrant…