Since the eleven Supreme Court Justices delivered their verdict against PM Boris Johnson there have, naturally, been many people questioning their impartiality. Not least because there was no dissension in the judgement at all – the decision was unanimous. Such outcomes should be questioned and it’s the right of every person to do so.
The irony of all this, when you add it all up, is that Remainers and MPs who are crying out to not leave without a deal, are all basically saying this: ‘we want to be members of the EC trading bloc again’. Unfortunately, as Cameron found out, as Parliaments and Prime Ministers over the decades ensured, but without a mandate from the people, the EC trading bloc no longer exists. If only Thatcher, Major, Blair and Brown had held referendums back then it could have been so different.
I’m in favour of free speech. It’s not because there are people I want to be unkind about, it’s because free speech is a human right and because the state getting involved in censoring speech is a serious backward step towards authoritarianism.
I would prefer a written constitution for Britain which clearly identifies *the people* as the source of the state’s power – not Westminster, and not an even more remote and unaccountable monarch. Let the monarch remain, but let the source of power be the people and be written in the constitution as such, and let future such issues be resolved on the basis that the people are sovereign.
There has to be a more morally consistent approach than pressuring other people into doing what’s good for you, holding them back, and making CO2 production the exclusive right of the rich.
Some consistency in the west about whether they really care about standards and freedom would go a long way to balancing this, instead of only caring about them at home for virtue signalling, but accepting lower standards and lower freedoms abroad for the sake of cheap goods.
The problem with simply increasing police numbers is that it assumes a purely state-down approach, disconnects police function from their source of authority (the individual), and can become easily politicised and directed away from the real job of tackling actual rights violations such as violent crime and theft.
Libertarianism is voluntaryism. I wrote some time ago about my view that the success of libertarianism is rooted in individuals pro-actively following the golden rule – ‘to do unto others…’ – by refraining from using force against others but also voluntarily doing good for others. On
PM Johnson’s drive to increase police numbers by 20,000 will be welcomed by many, yet I believe this alone will not be enough. Libertarians believe in the individual’s right to defend their rights, life and property, and that this is also the primary role of
“Boris Johnson has signalled his ruthless determination to deliver Brexit and stoked speculation about an early general election by sacking more than half of Theresa May’s cabinet and packing his team with Vote Leave veterans and rightwing free marketers.” So says the Guardian. But what