> Only to suddenly adopt authoritarian, anti-free speech, anti-human rights, and anti-protest stances the moment free speech began to critique Israel.

It's not sudden. The West's hate speech laws have been coming for ages. Anyone silly enough to put that much enforcement over speech into play cannot now complain that it's being used against people they like.

> “…long championed democracy…”

Just occurred to me, before the free internet both dissemination of opinions and access was restricted. Now we have unprecedented access, and there are obvious strains and regression. Makes you wonder what we missed from the times before the internet.

To be sure, this legislation sounds draconian: “This expansive framing blurs the line between political dissent and subversive threat. Intent becomes a political judgement, inferred from beliefs, causes and associations rather than conduct.”

I agree. Although not sure how sustained or substantive that "championing" ever really was.

It's stretching all the way back to 2020. It isn't something new. It isn't just the government you need to be most worried about silencing you now, as other institutions wield equally great power.

it never has. see McCarthyism for instance

> It’s ironic how the West has long championed democracy, demanded freedom of speech, and called for human rights from everyone.

What's really remarkable is how completely the illusion that this is what they were doing lasted in those countries. Some authority somewhere is cursing letting plebs on the Internet for destroying this.

Ask a latin american and see if they think that's what has been going on.

It started before that. The powers that be in western European countries can no longer deliver prosperity or security to their citizens, so must instead use force and repression to cling on to power.

Critiquing Israel as well as any political or religious entity or set of beliefs should be allowed, or there will be problems. This is basically the Paradox of Tolerance coupled with the fact that intolerance itself seems to be a viral meme if left unchecked.

I still can't believe the UK has arrested people based on their social media posts. Why are people standing for that, over there? (I'm a US citizen.) Meanwhile, one could make direct quotes from the Quran or Hadith and you'd likely remain unchallenged because religion gets a free pass from reasonable critique for some illogical reason. Appeasement will eventually lead to fear...

“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”

History, just like everything else in Nature, is cyclical.

It's been going on for longer than that. Ask Graham Linehan.

Indeed, but historical nuance bears remembering here. The UK has been authoritarian for much of its history: the monarchy; sentencing to prison thousands of miles away to be slave labor for colony building for stealing a loaf of bread.

Even while Europe is "Pan Western" it's still heavily differentiated. As [REDACTED TO PREVENT REFLEXT DOWNVOTES] says, "US is the central pillar of Western civilization." This is true in the sense that it embodies values closest to the Western ideal.

This is one of those conversations that in 2025 entering will get you on a GB border control blacklist, so I'm going to shut up now.

As strongly as many of us are on a particular side, the latest battleground for and against material support for overseas belligerent fascism is just a lightning rod for a deeper struggle.

While most of the individual members of the state are just rallying around the flag, the core ideological group inside the state has the belief that the public must never be allowed to dictate the choice of geopolitical ingroup and outgroup. The repression they are enacting isn't about lsreaI per se, it's about the principle of the thing.

This Xennial cannot help but notice the zeitgeist mirrors the emotional abstract of the Reagan 80s.

See Roger and Me, Michael Moore's first film. Economic downturn, workers facing uncertainty as the already opulent thrive.

Coincidentally GenXers that would have come of age at the time are middle managers and decision makers in corporate land.

CEO that jacked up Epipen prices. Insurance CEO that got got. Musk and Thiel. The original emo Smashing Pumpkins generation that grew up in a cocaine fueled era of news full of desperation and despair. Easy for them to tolerate and accept then as their brains nursed on it.

Good luck getting them to feel bad: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/25/style/gen-x-generation-di...

Looks like a typical too good to be true funnel to get most people on board and then rug pull. Bait and switch, only executed on longer timeframe

You truly believe this change is because of Israel?

Honestly, if you are able to, get out while you still can. For too long we’ve been on this slippery path and no government has any incentive to step off it.

People speak as though Farage would be any different but fail to acknowledge that he is as much a grifter as any of the others running, if not more so.

Maybe the Greens would provide some change but, at this point, they’re no more than a protest vote which is why I personally stopped my membership.

The fact that consecutive governments all used phrases like ‘all pulling our weight’ in reference to the cost of living crisis while taking pay rises for themselves should say it all but, sadly, people are too busy chasing headlines and internet points to extrapolate and assess a situation logically.

The UK and its allies will very much be on the wrong side of history should humanity live to see the next century through.

In Ireland opposition to the ongoing Genocide in Palestine is a wholly secular and humanitarian concern, divorced entirely from any correlation with race, religion, ethos or creed - despite agitators attempts to label it to the contrary. We are, however, unique in Western Europe in this regard - but it is not a mono-culture and the reasons are very contextual.

While Germany is not an advocate of genocide in any sense, it is a major arms exporter to Israel and has also barely been re-admitted into the human race as a result of their egregious human rights violations and war crimes in the previous century. This over-erring on the side of caution for their previous victims can thus be explained, if not excused.

The UK, however, have distinguished themselves instead by trying to prosecute Irish Rappers for Terrorism, and proscribing Palestine Action a terrorist organisation - putting it alongside Al Qaeda and ISIS, and making support of the group a criminal offense punishable by up to 14 years in prison. It seems that to protect democracy under the current newspeak you have to arrest Placard wielding Pensioners.

https://www.nbcnews.com/world/united-kingdom/uk-arresting-pe...

British police have made over 1,300 arrests using terrorism legislation at Palestine Action protests this summer — five times more than the total number of arrests for terrorism-related activity in the U.K. in all of 2024. From a retired British colonel to a Catholic priest, half of the 532 people arrested in the Parliament Square protest alone were 60 or older.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2025/aug/16...

Those participating in anything akin to the Coal Miner's Strikes of the 80s under Thatcher would no doubt find themselves charged with 'domestic terrorism' and put on no-fly lists alongside other societally chilling measures. In short, this is to distract from the economic black-hole they find themselves in post-Brexit, with incitement to hatred spurred on by paid agitators like Tommy Robinson who is in turn backed by Elon Musk/Russia, or Nathan Gill the former MEP who was jailed for accepting around £40,000 in bribes from a Russian-linked individual to support pro-Russian politicians.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/23/world/europe/uk-far-right...

France has its own particularly xenophobic issues - but they are focused on Islamic migration from North Africa as a follow-on from France's appalling history of Colonial abuse in the region. Thus the French far-right, typified historically by their anti-semitism, end up as uneasy bedfellows and proxy Zionists by virtue of Marine Le Pen's stance since kicking her father out of their far-right party over his persistent refutation of the Holocaust.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/05/world/europe/france-jews-...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/06/marine-le-pens...

Our colonial legacy in Ireland, as the oppressed, however, grants us a special insight and advocacy for those in analogous circumstances - be it historically re: refusing to handle goods from Apartheid South Africa, or contemporarily with our Occupied Territories Bill (or whatever watered down version passes American MNC muster).

https://mandate.ie/2024/07/the-day-10-workers-changed-the-wo...

This seems unlikely as support for conspiracy theories about Israel (eg the genocide hoax) are common in the UK including among the ruling classes, e.g. the police and the BBC.

The people being visited by police for creating content that other people say they find offensive are generally anti-immigration or anti gender ideology rather than anti-Israel.

I just asked AI what the thousands of arrests for social media posts so far are for and it didn't say anti-semetic content. It said it's largely targeted at anti-immigrant, gender-critical, and being mean to politicians comments. Israel is the "woke right" line these days though, and something the "woke left" and "woke right" can both agree on hating.