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There is probably a legitimate basis for some powers against actual foreign intelligence operations. But the proposals in the article defining "subversion" to include environmental activism, independence movements, or criticism of UK policy show how quickly these things expand beyond their original scope. The Terrorism Act was meant to exclude domestic activists but two decades later it has been used against protest groups
As is tradition. Put the tool in the toolbox, label it "it's for bad guys" to sell it to people, oh no, govt used it for something else, what a surprise.
And even if current government is 100% benevolent, just putting the tool in the toolbox means any subsequent govt, that might not be that, can use it.
> But the proposals in the article defining "subversion" to include environmental activism, independence movements, or criticism of UK policy show how quickly these things expand beyond their original scope.
Yes, but I wouldn't put "independence movements" in that list. Much as I'm relaxed about the Welsh and Scots' independence movements, for Northern Ireland to do whatever it wants including the current kicking-can-down-road approach, and for any future potential from the Cornish and London vague aspirations that nobody currently takes seriously…
… if I was a hostile foreign power, then I would absolutely support all of those campaigns. And more. (Independence for Langstone! :P)
It will never cease being funny to me how Eurocrats/Anglocrats pout their chests, proclaim proudly how "free" and "democratic" they are, and then proceed to implement a police state and surveillance regime which the DDR could only dream of. Sure you have "nothing to hide", and "intentions are good". Was that also true for every decade in European history? Will that also be true in 10 years? In 20 years?
It’s not just the use against protest groups but selective use of it, that makes this extra bad. From the article:
> The risk is magnified by the racist and colonial legacy of Britain’s intelligence and policing institutions, whereby ‘loyalties’ and ‘foreign influence’ are racially coded terms. It is clear who the state thinks may constitute an agent of ‘foreign power’. Hall acknowledges the risk of “putting certain nationalities under the spotlight or appearing to question their loyalties”, but this is brushed over by the alleged extraordinary threat of national security risk.
This type of abuse of powers is already becoming normalized in America. For example, Governor Abbott of Texas and other politicians from right-leaning states have explicitly condemned Sharia Law and Islam, and are taking various actions to marginalize those communities. The recent incident with an Afghan national has further radicalized the right.
I can see how Sharia Law has no place in a democratic constitutional republic, but Christianity shares many of the same issues as Islam in terms of supremacist tendencies. And many on the right have no issue openly claiming that America is a Christian nation, and advocate for puritanical integration of their religion into law. This gets no condemnation from the right, and I doubt they’ll use their powers to stop the push for theocracy.
The war always comes home.
This is classic "think of the children" backdoors; whether in the legislation or enforcement or literal backdoors. Politicians know that no one is going to publicly come out and say a law to "protect" children shouldn't be passed.
In 2023, the number of people arrested for online comments: UK (12,183), Belarus (6,205), Germany (3,500), China (1,500).
How do people in the UK defend this? I consider myself a liberal and to defend this government is a level of hypocrisy so beyond the pale.
Am I being reactionary here? Are things actually not that bad in the UK?
As with all statistics, one has to first define where the data source is from.
In this case there is an news article for that (https://www.standard.co.uk/news/tommy-robinson-uk-speech-cla...).
To summarize the article, the data is highly unreliable and aren't comparable, nor is it normalized to the population. A person in UK can be charged under Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 if they voice a death threat over the phone, while the Belarus case can be a person criticizing the government on twitter. It can also be a person in the UK who sent a unsolicited sexual image. As a legal analyze of Section 127 frames it, most thing it makes illegal is already illegal under other laws which makes it difficult to analyze the scope. A person who sends a death threat is breaking the law both by sending a death threat, but also by using (abusing) a telecom service for the purpose of sending a death threat. It is a bit of an catch all clause.
In the US it is currently very likely that every crime that involves money also involve wire fraud, unless people only use physical cash and never transfer them. They usually also involve tax fraud since illegal money is rarely declared. That makes statistics involving tax and wire fraud in the US a bit difficult to parse into meaningful data.
I don't believe for one second that only 1500 people in China were arrested for online comments any more than I would believe the same statistic from Russia
Hmm. Ironically, the party most likely to abolish such laws is probably Reform.
Tories have done approximately nothing, Labour is an old mother lode of speech policing and the Greens with all their postmodern sensitivities plus deference to Islam don't look particularly promising as well.
Once upon a time, Lib Dems were strong on civic freedoms... but I can't remember them doing anything in this regard during the Cameron coalition government.
Given the election forecasts, people in the UK doesn't support at all the current government nor its policies. And the answer seems to be to suppress any criticism while waiting for the next election cycle.
>Government plans new powers to label ... as ‘subversion’
As far as I can see is a lie the website has made up. None of their links include the word subversion. Subversion is not part of British law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subversion#United_Kingdom
Is there some reality to this or is the website just making stuff up to object to some things they dislike?
propaganda, on the internet? NEVER
incidentally...
Theres so many times I've written a comment, only to delete it on HN.
Not because of being afraid of government censorship, but because of the sheer futility of fighting peoples faith and outmoded ideas of how our market place of ideas works.
Counter speech, is NOT working. "the best ideas rise to the top" is untrue. We don't have an information economy, we have a content economy. Its the equivalent of the junk food era, just for content.
Governments around the world are going to enact speech controls. Voters are clamoring for it. Its going to eventually be a disaster.
I also do not think that there is going to be any effective opposition, if people keep showing up to battle lines drawn in the 90s and 2000s.
If you want a market place of ideas, you have to figure out how to ensure its a FAIR market place. Not a place where you pit regular folk against corporate PR teams, information teams, and behemoths of all kinds.
And for those holding out hope for decentralized solutions (Mastodon, Bluesky): These have a chance, but there is no solution to moderation labour and costs.
I think you be overestimating how great things were without a marketplace of ideas. "Perfect is the enemy of good" and all that. What is the better system you'd prefer if you limit yourself to real systems that have been tried out?
> We don't have an information economy, we have a content economy.
We actually seem to have attention economy, that is the really valuable thing, not content. Mostly it's important what catches our attention first. This is also why counter speech does not work - it does not come first.
> If you want a market place of ideas, you have to figure out how to ensure its a FAIR market place.
Yes and that is obviously not possible at this time.
I have read some thoughtful and insightful comments online that really changed my opinion and outlook, and rarely acknowledged this to the author. You will never know what kind of impact you might have had!
Counter speech is an often weak and ineffective response. It's principle advantage is in being less bad than every other option.
Six months ago five members of a group called Palestinian Action broke into an RAF base and spray painted two refueling planes involved in surveillance of Gaza. They were charged with a crime.
Then, mainly because of this, the group Palestinan Action was classified as a terrorist group. Since the thousands of people have been arrested in the UK for support of terrorism, for holding signs that say "I support Palestinian Action" and the like.
Why is it my earlier comment with so many upvotes got [flagged] ?
Is it because I mentioned the entity name?
Here is the comment:
"It’s ironic how the West has long championed democracy, demanded freedom of speech, and called for human rights from everyone. 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 truly shameful to see such developments."
Dunno for sure, but I'd suggest that mentioning Israel when it's the UK doing it, it might possibly look a bit like shoe-horning in a capital-A-Agenda.
The UK doesn't really have much of a good history on the topic of listening to political dissent from within. The Sex Pistols comes to mind, and the Winter of Discontent, and the anti-Iraq-war march, and the Troubles, and police kettling a few decades back, and a bike safety protest a friend attended where a lot of people who couldn't hear a police order got arrested for not following that order, and there's a former partner of mine could give you a whole bunch of stories about protests you've probably never even heard of.
IMO, the UK's led by aristocrats who only mostly deign to play the game of democracy, but the leadership doesn't really seem to think naturally in those terms and is a lot more comfortable at white tie events.
Religious conflict is old enough to gone through every kind of modern and non-modern ideology, including freedom of speech and humans rights. Why would the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, which has been ongoing since late 19th century, be a major driver in west ideology?
It is not a suddenly adaptation of authoritarian, anti-free speech, anti-human rights. Die Gedanken sind frei demonstrates that people been fighting for freedom of speech since the middle ages.
You mention the rogue genocidal state in a negative comment in any platform under the "free world" control and you get cancelled for balsphemy right away.
War is peace, Freedom is slavery, Ignorance is power.
Once the slippery slope to despotism has been entered, stopping it will get ever harder.
I think bloc voting & localised majoritarianism is Britain's biggest sleeper issue right now and for the next 20 years so it makes a lot of sense to combat using government powers, even id cards are an unfortunate necessity. However I draw the line on needing ev pay per mile tax.
I can’t find any mainstream news source corroborating the claim that the government has imminent plans to introduce new legislation on the basis of the review mentioned in the article. If you google “hall independent review state threats”, nothing much turns up.
HN is becoming so partisan, it's starting to get on my nerves. The bill text is here[1]. It's extremely benign and the article linked, in fact, argues against it's own straw-man, found in another cited article[2]:
> Yet, another way to view ‘cumulative’ or repeated protests is as sustained public action for justice, solidarity and freedom.
So yes, if you interpret some random bill amendment in whatever way favors your side, you can argue against or for anything (the logical principle of explosion[3]). The problem is that some protests were actually quite disruptive and some people think we should curb this. This isn't some insane authoritarian anti-free-speech power-grab that the original article hints at.
It's sad to see folks lacking any kind of media literacy or critical eye. Also, the source itself is biased (it's a left-wing think tank), but that's a whole 'nother thing.
[1] https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3938/stages/20237/amendmen...
[2] https://netpol.org/2025/10/28/resist-new-laws-restricting-cu...
[3] https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~dnp/frege/paradoxes-of-material-i...
So much for western "democracies". In the UK, protesting against the murders of children may get you jailed for 15 years, whilst in Canada, being a hitlerian criminal will get you a standing ovation from Parliament.
…and UK population plans to continue labelling policy makers as a bunch of gits.
Of course, combined with Digital ID that will track your movements and what you say, this is a logical next step to achieve total control of the population.
Funny that nobody mentions that these things are not actually coming from government, but were lobbied by asset managers and big corporations.
This is text book fascism (marriage of big corporations and government).
Nobody voted for this.
The UK is speedrunning the fight to combat totalitarianism by becoming totalitarian. Of course the crucial difference between the groups, for now, is who gets to be the authority.
It really does feel like a hopeless situation. In one camp the woolly liberals being fuzzy as ever thinking if only everyone could sing happily together everything will be great (again?), and on the other those wanting to open pandora's box of fascist delights, without any sight of quite what is inside before you get to the bottom, somehow believing nothing in there will turn on them in the process.
Remember remember the 5th of November
At least they’re attempting to do this through law. The Trump admin is just calling out death threats against the opposition.
I wish they would label Russian and Chinese influence as subversion.
But knowing the UK, they'll probably use it to jail people who post mean things on twitter.
“The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.”
Trump was right?
It’s ironic how the West has long championed democracy, demanded freedom of speech, and called for human rights from everyone.
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 truly shameful to see such developments.
Not less than 30 years ago, the British government took away firearms from her citizens.
Now, the British government are arresting her citizens for "unapproved" social media posts done.
How quickly that their government are devolving.