Thread by @joinaunionpls

I'd go much further though into saying something a bit more provocative - namely that it's not just that the "rule of law" (in its idealised form) doesn't exist, it's that they actively hate the idea of it and would never want it actually enforced.

https://twitter.com/piercepenniless/status/1412310751402942474

This is provocative only insofar as it detours away from a lot of rhetoric where politicians clutch pearls about the rule of law as an inherent "British value".

But crucially this is a PR ruse. They hate the idea - naturally so! If implemented it would threaten their power!

In other words it's much deeper than simply wanting to dodge punishment or consequence - I think it's an active dislike, synthesised with an incredibly deep hypocrisy, and a rapacious lust for power.

We should also I think ask deeper questions about the nature of Liberty as a political idea and how it has been theorised. Because crucially - particularly in its 19th century guise - it has always been bound with a janus-faced quality.

To take up one example, in the beginning of JS Mill's tract 'On Liberty' he says that he's going to make an argument for liberty but says there are two exceptions to who should be guaranteed it: children and non-whites.

He goes further though and says: "Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement, and the means justified by actually effecting that end."

This imo can be used as a wider metaphor to explain in some instances the seemingly anti-universal strain of liberty expressed by politicians: they like liberty, but just not for welfare-claimants, young black men, etc etc.

And the roots of such thinking go back to the origins of classical liberalism.

This explains *partially* why some "libertarians" like the PCSC Bill: they love liberty, just not for travellers or black people. For them, brute police force, stop and search, pepper spray, dogs, and prison is wholly justified. It might well "improve" them.