Definition’s End: What is a Liberal Democracy?
On former Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson’s Conversations podcast, comedian and host of Triggernometry Konstantin Kisin posed this.
“In Russia, last year [2021], four-hundred people were arrested for things they said on social media,” Konstantin says.
“Four-hundred people. This country is very different. How many people do you think were arrested in Britain for things people said on social media last year?”
“Go on,” John says.
“Take a guess,” says Konstantin.
“I have no idea.”
“Three thousand, three hundred.”
In an instant, John’s beaming face slackens to one of sheer mortification. He then asks what gets one arrested in Britain for saying things on social media.
To be fair – does it even matter?
“We’ve had free speech for a very, very long time in the United Kingdom, and it will last for a very, very long time”, British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said to US President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on February 27th. An obvious lie.
Free speech is the bedrock upon which liberal democracy rests. It would seem Britain – which has no constitutional right to it – has completely thrown out any such pretence that its citizens have that right at all.
If we excuse the erosion of these fundamental freedoms, we have learned nothing about history.
When a liberal democracy stifles the freedom of speech of its citizens over and over without recourse or correction, can the world point to it and say, “You are no longer a liberal democracy?”
This argument has even been applied to Australia. On September 2nd 2021 in the usually left-leaning Atlantic, author Conor Friedersdorf posed this: “How long can a democracy maintain emergency restrictions and still call itself a free country?”
The Victorian State Government had arrested a pregnant mothers for voicing an opinion, restricted any opposition to the regime with military-style brutality, and limited the free association and travel of its residents outside their homes for periods longer than most prison inmates. They imposed this for 262 days, giving the city the ignominious distinction of the longest cumulative time in lockdown anywhere in the world.
The pandemic declaration and emergency powers ended after 903 days – despite supposedly having a hard limit of six months. During that time liberal democracy was effectively “on hold” – and some, rightly, feared it may never return. With no avenue to redress our grievances, I’d say we were not a liberal democracy during that time. It was effectively illegal for calling out the Emperor, clothed or otherwise.
In Great Britain the clampdown on speech has gone on far longer. In 2003, the UK Government passed the Communications Act, which made it a criminal offense to “persistently make use of a public electronic communications network for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety.” This has been enthusiastically enforced by their Office of Communications or “Ofcom,” an Orwellian newspeak-style contraction much like Minipax or Minitrue.
According to the London Times, 3,395 people were arrested and questioned for online speech in 2016. In 2025, according to The Times, police are now arresting thirty people a day for vaguely defined “offensive online posts”, or about 12,000 arrests a year. In an Orwellian declaration, the UK Government tweeted in August of 2024 “Think before you post”– a chilling warning to anyone who would dare voice an opinion that tripped over the many hate speech wires entangling Britons to put up, and shut up.
This has gone on far longer than 903 days.
Just like the Andrews junta in Victoria, British police have no fear or favour when it comes to upholding these anti-free speech laws. In February of this year, 74-year-old Scottish grandmother Rose Docherty was arrested for holding a sign near a Glasgow abortion clinic. The sign read: “Coercion is a crime, here to talk, only if you want.” If convicted, she faces a £10,000 (A$21,214) fine. She was nicked due to violating a 150-metre exclusion zone prohibiting the silent thinking of a contradictory opinion. This is just one example among countless others.
The pandemic declaration and emergency powers ended after 903 days – despite supposedly having a hard limit of six months.
The ruling elite is championing this, since it gives them extraordinary authority over the populace via a mass surveillance-government-industrial complex. Former Blair spin-doctor Alastair Campbell snitched on author and journalist Douglas Murray, tweeting to the Metropolitan Police he ought to be investigated for a video explaining the parlous state of race relations in Britain while promoting his book The Strange Death of Europe, a polemic against mass Muslim immigration.
Germany, a country with a shallow history of free speech, is also slipping down this path, arresting people for expressing themselves freely. Again.
If we excuse the erosion of these fundamental freedoms, we have learned nothing about history. Empires rise and fall, and so do nation states and their freedoms. They are often hard-fought and easily lost. It’s time to re-examine the definition of a liberal democracy. Because looking at Britain – they may be a democracy, but they sure as hell aren’t liberal anymore.
And we Aussies are staring down the same barrel.
 | A guest post by
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What's happening in the UK is appalling. We're not far behind in Australia.
We are most definitely not a liberal democracy. We are actually what some academics refer to as a Soft Dictatorship. It is part of the cycle the ancient Greeks referred to as Anacyclosis where we are fast approaching a full scale tyrannical society. Not there yet, but getting there fast.