We have seen the private sectors thriving under the weight of humanitarian disasters, private contracts of political cronies, failed investments and investments in politicians, who themselves look grave in television conferences while announcing false figures like it’s Stalin’s 5 -year plans. But since the onslaught of the Coronavirus Act 2020,passed in the UK law on 25 March 2020 and entrusting authorities with emergency powers for what is setting up to be a long 2 years, the scope of government power over its subjects in Queen’s country has brought many to draw eerie comparisons to dystopia. However, what is worse than government monopoly is that citizens have been brought to mindlessly obey like its 1984.
A particularly chilling new power under this act, in Schedule 21, allows the detention of ‘potentially infectious persons’. Due to the average incubation period for the virus being 5 days, anyone with ‘reasonable grounds’ to be suspected of having it could be detained for such an exhaustive period. Equipping law enforcement with power to make a medical judgment is legislative lunacy. There will inevitably be imprecise enforcement of the law. This ensues limitless authority for Britain’s finest, being it that any person could be detained.
This uncapped power is what states of emergency are made of: as with that imposed by the onslaught of modern terrorism, laws in states of emergency allow for quasi-unlimited governmental power to allow rapid action, dissimilar to the slow-paced bureaucracy that goes behind legislating. Detention without charge was in fact seen in the Terrorism Act 2006, with again unclear guidelines as to how these powers are to be exercised. Nonetheless, the UK has been capable of using such powerful legislation in a just manner. The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 limits each emergency law to being subject to Parliamentary review and vote, every 30 days. On the other hand, as the world saw the US’ state of emergency imposed by Bush following 9/11, the tentacles of power are capable of extending for decades, and to reach inside the homes of everyday Americans through surveillance.
In fact, in textbook exploitation of emergency powers, the Coronavirus Act has relaxed the rules on the Investigatory Powers Act 2016, and as with terrorism, perform mass extra-judicial surveillance in the name of national security. Under the latter’s section 109, ‘urgent surveillance warrants’ without prior judicial authorisation are allowed if approved by a judicial commissioner within the following 3 days. Under the Coronavirus act, this period is extended to 12 working days. Britons seem perfectly composed in being surveilled by drones to ensure that they respect essential travel advice, or for surveillance software being increasingly purchased by unrestricted employers in an effort to monitor those struggling to work from home.
Relying on the loyal citizenry is what to me resembles the world of Orwell’s Oceania the most, but is perhaps the less evidenced comparison. British citizens have demonstrated themselves as sheep, following orders regardless of logic. This has been useful when they started injecting an unfamiliar and vaguely tested vaccine without a second thought, but it has also caused an even greater strain in relations between British and immigrant communities. On top of Brexit, the compulsory quarantine upon arrival from many countries into the UK, with European expats being the primary forbearers of this mechanism, has meant that anyone going to visit their family abroad will return to hostility and suspicion – are you following the rules? Should you be self-isolating?
It would have been too intelligent for the nation to rather impose a system akin to that of many European nations, wherein a negative COVID-19 test, 2 or 3 days old, is sufficient for arrival. Although the UK is unmatched in comparison to its cross-channel counter-parts, Brits are scrupulously abiding by the rules – and checking that their neighbours are.
Rather, the UK has arrived at the late solution that one can exempt themselves from half of the normal self-isolation time if they are tested negative for COVID-19, 5 days from arrival. This exemption will only work if the test is private – meaning that key workers or university students with the right to have a free test either pay the necessary £120, or are required to give up precious work time. This narrows down participation to the exemption scheme, widening wealth and opportunity divides, the national versus non-national divide, and increasing the necessary citizen loyalty required for such rules to be carried out as intended. This is the Thatcherist, conservative dream that is scaring away visitors, while transforming the country into a totalitarian simulation that is so ridiculous it could be fiction.
Written by- Gaia Neiman
SOURCES OF THE IMAGES
1.https://theprint.in/opinion/why-uks-response-to-coronavirus-has-been-world-class/466367/
2.https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/uk-news/uk-warns-act-like-youve-got-it-as-cases-rise-urges-people-to-follow-precautions.html
