The illusion of freedom in the UK

If there is one thing we've learned in the UK over the period of the pandemic, it is that freedom is illusory.  I am not a conspiracy theorist, but we really need to take a long, hard look at what has happened. Boris Johnson was elected as Prime Minister on 12th December 2019. If anyone had told me that within 120 days of taking office, I'd be forbidden from leaving my house for all but 'essential purposes' and '1 hours exercise', I'd have said you were bonkers. I am not criticising the decison of the government to pass the lockdown legislation. The vast majority of citizens of the UK recognised the need for the legislation. But we now have to look what happened and ensure that we update our laws so that a less benign administration couldn't pass such draconian legislation without proper checks and balances.

What really concerns me is that it brought home to me just how delicate the freedoms we had come to take for granted really are. Of course governments should be able to take drastic action if faced with an existential crisis. But once governments get a taste for sweeping powers, we need to ensure that these are fully relinquished once the crisis has passed. My view is that any such draconian powers should be time limited and after a period of 90 days, parliamentary approval should be sought for any extension, for another 90 days. These should require a 2/3rds majority of Parliament to renew. Any action that puts limits on our freedoms should be covered by this legislation. 

I am not saying this as a criticism of this government. Although I am not a fan, I do not think the limits on freedom brought in to cope with Covid were anything other than sensible. I simply believe that the pandemic has shown us just how fragile our civil liberty is and how quickly it can dissolve. In many ways the freedoms we all enjoy are an illusion, which can be snatched from us at any time. We need to write some proper protections of our freedoms into law. A system where the consent of the opposition to renew draconian powers would be a good first step. I have no sympathy with anti maskers and anti vaxxers, who misguidedly claim that such things are an assualt on personal freedom. What I do believe is that the UK needs to beef up our constitution so that a government can't cook up a crisis to use a slim majority to lock us all up again, for more nefarious reasons. You may say "What sort of reasons?". My answer is "I don't know, but if you'd asked me two years ago, I'd never have predicted the covid crisis".