DEBATE: Does the shift in police attitudes threaten British society?
Does the shift in police attitudes threaten Britain’s free society after this crisis is over?
YES, says Matt Kilcoyne, deputy director of the Adam Smith Institute.
Our police keep us safe by consent. Overreach by rogue forces risks more than criminalising vast swathes of our society, it risks the very principle of our civilian police force.
Should drones record people going for a stroll, or Humberside police create an online portal so you can snitch on neighbours you suspect of having gone for a second walk of the day?
Yet some reason exists still. The National Police Chiefs’ Council has clarified that no law stops you driving to an isolated spot for a walk. It is better to explain why people should beware crowding than any heavy handed approach.
The Prime Minister’s desire has been to keep our liberties for as long as possible during this crisis. His libertarian underpinning, not these forces’ authoritarian attempts to control, bodes well for when it is over.
Boris Johnson must commit to ensuring that the people take back control of the freedoms that are the birthright of Brits from the police at the end of this crisis.
Read more: Police gain new powers to arrest or fine those breaking lockdown
NO, says Josh Williams, a speechwriter and director at The Draft.
Our liberty is a passport for this virus. Exercising the most basic of freedoms can turn a citizen into a vector.
In these circumstances, the government has been forced to introduce unprecedented restrictions to daily life.
The public and the vast majority of experts are united in supporting these restrictions. But they must be enforced. We have experimented with self-policing and we know that it doesn’t work. It is clear that we need the professionals to police us.
Liberty is encoded in our country’s DNA, thanks in large part to the nineteenth-century philosopher John Stuart Mill. Mill argued there is only one circumstance in which that freedom should ever be curtailed: to prevent harm to others.
To restrict our liberty today is not to abandon our principles, it is to understand their relative importance. Once this threat of harm has passed, our liberty can and will return.
In the meantime, we owe our support to those we ask to protect us.
Main image credit: Getty