Latest Step In The Disturbing Decline Of The Once Great U.K.

Given how much our political, legal and economic institutions owe to the influence of Great Britain, the startling degeneration of our mother country takes on special significance—and worry.

The government’s just-unveiled budget is the latest example of how this once influential nation is falling apart. The budget is a blueprint for stagnation. Taxes are going up yet again, with scores of increases of all kinds. Individual income tax brackets will not be indexed for inflation. The more inflation, the bigger the tax burden on wage earners. The amount of tax-free contributions people can make to their private retirement funds will be slashed. Higher-priced houses will face a new property tax. Exactions on dividends and interest payments for upper-income folks will go up. The level of deductions for certain business investments will be reduced. A special capital gains penalty will be applied to entrepreneurs who sell their businesses to their employees. Where in the world did that idea come from? There will even be a levy on milkshakes.

Tax revenues are slated to reach 38% of GDP by 2030, the highest ever. Spending outlays are reaching French-like levels. No wonder economic growth is almost nonexistent. Normally, under such circumstances officials would be rolling out cuts in tax rates and incentives for saving and investing to fire up the economic engine.

But Britain’s slide is not just economic. Amazingly, the country of the Magna Carta is moving to get rid of trials by jury, except for the most egregious of crimes, such as murder and rape. Ostensibly, this is being done to reduce the English courts’ backlog of cases. The reality is that this removes a fundamental barrier to government tyranny. It was the British authorities’ limiting this right in the 1770s that helped ignite the American Revolution. The right to trial by jury is spelled out in our Constitution.

Another shocking assault on liberty is Britain’s curtailing of free speech. London has criminalized online speech that is deemed offensive. Thousands of arrests take place each year for alleged speech violations. It’s not unusual for the police to come into the homes of suspected offenders. Conformity to the woke nostrums of cultural extremists is being enforced by the state.

Could such things happen here? Fortunately, we have a constitution that explicitly protects free speech and trial by jury. Britain’s constitution is unwritten. In the U.S. there has been strong pushback against such destructive tendencies: not allowing men to compete in women’s sports, the slashing of taxes in Republican-leaning states, and the Trump Administration has been scaling back regulations and easing the tax burden.

If the Democratic Party, which is dominated by the far-left, gets back into power, there will be a full-throated attempt to turn back the clock and follow the hideous example of Britain. The Democrats will pack the Supreme Court with new justices willing to gut the Constitution.

What’s happening in Britain should be a warning to those who cherish liberty.