Former UK Supreme Court Judge Warns That COVID Pandemic “Social Controls” Could Persist for TEN YEARS
Evan James
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A former UK Supreme Court judge believes that “social controls” implemented due to the COVID-19 pandemic could persist in his country for up to an entire decade.
Lord Sumption, who served on the UK Supreme Court from 2012 to 2018, said that “it’s politically unrealistic to expect the government to backtrack now.” He has been highly critical of the British response to COVID-19, calling their lockdown policies and restrictions “totalitarian.”
Sumption compared the restrictions to the food rationing that persisted in the UK for a full nine years after the Second World War ended.
“An interesting parallel is the continuation of wartime food rationing after the last war,” he said on the pandemic edition of the “Sketch Notes On…” podcast. “People were in favor of that because they were in favor of social control. In the 1951 general election, the Labour Party lost its majority entirely because people with five years more experience of social control got fed up with it. Sooner or later that will happen in this country.”
There are a couple difficulties at play here:
- People are now accustomed to dealing with rolling lockdowns and ever-present restrictions, even if they’re strongly opposed to them. Some authorities may use this argument to justify a lack of urgency on removing the restrictions.
- On a similar note, they may argue that the restrictions have actually improved some people’s lives. And that is indeed what England’s chief medical officer has said.
- The definition of “herd immunity” now means 70-85 percent of the population getting vaccinated, not necessarily 70-85 percent of the population getting the virus by means of infection or vaccination. Some authorities will claim that we can’t remove all restrictions until the vast majority of people are fully vaccinated.
Many protests have erupted throughout Europe—from the UK and the Netherlands, to Germany and so on—so it’s possible there may come a time where the overwhelming anger of the populace will lead the government to remove the restrictions. But once the government has obtained certain powers, it’s incredibly difficult for them to want to give them back. These restrictions and lockdowns could very well have profoundly altered society for good.
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