The British government has recently empowered local city and town councils throughout the country with the authority to deem buildings ‘coronavirus epicenters’ and order them destroyed.
Published last month — with little fanfare — the Department of Health and Social Care’s “COVID-19 Contain Framework” laid out a series of laws, including the Coronavirus Act 2020, that local governments will be able to utilize in order to contain flare-ups of the Wuhan virus.
The document informed councils that under the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984, they can apply to a magistrate “to impose restrictions or requirements to close contaminated premises; close public spaces in the area of the local authority; detain a conveyance or movable structure; disinfect or decontaminate premises; or order that a building, conveyance or structure be destroyed.”
Imagine if Democrats controlled all levers of government at the federal level in the U.S. and passed legislation allowing local city councils to declare that someone’s private property was a dangerous harbor of coronavirus (in which the vast majority of people suffer either no symptoms or mild ones) and have it demolished — without a trial, without the owner of the property having any say whatsoever, and without there being any legal recourse the owner could take against the city.
That power would never be wielded in a punishing, politically motivated way, would it?
The advice paper, which was found and reported by The Telegraph initially, notes that the authority gives local councils the power to ostensibly destroy factories, offices, eldercare facilities and even private homes if the action is deemed necessary and ‘in the public interest.’
Also, it gives councils the power to destroy public transportation including buses, trains, privately owned vehicles and planes.
The advice paper empowers local councils to “close certain businesses and venues (for example shops, cafes, gyms, recreation centers, offices, labs, warehouses); close outdoor public areas (for example parks, playgrounds, beaches, esplanades, outdoor swimming pools) and order deep-cleans of buildings or vehicles linked to outbreaks.”
In addition, local governing bodies will have the option of introducing lockdown measures within their jurisdictions, which Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s administration believes is preferable to introducing a second COVID-19 lockdown of the entire country.
“The local lockdown powers will include the ability to close or limit the activities of schools, and to set the age range for students allowed to attend classes,” Breitbart reports. “The councils will also be able to shut down or limit public events and gatherings, as well as being able to shut down businesses.” (Related: Self-defense is now ILLEGAL in the UK.)
That’s an incredible amount of power for a local government — let alone a national government — to have.
Imagine if a business or homeowner in a British town upsets the local council in some manner; what’s to stop that council from ‘deeming’ the business owner’s building or the homeowner’s domicile as a ‘center’ of coronavirus and ordering it destroyed? Who could stop the council’s action?
It’s not clear what the British government was thinking in 1984 when elected leaders passed such a broad, potentially dangerous law, but it’s also not evident that they’re willing to do anything now to change or repeal it, even as the virus begins to recede around the world.
Could something like this come to the United States? You bet, it could — and Democrats would be the party to implement it.
Why? Because it is authoritarian, strips Americans of their constitutional rights, and can be arbitrarily imposed/utilized by them at will.
Think about it: Which party do most governors and mayors belong to who are continuing to keep their states and cities locked down though coronavirus is no longer a problem for them?
It isn’t the GOP.
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