The Death of British Justice

Ian Haworth
Tue, 02 Dec 2025 16:04:27 -0800
Opinion

For centuries, Great Britain stood as one of the West's crown jewels, a bastion of Judeo-Christian civilization, free speech and rule of law. One small, proud island in Western Europe defeated tyrants, ended slavery and stood firm against the flood of Nazism that swamped the continent and threatened to envelop the entire world.

"We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender," Winston Churchill famously declared on behalf of the British people and yes, their British values.

But those days are long gone, and all that remains is a country that has become the ultimate parody of its own decline. First, we saw the naive importation of Islamist radicalism under the false banner of "multiculturalism," making British cities indistinguishable from Islamabad, Kabul and Mogadishu. Then came the erosion of freedom of speech, with citizens locked up for an off-color tweet while sword-wielding maniacs walk free. And this week, we witnessed perhaps the gravest blow to the dwindling legacy of Great Britain: the scrapping of jury trials.
Updated: Tue Dec 02, 2025

For centuries, Great Britain stood as one of the West's crown jewels, a bastion of Judeo-Christian civilization, free speech and rule of law. One small, proud island in Western Europe defeated tyrants, ended slavery and stood firm against the flood of Nazism that swamped the continent and threatened to envelop the entire world.

"We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender," Winston Churchill famously declared on behalf of the British people and yes, their British values.

But those days are long gone, and all that remains is a country that has become the ultimate parody of its own decline. First, we saw the naive importation of Islamist radicalism under the false banner of "multiculturalism," making British cities indistinguishable from Islamabad, Kabul and Mogadishu. Then came the erosion of freedom of speech, with citizens locked up for an off-color tweet while sword-wielding maniacs walk free. And this week, we witnessed perhaps the gravest blow to the dwindling legacy of Great Britain: the scrapping of jury trials.

Under Justice Secretary David Lammy, in the nation that formalized the use of local panels to determine the innocence or guilt of accused criminals in the 12th century with further rights to justice guaranteed by the Magna Carta in 1215, jury trials in England and Wales will be scrapped for crimes that carry sentences of less than three years.

Lammy, who described this move as "bold" but "necessary," argued that this would help clear a growing backlog of cases. Sure, except that the cost is the removal of a form of justice that has existed in England for hundreds of years, with massive power taken from the community and handed to a single government-appointed official. What could possibly go wrong?

After all, much of Nazi Germany's judicial reforms were deemed bold, necessary and oh-so-efficient.

At their core, jury trials are more than just a quaint tradition. They are a firewall between the state and those who would otherwise be powerless in its shadow. By empowering the people in matters of justice, lone judges cannot wield decisions of freedom over the otherwise voiceless. By stripping away juries for broad categories of crimes, thereby opening the door to future miscarriages of justice, the Harvard-educated Lammy is pushing his country toward a cliff.

None of this is justice. Instead, it is the creation of a state-controlled aristocracy under the banner of efficiency.

And let's not forget: This is all about government power. It is about the state wresting control from its citizenry by quietly absorbing every element of British life, stacking the deck against anyone who dares stand in their way.

Yes, the people who once built parliamentary democracy and common-law rights are dismantling their legacy from the inside. In years past, Great Britain led the world. In 2025, Great Britain only leads the world in one thing — its own self-destruction.