Britons go to the polls on June 8 to choose their next government. At the time of writing, electionbettingodds.com gives incumbent Conservative Party an 83 percent chance of retaining power, with Theresa May continuing to serve as Prime Minister, a position she has held since July 2016.

A victory for May’s Conservatives is a victory for the enemies of free and private speech. The party’s manifesto, and Theresa May’s ideology and track-record, have made that clear.

As Home Secretary, Theresa May introduced the Investigatory Powers Act, described as the “most extreme surveillance law ever passed in a democracy”. This act compels internet companies to keep a file on their users’ activities, and introduces bulk warrants. She is also personally responsible for the Draft Communications Data Bill, which would extend the bulk collection.

Speaking after the London Bridge attacks on Saturday night, May said, “We cannot allow this ideology the safe space it needs to breed. Yet that is precisely what the internet, and the big companies that provide internet-based services, provide.” Think about that. Of all the possible methods of addressing terrorism, May has opted to shut down free and private speech, even though we have known for years that there is no evidence that restricting free and private speech is an effective counterterrorism measure.

The truth is that surveillance has little to do with terrorism. We saw this in the case of America, where politicians always talked about terrorism to justify broad surveillance powers, but leaked NSA documents showed that only a very small minority of cases were related to terrorism. The enemies of civil liberties always use the same rhetoric: they want to take away freedoms from the bad guys. But it is not possible to remove privacy selectively from bad guys. An attack on privacy is an attack on every member of the British public.

May’s extremist ideology is so corrosive because it can apply to all civil liberties. Should bad guys be executed without trial? No. When a government picks and chooses which citizens get to benefit from legal protections, you’re left with despotism.

May’s implication that privacy comes from “the big companies that provide internet-based services” is far from the worst thing she has said, but it shows a basic ignorance of technology. The gold standard in encrypted communications, Signal, is made by a team of five. Witch doctors should not be appointed to direct the National Health Service, and people with fundamental misapprehensions about technology should not make tech policy.

The Tory Party’s election manifesto says, “Our starting point is that online rules should reflect those that govern our lives offline”. Well, we can have private conversations in meatspace. Does May wish to shut this down too? To bug every home? If she wishes to shut down the safe spaces where unwanted ideologies can breed, is she going to shut down mosques as well? This may seem like too extreme a comparison, but it is not; the internet is the forum of civil discourse. A government that promises to remove the safety of such a forum is as near totalitarian as makes no difference.

So much for surveillance, let’s look at the Tories’ position on censorship. The manifesto says a Conservative government, “will put a responsibility on industry not to direct users – even unintentionally – to hate speech, pornography, or other sources of harm. We will make clear the responsibility of platforms to enable the reporting of inappropriate, bullying, harmful or illegal content, with take-down on a comply-or-explain basis”, and that it will, “introduce a sanctions regime to ensure compliance, giving regulators the ability to fine or prosecute those companies that fail in their legal duties”.

This approach of putting the onus on technology platforms to block bad content is misguided. Forcing platforms that host user-generated content to self-police adds to their costs, so such a law would make Britain a less appealing place for such companies to do business. It is also futile. The content is always a few clicks away on a different site. (America’s failed Stop Online Piracy Act had the same plan.)

The manifesto goes on: “We will continue to push the internet companies to deliver on their commitments to develop technical tools to identify and remove terrorist propaganda”. Subtract the rhetorical appeal to counter-terrorism, and look at what is really being proposed here: the government wants to push for the development of technical tools to censor unwanted ideologies at a click.

Since when is it the government’s job to “push” the internet to develop tools for censorship? The Tory manifesto actually addresses this question head-on, saying, “Some people say that it is not for government to regulate when it comes to technology and the internet. We disagree.” This statement only seems less appalling than it really is because we compartmentalize technology as an independent issue. Imagine if they had said, “Some people say that it is not for government to regulate when it comes to conversations in the home. We disagree”, “Some people say that it is not for government to regulate what is said in the mosque. We disagree”, or “Some people say that it is not for government to regulate when it comes to freedom of the press. We disagree.” Strip away its science-fiction glamour; the internet is really just another media device. It’s like the Gutenberg press. And I thought we’d agreed a long time ago that it is not the government’s job to regulate the press.

The same disturbing failure to understand that the internet is a shinier Gutenberg machine pops up again later in the manifesto: “At a time when the internet is changing the way people obtain their news, we also need to take steps to protect the reliability and objectivity of information that is essential to our democracy and a free and independent press.” This is rather thin on detail, but who is the judge of “reliability and objectivity”? If it is the government, we have a fundamental problem. (As for the the claim that government regulation serves to make the press more “free and independent”, that is too ludicrous to rebut.)

This dangerous ideology is at the forefront of the polls now, but it is by no means guaranteed victory. Britain has a chance to stop the Tories at the polls tomorrow. And ultimately, even if they do proceed with their plans, the real solution is not in politics but design. If politicians continue their attack on freedom and privacy, technologists must continue to outsmart them with better tools.

Editorial note: The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own.

Picture from Wikimedia Commons.