Ben Watters

The Online Safety Act may cost Labour the next election How the Online Safety Act overreaches and risks playing into the far right’s hands

The Online Safety Act may cost Labour the next election
How the Online Safety Act overreaches and risks playing into the far right’s hands

westenglandbylines.co.uk/business/tec...

We're just, as a country, so desperate to invest in the next 'thing' that I can see us trying to get ahead of the curve in that respect - but obviously totally ignoring all of the damage it does to the rest of the UK tech industry. This Government really is boneheaded.

It's unfortunate for us as we're the guinea pigs in this situation, but this policy is coming for other countries. Pretty sure Australia has this in the works, a few EU nations, the US already does in the backwards states etc. So those verification companies will be getting a lot of work (and data)

Pushing blockheaded policy like this through not only massively impacts the population and is bad for the majority who live here, it has the knock-on effect that in 2029 it is guaranteed to get far, far worse because of all these decisions right now.

Unfortunately whilst I would've agreed with you about 10 years ago (& still do broadly), Labour right now are in the prime position to wax & wane Reform's momentum. The UK cannot survive the damage a Reform majority would do.

Every cock-up from Labour hands Reform momentum AND impacts people.

Fucking hell they're HANDING Reform the polls and the next election.

This is a completely fucking outrageous line from Peter Kyle - it's disgraceful that the technology secretary doesn't have the political acumen to know that opposition to the OSA is completely bipartisan, and everyone is furious.

And this isn't about access to smut or whatever the puritanian 'think of the children' policy-makers believe. It's access to tech generally, and the groteque overreach of the bill for everyone. And young people fully understand that giving online ID to dodgy US tech companies is a terrible idea.

Labour have lost the next election with the Online Safety Act. It was already in doubt, but if they don't reverse course this act will cost them.

It'll go down in history as a genuinely dunderheaded move to give young people better suffrage, then immediately alienate them as a voter base.

I.e main takeaway - not even Reform are so obviously racist.

This elected official is calling for their political opponent to be deported based on racism and/or political affiliation. Unbelievable fascism.

Think it's also important in these times to compare and contrast to other systems - so for any Americans seeing this:

For as not-ideal as the UK political system is, if ANYONE tried to call for this dogshit racism here their political career would be over. It's so blatantly fascist & bigoted.

Spot on - it's eyeballing metrics of course, but the Dems gave such little energy and just took it for granted that demographics would vote for them.

I know it's redundant messaging to political pundits, but they needed to SHOW why a vote for Trump would be terrible for those groups. They didn't.

Ridiculously out of his depth - him and the stooges in his administration. Just a continuous fuck-up domestically and internationally.

And you can see it's getting to him as well - Trump is incredibly rattled. When a narcissist's stupid actions don't work, they'll lash out like this.

In order to stave off the threat of the populist far-right, from day 1 Labour needed to work to make ordinary people's lives better. This does the complete opposite - completely short-sighted.

Labour can mask it as a plan to get people working all they like, but all can see it's just cost-cutting.

I was also so shocked at this originally that I had to spend about 5 minutes triple checking it wasn't AI - I just didn't believe it

I don't think I've ever seen a major politician - certainly not the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES - lose his shit like this.

Lack of decorum aside - Trump never had any - this is him throwing his toys out of the pram and realising he's completely out of his depth. No control whatsoever. Weak.

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump EVERYONE, KEEP OIL PRICES DOWN. I’M WATCHING! YOU’RE PLAYING RIGHT INTO THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY. DON’T DO IT! 67 ReTruths 278 Likes Jun 23, 2025, 9:35 AM

It turns out creating a situation where 25% of global petroleum liquids might go offline at any minute has an impact on oil prices, who would have guessed.

Incredibly telling that when Zia Yusuf of Reform was challenged by @lewisgoodall.com on what is essentially a complete lie on 'DEI' (EDI) spending in the public sector, he immediately appealed to conspiracism.

Reform will do this for the next 4 years. Lie > get called out > conspiracism.

Yeah, pretty vintage response to a narcissist not being able to follow through with a promise - just dodge the fuck out of it

He's currently preoccupied with his Gulf state bribes and promise to secure peace in the Middle East. When that fails, he'll go back to Russia/Ukraine for some PR

It's not just MAGA; it's anyone involved in crypto/fucking meme coins at this point.

An absolute mug's game - if you're trying to get on the ground floor of a meme coin these days you genuinely deserve to lose your money. Regardless of the scum promoting it from the top.

It's too late for that really, considering the AfD - with the exception of Reform - are essentially ground zero for MAGA in Europe.

Combat those disgusting parties now domestically.

They need to make big changes to the way ordinary people are feeling cost of living, cost of rents, cost of energy pricing, wealth inequality. Make people FEEL like Labour is on their side. Otherwise it's just over - all their milquetoast adjustments will be fucked up by Reform instantly anyway.

Focusing on Tory-esque policies and right-wing talking points like immigration will NOT work.

Why would the average 'undecided voter' who hates immigration vote for the party who are saying they'll be 75% right wing when Reform are going 100%? It makes no sense - those voters are already lost.

The inability of Labour to tackle far-right populism was the number one concern pre-election -it's essentially coming to fruition.

They need to make peoples' feel like things are getting better right now. Nebulous faith in UK 'growth', which isn't happening, will ruin them at the next election.

MAGA will just say that the reason the tariffs failed was because of Biden's economy/diplomacy. If they ever admit that tariffs failed at all.

There's no point in even speculating. They will never admit they've made a mistake. Never take them at their word; they are liars to an absolute tee.

Holy FUCK how can anyone say this is OK and not incredibly weird.

Even Trump himself, who is an insane old narcissist, looks incredibly uncomfortable

Highly likely US Citizens will also get no due process as well. The Trump admin have seen how 'easy' it's been to unconstitutionally and illegally send residents to foreign concentration camps with no trial; they'll look to replicate that.

America, you are past DEFCON 1. This is fascism.

Just an incredibly fucking weird guy. Doesn't matter though, the right will excuse any sort of bizarreness as long as it has capital.

This is why you don't vote for dumbfuck Conservative populists, people. We obviously had a taste of this domestically with Truss but this is of course next level.

One party led by one idiotic, lying figurehead can cause so much suffering. Honestly, this is the fault of right-wing naivity.

For Americans who didn’t get the joy of living through the Truss/Kwarteng budget, this is the point where the government starts to call the stock market left-wing and/or woke.

Very funny stuff. I don't think Musk will do this though - he's political poison and seemingly *hated* by the majority, but he's also an erratic egomaniac who won't want his ego dented by being told to be quiet.

Of course, he'll still need to 'brag' about DOGE as well; so will get headlines.