It is only natural for people who follow politics closely to reflect on the anti-immigration riots that sprang up in the UK at the end of July and the role of the British police in suppressing the opposition.

As in Australia, immigration in the UK has become the political weapon of choice by left-wing thugs who brand all opposition as racism while working in the political silence to replace traditional ideas of virtue and public service with the distorted image of a socialist workers’ collective. Those events, especially the Southport riots, have generated countless diverse opinions to which social media has given voice, many of them attributing blame to different parties.

As distant from Blighty as Australia may be, the temptation to advise the British about the cause of the riots is just as strongly felt here as it was in the US. Unfortunately, British authorities seem to have taken an intense dislike to receiving outside advice, so if you are considering backing one or other groups on social media, it might just be advisable not to; else you might just find yourself bound up in iron chains on your way ticket back to merry England; but let me explain.

The riots started in the British midland town of Southport following the murder of three little girls on July 29. The 18-year-old accused of the murders was quickly apprehended but though British-born, his identity was suppressed from publication.

This information vacuum was quickly filled by online speculation on the social media site, X, where someone alleged, amongst other things, that the killer was a Muslim and an illegal immigrant, which seemed to provoke more violence across Britain.

As the violence spread, the accused’s Welsh birth and Rwandan heritage were made public which disarmed some but not all protests. Rumours of a ‘right-wing’ attack in Birmingham caused a large crowd of Muslims to gather to protect their mosque. When the right-wing mob failed to materialise, however, the assembled Muslim crowd attacked the local pub and its patrons.

The disparity in the treatment of left and right protesters by the British media quickly became evident. Whereas the violence of Muslim protesters was reported without any moralising epithets, the demonstrators opposing immigration were described as violent and racist, as far-right thugs, and even far-right.

According to the BBC, even Keir Starmer, the British Prime Minister, condemned the anti-immigration protesters as ‘far-right thuggery’. The Beeb went so far as to claim that the events in Southport were the worst unrest the UK has seen in more than a decade which suggests that all its staff were on annual leave in May when the pro-Palestinian riots trashed London.

The police were criticised for having taken such harsh measures against far-right protesters in Southport compared with the partisan way the Met protected pro-Palestinian rioters in May, arresting and restraining opposition with batons shields and dogs.

Keir Starmer declared his support for the police tactics by demanding the full force of the law be brought against the right-wing demonstrators in Southport, a statement that led to accusations of two justice systems in Britain and Keir Starmer’s nickname, ‘Two Tier Keir’.

When Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley of the Metropolitan Police Service was asked by a journalist to comment on the two tier accusation, he grabbed the reporter’s microphone and strode angrily away.

Previously, he had denounced the posts on the social media site X, describing the people responsible for some posts as ‘keyboard warriors’ who were provoking the violence in the Midlands by ‘whipping up hatred’.

Speaking to Sky News:

We will throw the full force of the law at people. And whether you’re in this country committing crimes on the streets or committing crimes from further afield online, we will come after you … being a keyboard warrior does not make you safe from the law.

If the UK authorities ever wished to include Musk on their arrest list, they should be made aware that while Musk is only the owner of the keyboard, he is protected by the First Amendment in the US Constitution and as well as specific US laws. Further, given the depressed value of the British pound, it is doubtful that the UK could afford to take the world’s richest man to court for a trial. Were Musk to seek security for his legal costs, it is doubtful that the Brits could meet the order.

Which brings us to the issue of concern here in Australia: it is not whether the UK could have Musk extradited to Britain from the US, as interesting as that attempt would be.

The real issue is whether they could successfully have someone extradited from Australia as a result of their online, provocative commentary on British political affairs. Unlike the US which is an independent nation, whose independence was purchased with blood, Australia is not as independent as many might think. Inferences from occasional comments of our High Court judiciary suggests that were Britain to seek to extradite an Australian for his online comments, they would succeed, thanks to the much loved ‘rule of law’.

All would hinge on who owns the Commonwealth Constitution, Australia, or the UK.

The delegates to our Constitutional Convention held in 1897-98 were elected by the voting public of five self-governing colonies, New South Wales, Adelaide, Victoria, Tasmania and Western Australia.

While the delegates adopted a truly federal scheme like that of the United States, it also adopted one other very important principle of American constitutionalism, that of the consent of the governed. That principle, the most famous rule of republican government, was expressed by the great Oxford philosopher, John Locke:

Men being, as has been said, by nature, all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the political power of another, without his own consent. (John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, Bk 2, §95).

It was clearly stated by Thomas Jefferson in the US Declaration of Independence and each time we vote for a representative in our Parliament we are embracing that principle. It was thought so important, that once the Convention had completed drafting the Constitution, referendums were held in the colonies where the Australian people consented to it as the supreme law of the land.

At that point, however, things become confused. While the people’s consent was obtained, the colonists in general were loyal to the British monarchy and it was decided that Australia would be a federal Commonwealth under the Crown of the United Kingdom, a constitutional monarchy. To achieve that, the British government undertook to make our Constitution a British law enforceable in Australia.

In 1900, the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act (63 & 64 Victoria, Chapter 12) (the Act) with the Commonwealth Constitution attached was made law by the British Parliament and, following the Royal proclamation, the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia became law in this nation, but not of this nation.

The problem, therefore, is whether the Commonwealth of Australia is a sovereign independent nation, a legal entity recognised both here and abroad by virtue of the consent of the colonial people or a creature of the British Parliament…

The Frenchman, Baron Montesquieu, is responsible for the saying, the rule of laws rather than of men which has come down to us as the rule of law; and with that principle firmly embedded in our High Court’s jurisprudence, the only conclusion is that the Australian Constitution is only law while the Act remains unchanged.

The British Parliament could, if it wished, revoke the Commonwealth and State Constitutions by just amending the Act or passing another law. It could even appoint administrators. That would be messy. It would be easier to pass a law directing Australian Courts to do what it tells them.

If the British intention is to make certain Australian keyboard warriors liable under British law or to extradite them for trial in the UK, it would only require a very small British law to say that sec 7 of the Commonwealth’s Extradition Act was of no effect when extradition was sought by the British Crown.

Even easier, Westminster could amend State and Federal laws to impose British liability on Australian keyboard warriors who used social media in a way that is inconsistent with British law; even imposing British jurisdiction on Australian or State Courts to try the crime and impose the penalty.

It is to be expected that such laws would be challenged by the Commonwealth in our High Court as being beyond the power of the British Parliament, beyond jurisdiction. Unfortunately, our Justices are caught by their own readiness on other occasions to recognise our Constitution as a British law and the British would take great pleasure in citing the importance of the rule of law.

More to the point, what could our illustrious jurists say? None of them possess the political science necessary to truly understand political life and as they are dependent on submissions from ‘learned’ counsel for their base knowledge, they will not have the arguments to defeat the absolute nature of the rule of law.

The whole structure of our government, State and Federal, is the product of a piece of British law. The fact that our Constitution was approved at referendums does not, according to the rule of law, create the Commonwealth of Australia and the States as an independent federal nation even if the Australian people in 1901 believed that their sovereignty came from the Australian people.

Legally, independence and sovereignty were vested in the Commonwealth of Australia by the British Parliament by and through the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act, not the Constitution. Until July 9, 1900 and the Royal Proclamation, there was no Commonwealth of Australia.

What that means is that the High Court which likes to cite the rule of law almost as much as the separation of powers (not present in the British constitution), would be obliged when the Australians appealed the British law to agree that Australia’s independent sovereignty was a chimera. A suitably framed Westminster law could lift the veil on Australian sovereignty or that much of it that was necessary to allow the British will to operate.

To imitate the US, Australia should have in 1899 declared itself independent of the UK so its Constitution would have become operational after the referendums. And it might still do that with suitably worded referendums.

Our High Court justices have previously shown a complete ignorance of the significance of Locke’s principle.

It is highly unlikely there is any High Court justice who could legally find Australian sovereignty an impediment to the extradition of Australian citizens from what is really only the self-governing British colony of Australia.

No wonder the British are revolting.