A dark pattern runs through British politics: when the powerful lose control, protesters suffer | Owen Jones

Casting your opponents as dangerous extremists is the oldest trick in the book - and this time it's supporters of Palestine in the government's sights

Britain's latest descent into authoritarianism fits a depressingly familiar pattern. This is how it tends to work: a subversive group is identified by political elites and presented as a danger to the nation, often being additionally labelled as allies or dupes of hostile foreign enemies. An air of national emergency is contrived, with exaggerated, distorted, or simply invented evidence used to justify claims of an imminent threat. The ensuing repressive measures are supposedly to defend the security of both individual citizens and the nation alike.

This is what was really going on when Rishi Sunak spoke of mob rule" and warned of the forces here at home trying to tear us apart" during his sinister prime ministerial address last Friday. It should be seen, too, as the rationale behind proposals by rightwing former Labour MP John Woodcock - appointed by the Tories as a peer, Lord Walney, and advisor on political violence after he endorsed Boris Johnson in the last election - to ban politicians from engaging with movements protesting against mass slaughter in Gaza or the climate emergency.

Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist