Reflecting on a recent trip to Hong Kong, and the protests that spilled into its streets, Nigel Biggar raises questions about the limits of democratic elections to bring political well-being–‘votes,’ after all, ‘can’t be any wiser than the voters’. Yet rule of law and a free press are institutions thought essential for fostering political trust between rulers and the ruled, and must be defended.

Biggar’s Hong Kong interlocutors point out in response, ‘Beijing isn’t merely resisting fully free elections; it’s also actively dismantling the liberal, constitutional institutions already in place’. Such political repression ought to provoke us all, as it does Biggar, to pay attention.

Read Biggar’s article in The Critic’s Artillary Row here: Not just democracy: Hong Kong protestors are fighting for British-style institutions.