“Unelected judges” and “lefty lawyers” became epithets of choice for ministers in the May, Johnson and Sunak governments, and that rhetoric has filtered into public discourse on the right and left. Banksy’s latest work, sprayed on the wall of the Royal Courts of Justice in September, depicted a bewigged judge attacking a protester with a gavel. Historically, the British left was sceptical about judicial power, seeing it as an arm of the establishment, unevenly deployed, but much of the new pressure comes from the right.
