September 2025: The month the dystopias came true

6 OCTOBER 2025 | OPINION

Orwell warned of surveillance, Huxley of control through comfort, Kafka of faceless justice, Bradbury of thought turned into crime. In September 2025, Britain proved the warnings weren’t ignored – they were welcomed.

1984 was meant as a warning, not a guide – but this September, our leaders assembled a flat-pack dystopia with terrifying ease.

The past month showed that Britain’s dystopia is not creeping in at the edges – it is being built in plain sight. For decades, politicians had controlled the public through language, branding every critic ‘far-right’ and every objection immoral. But the spell broke. People stopped believing it. And so September became the month our leaders abandoned persuasion and reached instead for technology, secrecy, and fear.

The ‘BritCard’ digital ID captured it perfectly. Sold to the public as a tool of convenience – one card to access healthcare, benefits, banking, even travel – it was presented as efficiency. In reality, it was a leash. Not promised in Labour’s Manifesto, not debated in Parliament, simply imposed. This wasn’t about streamlining services; it was about obedience. Once, governments tried to control language. Now, having lost that battle, they have moved on to controlling access to daily life itself. Orwell’s telescreen no longer sits on your wall – it lives in your pocket.

This instinct to hide and to flee defined Labour’s month. Angela Rayner fell over her hypocrisy on stamp duty. David Lammy’s promotion doubled down on foolishness. Morgan McSweeney’s scandals dragged on, Lord Mandelson was finally jettisoned as US Ambassador, and Downing Street’s PR collapse left ministers blaming their own messengers.

Bridget Phillipson dangled a policy U-turn on the two-child cap, while angling for the deputy leadership, aided by the quiet readmission of John McDonnell and other rebels who had once lost the whip over the same issue. And through it all, Rachel Reeves clung to Number 11 not on competence but because the markets feared the next incompetent buffoon. Burnham and Khan, meanwhile, edged closer together – circling like vultures above a leadership that looks weaker by the day.

That cowardice created the space where the outsiders grew. Reform UK surged in the polls, fuelled not only by Labour’s implosion but by the migration crisis itself. September saw the first deportations under the new Franco-British scheme, hailed by Starmer and Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper as a breakthrough. In truth, it was nothing more than the “pass the migrant” farce — the policy equivalent of a strongly worded letter in the face of a never-ending invasion.

And Reform’s contradictions deepened: welcoming failed Conservatives like Nadine Dorries and Jake Berry, to the disgust of its own members. The same mood spilled into the streets with Unite the Kingdom rallies, Tommy Robinson on the march, and the absurd Raise the Colours bunting rows that tied councils in knots. Across Europe, the AfD surged in Germany, proving this was not uniquely British. Huxley warned that once the narcotic of comfort wore off, anger would follow. September proved him right.

The wider world only underlined the point. In America, Turning Point founder Charlie Kirk was assassinated; a conservative voice silenced in an act of raw political violence. A week later, Lucy Connolly walked free, with her release weaponised by Trump to humiliate Starmer.

And then came appeasement on the grandest scale. Britain recognised the state of Palestine, hailed by Hamas as “the fruits of October 7th”. In one stroke, Westminster legitimised those who slaughtered civilians. The House of Commons didn’t just look weak; it looked complicit. Collaborators in terror – not whispered in the shadows, but shouted proudly from the despatch box.

The insult deepened when Gaza was handed to Sir Tony Blair as though it were a protectorate. The same Blair who helped ignite the very instability now consuming the region. It was a colonial throwback disguised as diplomacy, outsourcing responsibility so Ministers could pretend they’d acted while washing their hands of the consequences.

The world’s institutions only deepened the cynicism. Genocide scholars declared Israel guilty, and the UN General Assembly voted for a ceasefire. Starmer’s recognition of Palestine, instead of steadying Britain’s place on the world stage, tied us to appeasement just as the international system recast Israel as the villain. What was marketed as peace was, in truth, surrender – proof that Britain no longer shapes events, but bends to them.

And while Britain appeased, real leaders redrew maps. Trump met Putin in Alaska: nothing agreed, but everything implied. Putin stood as an equal to the leader of the free world, smiling for the cameras. It was his victory and Trump’s humiliation; the moment a tyrant achieved parity without firing a shot. Elsewhere, China rolled tanks through Beijing in its Victory Day parade, and the US clashed with Venezuela, as the Cold War script rebooted.

So September joined the dots. Surveillance at home, appeasement abroad, politicians paralysed, populists rising. It was not a list of isolated scandals – it was the shape of a new order. Orwell told us surveillance would be normalised. Huxley told us comfort would be used as control. Kafka told us justice would be faceless and absurd. Bradbury told us jokes could be treated as crimes. We were warned.

We laughed at them. Then we lived it.

The warnings weren’t ignored. They were welcomed.