Neither major party really thinks much of Assange. There might be some feeble protests but in practice the UK would be in the same position they are now.
Who is talking about the Australian government? Nobody cares about the Australian government. It's the UK government that would be the target.
We can argue whether or not they would care any more, but given the amount of time senior UK politicians have already spent talking about what is ostensibly "just" a normal extradition case, and spent trying to undo the diplomatic uproar caused by ever-so-slightly hinting they might be able to legally enter the embassy by force, it'll at the very least be fun watching them squirm.
I don't think the UK government would be fussed either. If nothing else, they are legally required to arrest Assange if he leaves the Ecuadorean embassy, regardless of what title he has.
They may be legally required to arrest Assange if he falls in their laps or he happens to walk up to a police officer (though I'm not sure if there'd be any legal consequences if they failed to arrest him even then - I doubt it), but they most certainly are not legally bound to invest massive amounts of resources to make it happen.
UK police make judgement calls about how best to deploy police resources to enforce arrest warrants or chase down suspects or throw people out of the country every day.
It is naive at best to assume that the 24/7 guard kept on him has anything to do with legal obligations.
It could be "just" because it'd be embarrassing if he managed to leave due to the public profile of his case, but there's not really much room to doubt that the amount of police resources spent on him is political.
Two constables standing out front of the embassy is hardly "massive resources".
They know where Assange is. They know that the UK is obliged to arrest him. And they know that he has snubbed the English justice system which I imagine they feel a bit dark about.
Basically the amount of conspiracy theorising around the Assange case is getting flatly silly.
It's the HN/Reddit equivalent of truthers and birthers. An embarrassment.
> Two constables standing out front of the embassy is hardly "massive resources".
It is far more than they spend on a lot of people that are wanted. 24/7 means shifts, which means we're talking about 10+ people full time to have 2 people stationed there at any time.
I can think of any number of places where investing 10+ officers full time would do far more positive for society - including preventing serious crimes.
> And they know that he has snubbed the English justice system which I imagine they feel a bit dark about.
So in other words: He is not being treated as everyone else. He's being singled out for political reasons.
Maybe there's nothing more to it than that, as I've already stated.
> Basically the amount of conspiracy theorising around the Assange case is getting flatly silly.
Ad hominems don't increase the validity of your own arguments.
I don't know if Assange is guilty or not. I can tell from what he has admitted that he acted like a total douche, but not whether or not he committed a crime.
What I do know, is that the behaviour I've seen from the prosecution is bizarre enough that I fully understand his reaction - whether he is guilty or not.
You've not provided a single argument to counteract that. Your arguments repeatedly focus on semantics or details that don't make the slightest bit of difference to addressing the blatant ways in which the prosecution of this case differs from the norm.
That does not mean there's a conspiracy. It doesn't even necessarily mean that there's anything wrong going on. Maybe it's "just" a boneheaded prosecutor. That does not help Assange, and that does mean that there's every reason to keep asking the question of why they consistently fail to answer the questions around this case truthfully (such as their blatantly false claim that they can not question him outside of Sweden).
Yes it's expensive to keep tabs on Assange but the Met (London's police force) has about 20,000 active officers. You're talking about 0.05% of their manpower. It's not ideal but it's really not that big a deal for them. And obviously it's political but why does that invalidate it as a reason?
What you seem to be suggesting is that the UK should be deliberately lax in fulfilling it's treaty obligations (that is provide resources they know are insufficient). Yes they might be able to technically meet their obligation without actually keeping tabs on Assange but do you really think that the Swedish (and presumably US) governments are going to be happy about that?
It's politics but politics isn't intrinsically bad either in general or in this case specifically for the UK. On the contrary, not pissing off Sweden (and the US presumably) sounds like something worth investing a small amount of resources in. Otherwise who knows what might happen when the UK next want something from Sweden (or the US)?
On the other side, what reason do they have to do what you suggest? The British public don't really care one way or another about Assange right now. Sure if you ask them whether it's a good use of money they'd probably say no but the strength of feeling isn't such that there is any domestic political capital at stake and that's unlikely to change (we've got far bigger problems than Assange and our budget situation isn't going to be resolved by reassigning 0.05% of one of the 40-odd police forces in the UK).
Internationally most of the UKs allies seem to either not care at all, not care much so default to supporting the treaty obligations (if in doubt you don't say break the law) or be positively anti-Assange. Those countries who are pro-Assange generally aren't countries for who the UK is likely to piss of Sweden and in particular the US to curry favour with.
I imagine he gets a bit more attention than usual because he's considered a flight risk. Also, unlike (I presume) other wanted individuals, they do know exactly where he is; they just can't get to him.
