From the fringe to the front page: extremism goes mainstream
How could a leading politician suggest rounding up and deporting more than half-a-million people with barely a murmur of protest from his opponents?
There has always been a racist minority in British politics. From Oswald Mosley in the 1930s, through the National Front and later the BNP, extremism has flared up from time to time, exploiting divisions in society to try to advance its cause.
In that context, a summer of angry demonstrations, the St George’s Cross painted on zebra crossings, and Reform UK’s threat of mass deportations could be seen as no more than another temporary rise of the extreme right.
But this is the first time a political party that built its identity on hard-right foundations has the consistent support of so many voters that it is a serious candidate for government - it’s not unreasonable to think Nigel Farage will be Prime Minister before the end of this decade.
There has been, as the young people would say, a vibe shift in British politics, as rhetoric on migration and asylum once dismissed as dangerous extremism moves firmly to the mainstream.
And how has the mainstream reacted? By joining a competition to sound just as tough as their new rivals. The newspapers that spent the summer stoking up trouble end it by treating a jailed bigot as a freedom fighter,
By now, Labour and the Conservatives really ought to have figured out that you can’t out-Farage Farage.
However far they chase him, he will always go further. Centre-ground voters will desert you if you go down Reform’s rabbit-hole, but right now the one-in-three voters willing to put Farage in Downing Street are the only ones anyone is thinking about.
