I’ve always said that if Brexit is the worst thing that happens to Britain – as centrism and the global order implode – we’ll have got away lightly. What it would mean not to get away lightly is becoming clear, as the forces of the UK far right converge around a single project.
Ukip, under new leader Gerard Batten, has reoriented itself towards street politics and the groups who specialise in it. On 9 June, the party took part in a demonstration to free jailed English Defence League founder Tommy Robinson, which became a drunken rampage across Whitehall, totally outflanking the police deployed to contain it.
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