A betrayal on Brexit would push UK politics to the extremes

Leaving the EU was meant to save Britain from a Europe-style descent into authoritarianism

Can mainstream political parties survive? Or are populists and extremists going to take over everywhere, with cataclysmic effects on the economy, liberty and Western civilisation? My great hope for Brexit was that it would save Britain from such a fate, one that I fear risks befalling much of the rest of Europe. The theory was that leaving the EU would reboot UK politics, paving the way for a novel settlement that reconciled liberalism and soft nationalism, globalisation and democratic self-government. Such an approach would have built on the UK’S unique strengths – a wonderful openness to outsiders, a buccaneering commercial spirit, comparatively well integrated immigrant communities – while neutralising much of the discontent bubbling under the surface.

A new electoral coalition would have emerged, marshalled by the now fully pro-brexit Tories, and within a few years of leaving the EU Britain would have become like Switzerland or Australia, in control of its destiny and borders and yet pro-capitalist, open to talent and foreign capital, and trading globally. Our tamed elites would have been forced to address the problems of ordinary people, rebuilding the trust shattered by a series of recessions, scandals and lies.

In this “optimal Brexit” scenario, which I suspect would have materialised had Brexiteers taken power in 2016, the Tory government, to keep hold of its new supporters, would have tackled many of the other egregiously unpopular policies that have created such a wedge between voters and politicians. Softness on crime, excessive levels of foreign aid, the madly expensive HS2, politicised human rights rulings that make a mockery of the real thing, the assumption that there will be more bailouts of private companies, and a dishonest immigration policy, all are hated by a vast majority of people.

Fast-forward two years, however, and the outlook is grim. The kind of reformation I was hoping for may still just about be possible, but it is now equally likely that the establishment’s refusal to implement Brexit properly, its decision not even to try for a Canadian style free trade agreement, its pusillanimous inability to stand up for Britain in the face of EU bullying, will instead break our political system.

The consequences of a Brexit betrayal would be catastrophic: there would be no halting the tide of anti-establishment fury that has been building since the early Nineties. Support for mainstream parties would collapse and new ones would emerge. Yes, a centrist business-as-usual grouping may well be one of those that arises from the rubble, but its supporters – the Remain metropolitan base – massively overestimate its potential. It would be small, little larger than the Lib Dems today. Sadly, the libertarian yet Eurosceptic party of my dreams would be even tinier.

The real winners would be nasty European-style extremist parties of Left and Right that would desecrate our public life. The polling is depressingly clear: swathes of people would vote for an authoritarian party under certain circumstances, while there is extensive support for hardline socialist economic positions. The poison of far-right and far-left demagoguery would contaminate our body politic, as has already started with the rise of Corbyn and anti-semitism in the Labour Party; and just like in other countries, millions would end up voting for detestable people with repellent ideas.

Such an abominable outcome would herald the end of Britain’s long history of political exceptionalism – extremist parties have been astonishingly unsuccessful here, partly because the governing classes used to believe in compromising with the public and absorbing social change. A Brexit sell-out, combined with a continuation of all the other discredited consensus policies of the past few decades, would make the UK just like everywhere else, an angry nation, openly at war over class and identitarian issues.

In France, the National Front grabbed 34 per cent of the vote in the second round of the last presidential election and is one lucky break away from power. Emmanuel Macron’s new party has permitted the pretence that populism was defeated. It wasn’t: there would be a global outcry at Macron’s calls for pan-european protectionism were they proposed by Donald Trump. In any case, Macron’s popularity is shot.

In Germany, terrifyingly, the AFD sits at around 17 per cent in the polls, the hard-left Linke at 12 per cent and the anti-capitalist, anti-nato Greens at 11 per cent, a total of 40 per cent who would tear up the status quo. Britain’s chattering classes don’t seem to realise the extent of the damage wreaked by Angela Merkel, one of the most overrated politicians of this century.

In Italy, the populists are in power, as is in parts of Eastern Europe. In Spain, it is “mainstream” to jail Catalan political opponents. In other countries, supposedly centreright and centre-left parties are implementing policies once only advocated by maniacs. As to America, the Republicans are now a party being rebuilt in Trump’s image, and the Democrats are contemplating their own hard-left experiment.

Brexit was our last chance to escape this madness and show how popular angst caused by economic turmoil and cultural change can be reconciled with free markets and openness. Yet – in the name of their narrow conception of liberalism, and their bonkers belief that we already live in the best of all possible worlds – the elites attempting to stop Brexit are unleashing a far greater backlash, one that would make leaving the EU without a deal seem like a tea party. Their lack of selfawareness is staggering, proof that we should never underestimate the ability of a ruling class, however educated and sophisticated, to act stupidly.

It is still possible to halt the collapse of politics without pandering to or accommodating the racists, fascists and Marxists. But it would require a dramatic U-turn. The Government would need to leave the EU properly, albeit hopefully with a deal and massive tax cuts to cushion any temporary instability, to express its pride in this country, to allow the building of more homes, to introduce a controlled, but crucially not illiberal immigration policy, and to start campaigning in favour of capitalism. Mainstream, popular policies of the kind embraced by self-governing countries around the world could nip extremists in the bud and give Tories 45 per cent of the vote. Why can’t they see this? And why is the establishment willing to gamble everything for its irrational love of a failing super-state?