This points to a deep problem in modern Europe and poses a severe challenge to any movement of people committed to challenging the issues that are at the forefront of European concerns. The same story is replicated in parliamentary parties and street movements. When Tommy Robinson set up the EDL he was shortly afterwards told that an actual Nazi, based abroad, insisted on coming in and taking the movement over. Robinson refused, at some risk to himself, and much of his time in the EDL was spent trying to keep such people out of the movement, not that he was ever given any credit for these moves. Nor was it often noted that a conviction for assault in 2011 was caused by him head-butting a person he said was actually a neo-Nazi. If the media and politicians claim that a movement is far to the right, it will of course attract what far-right people there are, even if the organisers are sincerely trying to rid the movement of such people.17 But it is also the case that there are small movements of actual racists and fascists in European countries.

All of which raises numerous questions for Europe. The short-term answer to those objecting to the consequences of mass immigration has been to ostracise them from any place in the discussion, by calling them racists, Nazis and fascists. If it was recognised that at least some of the people so designated did not warrant the label, then this was clearly thought a price worth paying. But what does a political class and the media do when they discover that the views they have tried to make beyond the political pale are in fact the views of the majority of the public?

15. Controlling the backlash

15

Controlling the backlash