The Economist

44 Britain The EconomistJuly 21 st 2018

2 line-up offour.

The difficulty is deciding how to pick a

winner. Peter Kellner a polling expert and

Prospect columnist notes that a single set

of results could produce three possible

winners viafirst-past-the-post(pickingthe

optionwithmostfirst-preferencevotes)al-

ternative vote (adding the second prefer-

ences of the bottom-ranked option to the

tallies of the top two) or a Condorcet sys-

tem (picking the overall winner of the

three possible head-to-head contests). A

poll last month for The Economist by You-

Gov asking voters to rank hard Brexit soft

Brexit and Remain returned exactly such a

result (see chart). With a second referen-

dum “there is already potential for a crisis

of democratic legitimacy” notes Akash

Paun of the Institute for Government a

think-tank. A complex vote with multiple

interpretations would not help.

Such a referendum would also intro-

duce dangers that might make Remainers

thinktwice. One is that the EUwould have

less incentive to offer a good deal if a refer-

endum was on the cards—indeed it might

have an incentive to offer a bad one in the

hope that Britain would therefore choose

to remain as most Eurocrats would prefer.

It would also be fantastically risky to

put “no deal” on the ballot giving voters

an option that no one except the loopiest

Brexiteers supports. Ms Greening calls

such an option a “clean break” a phrase

whichMalcolmBarr ofJ.P. Morgan abank

describes as “a big misrepresentation”.

Trading with the EU on World Trade Orga-

nisation terms is one thing. Leaving with

no agreement on anything from aviation

to citizens’ rights and radioactive materials

would be dramatically worse and not a

“clean” breakat all.

As the Brussels talks enter their closing

phase Remainers may be excited by the

faint prospect of annulling Brexit. Yet the

price of this is a corresponding rise in the

probability of crashing out of the EUwith

noagreement.Mrs Mayhasfoolishlyspent

the past two years repeating the bluff

aimed at Brussels that “no deal is better

thanabaddeal”. Thereis aterribleriskthat

the British publictake her at her word. 7

Source:YouGov/TheEconomist

Soft

Hard

Remain

14

37

40

44

47

Remain

Hard

Hardvremain

Softvhard

Soft vremain

Everyone’s a winner

Britain polling onEU negotiation preferences

June 8th-10th 201 8%responding

Firstchoices

First+secondchoices

Head-to-head

2nd

First-past-the-post

Remainwins

Alternative vote

Hard Brexitwins

Condorcetmethod

SoftBrexitwins

1st

win

win

win

Votingsystem

“R

APE-GANG members are predomi-

nantly followers of the cult of Mo-

hammed” declares the speaker in a mat-

ter-of-fact tone. The crowd gathered on

Whitehall boo. “The founder of their cult

was himself a paedophile and kept sex

slaves” he continues in a near monotone.

MPs are “traitors collaborators and quis-

lings” he adds. “They must be swept

away.” The language was incendiary the

delivery was prosaic and the messenger

was Gerard Batten the leader of the UKIn-

dependence Party.

UKIPis back. After weeks of headlines

and government resignations over the

Conservatives’ bungled negotiations to

leave the European Union the party that

infected British politics with the Brexit vi-

rus is on the up. Polls put UKIPat up to 8 %

the same as the Liberal Democrats. A nar-

rative of betrayal is driving voters back to

UKIP. But they are returning to a very dif-

ferent partyto the one they left.

Britain’s radical right is undergoing an

evolution. Mr Batten was speaking at a ral-

lydemandingthereleaseofTommyRobin-

son the founder of the English Defence

League an Islamophobic protest move-

ment. Mr Robinson was jailed for 13

months in May for contempt ofcourt after

he filmed defendants entering court dur-

ing a trial that was subject to reporting re-

strictions and broadcast the result to his

then 800  000 - strongarmyofFacebookfol-

lowers. Under Nigel Farage its previous

leader UKIP built a firewall between the

party and the farright. Under current man-

agement the lines between UKIP and its

more unpleasant cousins are blurred. Mr

Batten has made support for Mr Robinson

a key plankof his leadership platform. Da-

vid Kurten a member of the London As-

sembly for UKIP sums up the party’s evo-

lution: “Nigel was Mr Brexit. Now we are

lookingat a broader cultural agenda.”

Until now Britain has been lucky in its

radical parties argues Rob Ford of the Uni-

versity of Manchester. Under Mr Farage

UKIPfocused on Brussels and blanched at

outright Islamophobia in contrast to the

likes of Geert Wilders in the Netherlands.

The relative scarcity of explicit anti-Mus-

lim sentiment in British party politics is

down to a want of supply rather than lack

of demand. British voters are no more tol-

erant of Muslims than most of their Euro-

pean peers. Some 42 % ofBritonssaythat Is-

lam is fundamentally incompatible with

their country’s values bang on the Euro-

pean median according to Pew Research.

The new UKIP has few qualms about

speakingfor this large minority.

There is complacency about extremism

in British politics. The murder of Jo Cox a

Labour MP by a neo-Nazi fanatic in 2016  is

painted by some MPs as an isolated trage-

dy. A far-right plot to kill another Labour

MP in 2017 attracted surprisingly little at-

tention when it was unearthed. Mean-

while those on the fringes of political dis-

course are given reams of coverage. On

July 15 th Mr Farage used his LBC radio

show to broadcast a chummy interview

with Stephen Bannon a former adviser to

Donald Trump and godfather to the Amer-

ican alt-right who argued that Mr Robin-

son should be released.

Mr Robinson has become a cause cé-

lèbre for far-right activists across Europe

and in America. UKIPis attempting to ride

this wave ofonline supportfor him. Earlier

this summer a gang of YouTubers sympa-

thetic to Mr Robinson publicly joined the

party. They include Paul Joseph Watson a

YouTuber with 1. 3 m subscribers and pre-

senteron the conspiracywebsite Infowars.

For a party that will lose its 18 MEPs when

Britain leaves the EU a new way to gener-

ate attention may come in useful.

The arrival of the YouTubers coincided

with about 1  000 people joining in June

according to sources in the party. But dou-

ble that number have joined so far in July

as the government’s Brexit plan has fallen

apart. Those who backed UKIP in 2015 

when it won 4 m votes in the general elec-

tion but switched to the Tories in 2017  are

returning says Mike Hookem a UKIP MEP.

People leaving the Conservatives and re-

turning to the UKIP fold may not know

quite what theyhave signed up for. 7

The radical right

Back from a

brief ’kip

Apopulist partybounces backinan

altogethernastierform

Far wrong