Britain must take on Farage or risk irreversible change

Our political leaders, elected to provide wise counsel, are instead running around like headless chickens

Ukip leader Nigel Farage
(Image credit: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

Nigel Farage’s Ukip won the European elections big. However much hostile pundits rake over the details of the minority of the minority of voters who supported the party at a poll ignored by most Britons, that is the bedrock of the current political reality.

Nonetheless, now is the right time for those concerned by what Ukip represents to take on Faragism: we are sleep-walking into becoming a xenophobic nation, seeing dangers where none exists, sucked into a paranoia about foreigners, the European Union, migration – a paranoia that threatens an irrational and potentially irreversible change in Britain’s character.

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Robert Chesshyre writes regularly on police culture and is a former US correspondent of The Observer. His books include ‘The Force: Inside the Police’ and 'When the Iron Lady Ruled Britain''.