It was a hot day in July, but the headlines felt as if they could have come from any day over the last six months. While the dependably shrill TV channel GB News asked its viewers whether negotiations with France “could signal a shift towards closer ties with the EU”, Keir Starmer and his colleagues were in final talks about so-called small boats. Before he got to the diplomatic details, the BBC’s Nick Robinson boiled down the views of millions of Britons to the deathless cliche: “Why don’t we just send them back to where they’ve come from?”
Kemi Badenoch was about to make a speech about restricting non-British nationals’ access to disability and sickness benefits – another instalment, it seemed, of her toxic quest to divide people into “makers” and “takers”. Terrifyingly, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK colleagues were talking about focusing their belief in Elon Musk-style budget-cutting on children with disabilities. In the searing heat, everything felt as if it was fusing together to form the usual picture – of a stroppy little island, full of mistrust and loathing, and an angry chunk of the electorate now so huge that politicians of all parties must not just respect its collective wishes, but implement them in full.
