In the year and a half since this book was first published, the political landscape of Britain has been held hostage by the continuing fallout from the Brexit referendum of 2016. Here we are, over three years after the vote, mired in deadlock and uncertainty, and with no clear political resolution or way forward. Whilst there are a great many urgent and pressing implications of this crisis, most relevant to this book has been the sharp and sustained rise in xenophobia, nativism, and Islamophobia that we are currently witnessing.
Only a few years earlier, obituaries were being written for the far right’s
political fortunes in the UK. Electoral gains in local council and European
elections that were made by the BNP during 2009-11 had proved short-
lived, and ongoing internal conflicts compared favourably with worrying
electoral patterns which had delivered far-right candidates to government
positions on the continent. Liberal commentators then considered the
steady rise of UKIP as a moderate right-wing vehicle for the expression of
growing anti-immigration anxieties and disillusionment with mainstreal political parties.