The political centre is disappearing and grave danger lies ahead, says JOHN GRAY 

No one knows how Brexit will end. The hopes of more than 17 million people who voted for it have been sucked into the black hole that is now 10 Downing Street. 

With Theresa May’s deal rejected by the House of Commons three times over, she is living from day to day. Ongoing negotiations with the Labour leadership have no clear direction. Brexit is in limbo.

At the same time British politics is in a ferment unlike any this country has known for generations. In a paradoxical twist, the thwarting of Brexit is transforming the British political system into something more like that of continental Europe. 

An orderly departure from the EU could have inoculated Britain against the forces that are fuelling the march of populism in so many European countries. But any such benign outcome seems increasingly unlikely. The bungled Brexit our political classes have given us is taking Britain into uncharted territory.

As a Mail on Sunday poll reveals today, 40 per cent of Conservative councillors intend to vote for Nigel Farage’s new Brexit Party if Britain takes part in the European elections on May 23 – as it must if it is still in the EU. 

Ukip has surged before in European elections – in 2014, it emerged the strongest party with more than 27 per cent of the votes. But never before has the Conservative Party been in such a parlous state as at present.

Polls ahead of local elections in England and Northern Ireland on May 2 suggest it will suffer heavy losses despite struggling to steer its campaign away from Theresa May and her handling of Brexit. 

There is another risk. A Corbyn government will have learnt from the dubious stratagems pursued by May’s enemies in the Commons that parliamentary procedure is no longer sacrosanct [File photo]

If there is any overall winner from the meltdown in British politics, it will be Jeremy Corbyn – leader of what has become by any normal standards an extremist party.

As a historian of political ideas and movements, I have studied the rise and fall of parties and ideologies in Britain and Europe. 

Today we are witnessing a meltdown in British politics with no historical precedent. Both main parties are shedding their traditional supporters at an astonishing rate.

According to a ComRes poll published last week, not much more than half (53 per cent) of 2017 Conservative voters intend to vote Conservative at the next General Election. 

Even more ominous for the two main parties, a separate YouGov poll last week showed that if Conservatives campaigned on May’s deal and Labour for a customs union, Farage’s Brexit Party would have a ten per cent lead over both of them.

As we all know, polls can be misleading. Voters are extremely fickle at the present time. But there can be little doubt that they are rejecting the old political class.

The Conservatives are being punished for not delivering Brexit, and Labour for turning its back on working-class Leave voters and toying with a second referendum. 

Ukip – today a hard, far-right organisation that has more in common with European neo-fascist parties than anything in the British political tradition – has slipped down in the polls. Ukip leader Gerard Batten is pictured at a press conference earlier this week [File photo]

Many – mostly but not entirely Leavers – say they will never vote again. But it is not just voters who are fleeing the established parties. Especially among Tories, once-loyal foot-soldiers in the constituencies are deserting the party. 

Activists who tramp the streets pushing fliers through doors are decamping – chiefly to Farage. A General Election could find the Conservatives without much of a constituency infrastructure left.

The clear risk is that people will turn to extremes to vent their anger and disgust against those who pretend to govern them. 

Ukip – today a hard, far-right organisation that has more in common with European neo-fascist parties than anything in the British political tradition – has slipped down in the polls. But it is significant that, at five per cent in the ComRes poll, it was only two per cent lower than the Liberal Democrats.

What used to be called the centre ground of British politics is shrinking and disappearing. Change UK – the new centre party formed by Chuka Umunna and other defectors from Labour and the Tories – polled nine per cent.

Yet it is far from clear that a party aiming to reverse Brexit has much of a future. For all its name, the party is committed to returning to the past – the status quo against which millions protested when they voted Leave. 

How did Britain get into this mess? One reason is that politics has become another middle class career.

The Mail on Sunday poll shows that the number of Conservative defectors to Farage’s new party would be almost halved if Boris Johnson became Prime Minister. Until now the prospect has been widely discounted on the ground that Johnson is despised by many Tory MPs [File photo]

In 1945, when the great reforming government of Clement Attlee came to power, around a third of Labour MPs came from working class families. Today only around four per cent of MPs come from this background. 

But it is not just the working classes that are excluded. Many of our elites live in a few inner London boroughs, sending their children to the same schools and mixing almost exclusively with each other.

The ‘Notting Hill set’ – the network of advisers and influencers who surrounded David Cameron – are only one example of a pattern that runs right through British politics. Most of those who govern us have only a sketchy idea of how most people in the country live.

Places like Stoke-on-Trent and Sunderland might as well be in a far-off country. That is why the referendum result was such a shock to these introverted elites. The next stage of the Brexit drama will be an even greater shock.

Many are assuming that Brexit has stalled permanently. But the present limbo cannot last. Politics – in both Britain and Europe – is rapidly morphing into new and dangerous shapes.

The EU high command in Brussels is fearful that, following the May elections, a group of far-right parties from France, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Poland and other countries will become the pivotal force in the European Parliament. An expanded contingent of trouble-making Ukip MEPs would aggravate this unwelcome shift.

A Conservative party led by an out-and-out Brexiteer would be even more unwelcome. The Mail on Sunday poll shows that the number of Conservative defectors to Farage’s new party would be almost halved if Boris Johnson became Prime Minister.

Until now the prospect has been widely discounted on the ground that Johnson is despised by many Tory MPs. But this situation could change if the fear for their seats they feel now turns to blind panic after the local and European elections.

Faced with a risk of wipe-out, the Conservatives could stake everything on a ruthless opportunist hardly any of them trust.

If this scenario looks like materialising, Brexit will take a new and hazardous turn. The EU high command will realise that any agreement made with Theresa May can be abruptly torn up.

Ukip has surged before in European elections – in 2014, it emerged the strongest party with more than 27 per cent of the votes. But never before has the Conservative Party been in such a parlous state as at present [File photo]

More European leaders may follow President Macron of France in thinking the EU will be better off without Britain. 

A No Deal exit – which MPs imagined they had banished by voting against it in the Commons – could then loom up again when the Article 50 extension ends on October 31.

At the same time British politics will become more treacherous. The party Corbyn leads is unlike any Labour party before it.

Under Clement Attlee it nationalised sections of British industry and raised taxes substantially in order to fund the welfare state. It did not aim to take Britain out of its historic alliances, nor did it tolerate anti-Semitic racism in its ranks.

There is another risk. A Corbyn government will have learnt from the dubious stratagems pursued by May’s enemies in the Commons that parliamentary procedure is no longer sacrosanct.

By resisting Brexit rather than delivering it intelligently, our political classes have opened the way to a dangerous future.