One aspect of the recent “victory” of the Faragist non-entity in the recent Lincolnshire mayoral election is not being emphasised enough: the turnout was pathetically low, less than 30 per cent.
Admittedly this is partly chickens coming home to roost for the Tories losers, who have sowed cynicism about devolution for years when it was applied to other areas before suddenly somehow deciding to apply it to Lincolnshire.
But surely it’s the case that if a few of the seven in ten adults who did not exercise their democratic right had done so, the contempt in which Farage and his charlatans are justly and widely held across the county would have been registered and Farage would have had to add this campaign to his long list of electoral failures.
Lincolnshire is not uniquely afflicted in this way.
In the US, Farage’s hero is currently demonstrating what chaos their shared brand of shallow white nationalism truly yields in power; but Trump is not in that position because he won over any significant new section of support.
What happened in November 2024, as in November 2016, was that the turnout was relatively low.
If an election with any reasonable level of democratic participation takes place, as happened in November 2020, the white nationalist loses, clearly, legally and massively, and has to resort to terrorist insurrection, Supreme Court mendacity and association with dodgy figures like Farage, Truss, Musk and Putin to prolong his career.
On the occasion of VE day, it is worth remembering the real lesson of the history we are not learning.
Germany 1933, US 2016, US 2024, Lincolnshire 2025, the lesson is the same: fascism’s greatest ally is apathy about democracy.
G Kent
Mountbatten Avenue
Pinchbeck
