In some parts of the Arab world, the word “secular” is a personal slur often used to discredit a person’s political positions and loyalties. The implication is that those who are secular in outlook are atheist, communist anti-religionists whose agenda is to undermine Islam and transform their countries into brothels of western debauchery. Growing up, I didn’t even know that it had a non-derogatory meaning relating to the separation of church or mosque from the state.

“Secular” is often interchangeable in such contexts with the word “liberal”: a generally louche, wealthy, unrooted member of a dissolute elite, who plots against tradition, religion and the wholesome wishes of the salt-of-the-earth “ordinary people”. The majority of those doing the name-calling, mostly members of an obsequious media or ambitious political class, tend to be rather liberal and secular themselves, at least in lifestyle, but understand that, to undermine opponents and ingratiate themselves both with the public and authority, the “people” have to be invoked as a mass of grounded virtue, at odds with a distant privileged class.

It all sounds chillingly familiar, doesn’t it? Brexit has given us a similar lexicon of popular discourse that would not be out of place in an Arab dictatorship: “saboteurs”, “traitors”, “the will of the people”. But the most terrifying is the recent contamination of the word “elite” and its deployment to shut down criticism of the government or the Brexit process.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Stormzy … ‘that famous elitist musician’. Photograph: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images

It is a mutation of language that last week brought us the surreal sight of Jacob Rees-Mogg, a man so posh that he dons a top hat and tails unironically, calling John Major a member of the “European elite” for criticising Brexit. It has now also claimed Stormzy, that famous elitist musician who hails from the leafy comforts of a south London council flat, a man apparently not grateful enough to the country because he has a thing or two to say about how Grenfell survivors have been treated. A council kid speaking up for other council kids who died or lost their homes in a fire is now somehow co-opted by the “chattering class”. To be “elite” has become denuded of all meaning. The bar seems to be that you have an opinion loosely at odds with the Brexit establishment and are not homeless.

There have been many stomach-turning moments since the referendum that signalled something truly awful was happening: when judges became enemies of the people, when MPs became saboteurs, when citizens of everywhere became citizens of nowhere. Now, dissenting voices are vilified for challenging authority, as it is the sublimated will of the people. It is nothing short of the dismantling of a democratic culture.

Brexit is now the windmill in Animal Farm. Everything must be dedicated to its erection and if in the end it does not materialise in the exact way that disparate people wanted, but never planned for in the first place, it will be someone else’s fault.

In the meantime the project must not be questioned. Whatever your political views, the sight of Stormzy challenging Theresa May on Grenfell, or Gina Miller taking the state to court, should be a testament to the robustness of the country’s political culture. But instead all some see is a transgression. Everyone must know their place.

Q&A What is a customs union? Show Hide A customs union means that countries agree to apply no or very low tariffs to goods sold between them, and to collectively apply the same tariffs to imported goods from the rest of the world. International trade deals are then negotiated by the bloc as a whole. For the EU, this means deals are negotiated by by Brussels, although individual member state governments agree the mandate and approve the final deal. The EU has trade deals covering 69 countries, including Canada and South Korea, which the UK has been attempting to roll over into post-Brexit bilateral agreements. Proponents of an independent UK trade policy outside the EU customs union say Britain must forge its own deals if it is to take advantage of the world’s fastest-growing economies. However they have never explained why Germany manages to export more than three times the value in goods to China than Britain does, while also being in the EU customs union. Jennifer Rankin

The moment you have one big mass of political energy, loosely affiliated with any derivative of the “ordinary” man or woman, and nationalism or religion, combined with an inchoate purpose such as Brexit, you’re in trouble. It’s a treasure chest of political capital, because who dares question the real people? Who doubts their grounded authentic pain or scoffs at their desires? The elites. That’s who. It’s the easiest, cheapest applause in the gallery.

Never mind that the defining characteristic of elites is that they are those who are most insulated from the effects of political and economic volatility. If another Grenfell burns down, Stormzy isn’t likely to be in it. If the Brexit-related inflation that has already added almost 5% to the British shopping basket continues to rise, it won’t be John Major or Gina Miller who will have to scrape around to make ends meet. If they are indeed traitors, it is to the elite tradition, which is to enthusiastically ride the tide of popular opinion to your next media job or political position without ever looking in the rear-view mirror, because whatever is coming, it won’t affect you.

A secret plot to stop Brexit, or an antisemitic dog whistle? | Rafael Behr Read more

The degradation of Britain’s political culture is not unique. There are many parallels around the world and in history. A particularly stark example is in Pakistan, where the ultra-elite and very liberal Imran Khan, hardly an ambassador for religious piety, refuses to condemn the Taliban, and frequently postures and panders to his base’s religious sensibilities. In 1995, the Italian philosopher Umberto Eco wrote in his famous essay Ur-Fascism about a political culture in which “individuals as individuals have no rights, and the People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter.”

Those sneered at as elites, secularists, liberals, Soros globalists: they are one and the same. They are those who practise their individual rights in a democracy in the face of being usurped by the fascism of common will. They should be encouraged and applauded whether one agrees with them or not. And those doing the name-calling should be reminded that they haven’t come up with anything new or original. They are merely participating in a shameful, age-old tradition of taking the common man’s name in vain.

• Nesrine Malik writes a fortnightly column for the Guardian