That leaves us with the Tory muddle and its internal struggle with its own Left wing. Every time the leadership gives any recognition to the wide discontent over immigration, it has to defend itself against the charge that it has become backward-looking. The brutal, frequently touted contention, that this paradoxically narrow brand of social liberalism is the ineluctable force of the future, may or may not be correct – such things are notoriously difficult to predict. But even if it is, that is no justification for ignoring the concerns of today’s living voters, each of whose views are as important, at this moment, as those of anyone else of whatever age or social standing. Nor are their opinions inherently unworthy simply because they are not those of the majority – or of the most influential, or the most powerful. Trampling over the interests of non-conforming minorities is not democracy, it is mob rule. (Of course, when Ukip’s views do happen to be those of the majority – about the EU budget raid on the recovering British economy, for example – they are largely ignored by its critics.)