The tectonic plates have moved. And that thing, that gigantic wave, that you see on the horizon is not a bad weather event, whatever the establishment may have pursuaded itself to believe. It is a historic shift. It's coming right at you. It's got momentum. And there's nothing you can do to stop it.

That's the take-home message from the European election results to politically interested people from Washington to Beijing.

UKIP's incredible victory in Britain -- against all the odds, and in the face of a mainstream smear campaign that would have shamed Goebbels -- will cheer its own supporters. It will frighten the Conservatives and Labour, and it will send shock waves across Europe.

But it's so much more significant than that.

All over the democratic world -- in what we used to call The West -- we are witnessing nothing less than a revolution. From the United States, through Britain, through Western Europe and central and eastern Europe, to the democracies from India to South Africa, the people have had enough of being patronised. They want to take power back into their own hands. The kind of "oligarchic democracy" we have become used to will no longer do.

In terms of the European elections, Europe has reverted to type. In Britain, with UKIP, the breakout from the old establishment has moved in a democratic direction. UKIP isn't perfect; it's rough round the edges; it requires, and will get, finesse. But it is fundamentally democratic: it is of the people and for the people, and it is quintessentially and classically liberal, and British, in its character.

In continental Europe, it's a different story, as those who know their history might have predicted. The breakout from the political establishment is chaotic at best and frightening at worst. Fascists and extreme nationalists have been given the opportunity to express themselves again.

And this has happened because the failed, and profoundly anti-democratic, European project has hollowed out democracies all over the continent.

Brussels and its neo-authoritarian project are not the same as the fascists and extremists, but they do explain the context in which the latter arose. There is such a thing as cause and effect.

There is also a reason why you will not read this kind of analysis in the mainstream media, even in Britain. And that is because the revolution is against them too.

Tired, weak, terminally ill and lacking in imagination, the old media mirrors the old politics. There are terms of reference even in this quick and short editorial that they simply won't understand.

So be it. All in good time.

But, as a parting shot, you either get it or you don't. And by "it" we mean a revolution that is changing everything. You need to think about the "low trust society". You need to think about the "digital revolution". You need to rip up the old assumptions. And if you can't do that, hang up your boots and take an early bath.

Just watch for the poverty of the conversation about the European elections in the British and especially European media. And if you see it and call it that way, as we do, you might have something to contribute.

The Times They Are a-Changin'. Are you changing too? If you think of yourself as being serious, it's a question you'd better be able to answer.