Our columnist is dreaming of Deutschland

Swift became very excited by Germany recently. Not by its mountains, its forests, not even its excellent and hearty sausage-based cuisine. No, it was when he saw the news that the German government had banned an outfit called The Kingdom of Germany. Swift’s immediate hope - a moment of almost visionary splendour - was this organisation might be the first step in a revival of the German monarchy headed by whichever obscure nobleman is the Hohenzollern claimant to the throne. An outcome desired, of course, by all right-thinking people.

Sadly not so. The Kingdom of Germany is just another one of these weird outfits which proclaims itself independent, issues stamps, and tries to avoid paying taxes, and its leader is not a Hohenzollern, nor a Habsburg, just a fraudster with dubious views.

But this ban reminded Swift that the highly popular German party, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), was recently declared by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution -a somewhat Orwellian title - to be an extremist group, because its anti-immigrant posture violates the German constitution and its respect for human dignity. This is the first step to an outright ban on its existence (although the bar is high and ironically the party could appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, Gawd  help us).

Now Swift’s more charitable readers might observe that the somewhat tangled political history of Germany could lead us to give the federal government a break here. As saloon bar bores never tire of pointing out, a certain 1930s German political party secured power through the Weimar democratic process, not via a revolution or coup. But this is to misapply the lessons of history. Banning political parties is a rotten idea, whether they are popular or not. Ban nasty brown uniforms (as Weimar briefly did) - good idea. Prosecute their members for violence, whether threatened or real, - absolutely fine.  But shutting a whole party down just isn’t. The Germans do seem to recognise this in the AfD case, but that leaves them in the absurd position of banning only parties which aren’t actually popular.

Now why should we be concerned about events in a far-away country of which we know little? Well, the answer lies in what this reveals about élite attitudes to the rise of populist parties. In the bad old days when we were part of the EU we used to see referendums held more than once until the right result was achieved - thereby fulfilling Brecht’s snarky prophecy that it would it be simpler in future ‘if the government simply dissolved the people and elected another.’

Now we have one of France’s most popular political leaders disqualified from standing for the Presidency (yes, probably bang to rights on fiddling the books, but so are most French politicians), and the result of an election overturned in Romania because the wrong sort of chap won. Ironically it looks quite possible that another wrong sort of chap will now win the re-run, making the whole thing a pointless exercise in undermining sovereignty and the democratic process. Just what the EU is good at.

This sort of chicanery couldn’t happen here could it? Never say never when it comes to our own liberal blob,  but very unlikely. But what would be absolutely plausible is that if Reform continues on its present successful course, there will be pressure in a hung Parliament for the legacy parties - as we might call them - to come together simply to keep Farage away from power. Swift’s readers can think of the likely permutations: indeed such speculation has already begun. There has even been a fancy that Labour and the Conservatives might end up in a Grand Coalition - like Germany again - just to stave off the consequences of a Turquoise Tsunami.

This is an idea so bad it wouldn’t even make a Guardian op ed. It’s laughable and dangerous. If Reform were to be the largest party by number of MPs (Swift has his doubts but evs) the King should call in Nigel for a beer and give him a go. Farage is a great campaigner but reasonably certain to be rubbish at governing. At all costs don’t make it look like a uniparty stitch up. That won’t play at all well in the Red, sorry Blue, sorry Red again Wall, will it?

So no dirty deals and certainly no bans. After all, if messing up the British economy and society were to be the trigger for something similarly Germanic and prohibitive over here, we wouldn’t have any political parties left at all, and Popular Conservatism would have to take over the running of the country.

Come to think of it…