IN THE early summer of 2009, Nick Griffin, then leader of the fascist British National Party, was elected Member of the European Parliament. He had received 8 per cent of the vote share in the North West region, where less than 32 per cent of the electorate had turned out to cast their ballot.

A major rise the BNP’s profile immediately followed, with appearances across the mainstream media including Question Time and Channel 4 News, where he claimed, “There is no such thing as a black Welshman. You can have a black Briton; you can’t have a black Welshman. Welsh is about people who live in Wales since the end of the last ice age.”

Ten years later, the far-right Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (calling himself Tommy Robinson) is standing in the same seat.

An ex-member of the BNP himself, he founded the English Defence League and attempted to launch an English version of Germany’s anti-Muslim Pegida. He now stands at the head of a resurgent and violent far-right linked to fascists across the globe such as Generation Identity and wealthy US backers like Steve Bannon, who has openly embraced him as the British section of his international far-right project.