On both social and traditional media it’s easy to find commentary claiming that Nigel Farage’s extreme deportations policy and the recent series of anti-migrant protests represent the will of the British people.

The lessons of the past two decades across Europe are clear. Social democratic parties that shift rightwards to head off a threat from the radical or far right end up losing. If Labour continues to try and occupy Reform’s space with ever more right-wing rhetoric on immigration and asylum seekers, this will only serve to legitimise Reform’s politics, increase their salience and ultimately boost its electoral success.

 None of this is to downplay the very real danger currently posed by the far right. It is growing in both number and strength. We saw the horrifying power of the politics of hatred last year when Britain erupted in the most widespread period of far-right violence of the whole postwar period. Street protests are growing in number and Reform, a populist radical right party, is topping the latest polls.

 However, it is possible to sound the alarm about its threat without simultaneously framing the far right as the voice of a “silent majority”. They are not, and doing so will only accelerate its rise.