Britain is an anachronism as the world goes right

Some of us have vindictively long memories. I am one such person. So let me summon up just two stories from the not-so-distant past that have some bearing on our unhappy present.

In 2009 the Dutch politician Geert Wilders was barred by Jacqui Smith, the then Labour home secretary, from entering the UK. In a letter explaining her decision, Smith (or rather her Home Office lawyers) wrote that Wilders’s ‘statements about Muslims and their beliefs would threaten community harmony and therefore public safety in the UK’. Perhaps Smith was partly influenced by the possibility that if Wilders came to the Houses of Parliament and gave his speech (in which he was expected to show his film Fitna) thousands of angry Islamists might decide to take to the streets in Westminster. Something which has, of course, never happened since.

It was a minor but significant diplomatic incident, with the then Dutch ambassador turning up at Heathrow to greet Wilders – who was turned away at the border – and announcing this a serious insult to his country and to the principles of free speech.

I was slightly involved in this affair and remember how Wilders was smeared across the British press as ‘far right’ and more. But as I said at the time to Smith and some of her allies: ‘What will you do when Wilders is prime minister? Do you intend to bar prime ministers – as well as opposition leaders – of our European allies from entering the UK?’

In the years since, Smith has disappeared into podcast oblivion, a place much better suited to her talents than high office. But Wilders? He has risen and risen. At the Dutch elections last November, his Party for Freedom topped the polls, coming in with the most number of seats.