I see no signs of civilisation crumbling

There’s a scene in Lord of the Flies, William Golding’s masterpiece about the collapse of western civilisation, in which a particularly sadistic boy named Roger starts to throw stones at a weaker, younger lad called Henry. Yet when he tries to hurt the boy, he finds he cannot do it. ‘Roger gathered a handful of stones and began to throw them,’ writes Golding. ‘Yet there was a space round Henry, perhaps six yards in diameter, into which he dare not throw. Here, invisible yet strong, was the taboo of the old life.’

Golding attributes this six-yard forcefield to civilisation. It’s the legacy of the various authorities Roger has been conditioned to respect — parents, school, policemen, the law, etc. And as anyone who’s read the book will know, eventually this protective barrier collapses. The theme of Lord of the Flies is that the savage constrained by the rules of civilised society is never far from the surface. The rule of law and relatively low rates of violence we take for granted in countries like the UK could easily collapse, unleashing a Hobbesian dystopia, a war of all against all.

Some believe we’re witnessing the beginnings of this breakdown in British politics, particularly with the battle over Brexit intensifying, and cite the verbal assault of Anna Soubry by James Goddard as evidence. It is a commonplace among Remainers that the referendum ‘unleashed demons’ — originally David Cameron’s phrase, but taken up by many in the last couple of years, including Craig Oliver, who adapted it for the title of his book about why Remain lost.

I’ve never been convinced by this. To me, it’s always smacked of contempt for ordinary people. It’s part of a larger, anti-democratic narrative in which the electorate are too easily swayed by the emotional rhetoric of right-wing demagogues and ‘fake news’ on social media.