“THE only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is that good men do nothing.”

Once judged the most popular quotation of modern times, the origin of the quotation is not quite clear, but its roots can be traced to the dawn of modern parliamentary democracy, and thinking about recent political turmoil on both sides of the channel, it’s a phrase that I can’t seem to get out of my head.

Catalysed by a media-fuelled celebrity culture that is exulting a lifestyle forever beyond our reach and in the wake of a global recession and consequent frustration by those who feel they are being ignored, it seems the political establishment is being challenged by newcomers who offer simplistic solutions, choose expediency over principle, and look for others to blame.

The rise in racially motivated hate crime in the UK that followed the Brexit vote is now being mirrored in the USA following Trump’s election victory, with reports of immigrant children being told that they will have to go “back home”. And while our prime minister heralds the dawn of a new era of free trade (Britain, it is claimed, is set to lead the way to bringing peace and posterity to the world) her counterparts are keen to talk about lifting restrictions on those who want to come here to study and increased protection from harassment and assault for their countrymen while they are living here.

There was an unprecedented attack on our judiciary following the High Court’s ruling that there was a constitutional requirement for Article 50 to be debated in the Commons before it could be invoked. The faces of judges were printed in national newspapers under headlines shouting “Enemies of the People”, prompting one leading bishop to compare them with headlines in Nazi Germany. I feel the comparison was well made. Mrs May’s claim that “the British People voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU” is anything but true. Just over one third voted to leave; just under one third to remain; the other third didn’t vote. Mr Trump’s mandate is even thinner: just under 27 per cent of those eligible to vote, voted for Trump and just over 27 per cent for Clinton. So 43 per cent of the American electorate didn’t bother to vote at all.

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it,” Hitler’s propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels supposedly said. Another quote that I can’t seem to get out of my head at the moment.

Whether Brexit or Trump can be regarded as evil is questionable. But the legitimacy the polls have lent to racism, prejudice, simplistic solutions and downright lies becoming features of the 21st century political landscape lies firmly at the feet of the “good men and women” who simply did nothing.