When the fringe stops being funny

Some political movements could comfortably hold their annual conference in a moderately sized lift. For years, that was roughly the scale of the operation run by Norman Lowell and his assorted ideological hobbyists.

Malta has always had its share of fringe eccentrics: men (and they are almost always men) who mistake a Facebook page for a political movement. Normally, they are best treated like the drunk uncle at a wedding – smile politely, move the cutlery out of reach, and hope they eventually fade into the sunset like Bob Dylan’s character in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, though without any artistic or other merit.

For years, that worked well enough. Lowell and his assorted ideological hobbyists were a political curiosity, an awkward sideshow, like a carnival float that had accidentally driven into a European election campaign and refused to leave. Too often, they were given oxygen by the less discerning, for whom transient amusement eclipsed the harm even such a rudimentary rump of proto-fascism could cause.

But the world has changed, and not for the better. Across Europe, the extreme right – an ecosystem built on grievance, paranoia and the conviction that every societal problem can be blamed on somebody else, preferably with a different skin colour – has been steadily crawling out from under a foetid rock and into mainstream politics.

The snappy black uniforms have been replaced with cheap suits and media consultants, but the ugliness underneath has not changed one bit.

Which brings us neatly to the latest rearrangement of the deckchairs in the tiny but noisome corner of Maltese politics occupied by Imperium Europa.

For years, the (bowel) movement revolved around Lowell’s volcanic personality – artist, banker, provocateur and full-time professional nuisance. He has now slunk off into oblivion, for all I know, still spluttering. In his place, there is a new leader of the flatulent: one Eman Cross.

This is a man who has achieved the rare political distinction of being expelled from the organisation and later elevated to its leadership. Revolving doors have nothing on him.

Expelled, no less, for “bad character and aggressive behaviour.”

One imagines the disciplinary meeting: Lowell staring across the table with solemn disappointment, declaring, with the gravitas of a Victorian headmaster, that standards must be maintained.

Being thrown out of a far-right party for excessive aggression is rather like being fired from a circus for too much clowning. It takes commitment.

Cross’s political résumé, if one can stretch the term that far, appears to consist largely of court appearances, probation breaches and assorted encounters with the criminal justice system. It is not the traditional route to leadership, but Imperium Europa has never been overly troubled by standards, traditional or otherwise.

Ordinarily, none of this would matter very much. For years, the movement has been little more than a microscopic political hobby sustained by a few thousand protest votes and the occasional YouTube rant recorded in someone’s spare bedroom.

The trouble is that what begins as the unhinged shouting of fringe ideologues often evolves into something more polished.
The jackboots vanish. 
The slogans soften.
 Someone discovers the concept of a communications strategy. And before long, the same resentments are being repackaged in language that sounds almost reasonable.

Europe has seen this transformation often enough to recognise the pattern.

For years, Nigel Farage performed his routine with a pint in one hand and a smirk on his face, presenting himself as a harmless pub philosopher railing against the establishment. The British political class treated him as comic relief, an amusing irritant whose speeches could safely be filed somewhere between satire and background noise. Until the joke stopped being funny.

That was roughly the moment he persuaded the electorate to take aim and fire – at their own foot. I refer, of course, to Brexit.

And now the act has simply been refined: less shouting, better tailoring, more television appearances. The resentment remains exactly the same, and, heaven help them, and us, Farage continues popping up like a particularly stubborn bad smell, occasionally making even Kemi Badenoch seem reasonable.

This is how extremist politics grows, not through sudden revolutions but through gradual normalisation. The rhetoric softens, the delivery improves, and the audience grows steadily larger.

We like to imagine ourselves immune to this phenomenon. We are too small, too Mediterranean, too fond of gossip and pastizzi to succumb to ideological lunacy imported from abroad.

That is comforting.

It is also nonsense.

Every society produces its own crop of demagogues, conspiracy peddlers and professional grievance merchants. Most remain where they belong, ranting on the margins while the rest of society gets on with life. But every now and then, the margins begin creeping inward.

Which is why the Imperium Europa phenomenon, ridiculous though it often appears, should not simply be dismissed as comic relief. Today, it may resemble a badly organised tribute act to European fascism performed for a few thousand disgruntled voters and a comment section full of anonymous egg avatars.

Tomorrow, someone will iron the blazer, polish the message and copy the Farage playbook.

At first, it will still look ridiculous. Then it will start to look respectable. And by the time people realise what they are dealing with, the spluttering will no longer be funny.

What remains will be the politics behind it. And by then, the margins will no longer be where the danger lives