Failure to confront Britain’s political ultras has cost us dear | Nick Cohen

Labour and the Tories were both unprepared for the opportunists and nationalists who were preparing to wreck our prosperity

Taking on your own side is the hardest task in politics. We are a tribal species with inhibitions against giving comfort to supposed opponents. Partisan men and women don’t let the side down, not least because they do not want to find themselves on the receiving end of the special ignominy tribes reserve for traitors and apostates.

So deep does the desire to appear united run, social democrats pretend even now that “Labour is a family”, while all around them far leftists spit abuse. As late as February David Cameron still believed Conservatives could treat each other with “mutual respect” , while all around him an alliance of opportunists and nationalists was preparing to wreck his premiership and what prosperity we have.

Cameron is the Tory Brown. He must look on the ruins of everything he once took for granted