The elite are selling a lie and the people know it now

It is a supreme irony that the nations we once celebrated as the cradles of liberal democracy—the United Kingdom, the “mother of parliaments”—are now the very places where we see the most alarming creep of totalitarianism. We were raised to believe that the West was the home of liberty, yet today, we are witnessing a war from the top against the bottom.

This is not the totalitarianism of the 20th century, with its marching boots and overt dictators. It is something more insidious. It is a system where the ruling class, knowing that their policies—from Net Zero to mass migration—are fundamentally opposed to the interests of their own people, must enforce their will through ever-stricter control. They know that what they are selling is a lie, and because the public knows it too, the only option left is to silence the dissent.

We see this most clearly in the radicalisation of the youth. The establishment wrings its hands over why young people in Europe are turning to “extreme” parties or demanding mass deportations. But the explanation is simple.

Imagine you go to a doctor with a minor condition. He dismisses it, tells you not to worry. You go back a year later, the condition has worsened, but he still offers you nothing but an aspirin. By the time he finally admits there is a problem, the disease has metastasized. Now, an aspirin won’t work; you need chemotherapy or radiation.

This is the state of our politics. For decades, legitimate concerns about social cohesion, identity, and economic decline were dismissed or demonised. Now, the condition is critical. The solutions proposed by the younger generation are becoming more radical precisely because the establishment refused to treat the patient when the cure was simple.

On the global stage, this internal rot has left Europe defenceless. In the great game of geopolitics, you are either a player or a piece on the board. Right now, Europe is unequivocally a piece on the board.

While China and Russia have been “working out” for decades—building their industrial base and military capacity—and the United States is beginning to stretch its muscles again under Donald Trump, Europe is still sitting on the couch eating burgers, deluding itself that it can compete in a global triathlon.

We see this delusion in our foreign policy. Leaders like Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron pledge “unwavering support” to Ukraine while dismantling the very heavy industry required to sustain a war effort. You cannot deindustrialise your economy to satisfy the “madness of Net Zero” and simultaneously expect to fight a war of attrition against great powers. It is not just bad policy; it is insanity.

However, there is a glimmer of hope, and it comes from an unexpected direction. For years, the US State Department supported “colour revolutions” abroad, ostensibly to promote democracy but often to install regimes compliant with the “liberal international order”.

Now, we are seeing signs that a Trump administration might flip the script. There is talk of a new national security strategy that explicitly supports “patriotic” movements in Europe—those who refuse to accept “civilisational erasure.” Just as Obama once congratulated NGOs for their work in Poland and Hungary, Trump may well support the very forces the European establishment has tried to cordon off.

This would not be “meddling” any more than what has come before; it would simply be a great power pursuing its interests. And it is in America’s interest to have strong, self-confident allies, not decaying vassal states managed by unpopular bureaucrats.

The most encouraging sign of all, however, is the fear we now see in the eyes of our elites. When you see European politicians rushing to censor social media, when you see them floating “democracy shields” that are really just shields for their own power, do not mistake this for strength. It is weakness.

They are like a cornered animal. They know their grip is slipping. They know that leaders with 15 per cent approval ratings cannot ask their citizens to die for them in the Donbas. They know that the cordon sanitaire they built around populist parties is failing.

The battle is not won. The totalitarian creep will likely get worse before it gets better, as the system lashes out to protect itself. But the very fact that they are panicking tells us that the autopilot of inevitable decline has been disengaged. Change is finally afoot.