The hard right doesn’t speak for most voters. The progressive cause is not yet lost, but there is an urgent need for energy, purpose and clarity Sign up for our new weekly newsletter Matters of Opinion, where our columnists and writers will reflect on what they’ve been debating, thinking about, reading and more Labour has just one overriding task. Forget all the other missions and milestones: Britain faces a peril that was beyond imagining a short time ago. Saving the country from Nigel Farage is the urgent, patriotic duty of this government; it is vital that it prevents an extremist, racist, authoritarian takeover which would be against the will of the overwhelming majority of the population. Nothing else matters more. The Labour government has come adrift. It lacks direction and purpose. Its many welcome policies are missing any thread to make sense of them. Now a new role and function have arrived, uninvited. It’s not a political choice but an obligation when the country is under attack from a poisonous enemy. Electoral malfunction risks gifting unrepresentative power to a nativist, xenophobic, divisive, anti-democratic, utterly mendacious party which spouts contempt for knowledge, science and expertise, let alone community and compassion, and calls it “common sense”. Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...