Brexit is the new low point of British democracy

As faith wanes in democracy, arguments against it have more power than arguments for the status quo. People still quote Churchill’s line about democracy being the worst system of government apart from all the others as if it settles the matter. For what it is worth, I think it is true. But as memories of the cataclysms of the 20^th century fade, it sounds exhausted.

‘Our system is better than the Nazis’ has lost its purchase. Soon we will be living in a world where no one alive can remember the Nazis in power. The law of diminishing returns applies equally to the argument that at least our system is better than communism or Western imperialism. Maybe democracy is like peace: the longer a society lives with it, the more likely it becomes to disparage it.

For all that, it is telling that strongmen still want to pose as democrats. Viktor Orban, who has so corrupted Hungary that he is a de facto dictator, says he is ‘illiberal’ but a democrat.