Why are Europe’s progressives often intolerant?

For Robert Fico it was a bullet, for Nigel Farage it was a milkshake. The targeting of both men demonstrates the alarming rise of intolerance spreading across Europe. Most of it is perpetrated by people whose political ideology can best be described as progressive, but they are extremists, prepared to make the leap from words to acts.

Across the West, elite society is dominated by progressives, overwhelmingly middle or upper-middle class graduates

Fico, for example, the prime minister of Slovakia, describes himself as the leader of a left-wing populist party. The man charged with shooting him last month is a 71-year-old poet and supporter of the liberal party, Progressive Slovakia. The party has denied any links with the accused, who has reportedly said he didn’t intend to kill Fico. It is alleged that the gunman didn’t approve of Fico’s plan to abolish the public broadcaster RTVS or his pro-Russia position.

The 25-year-old woman who has been charged with assaulting Farage outside a pub in Clacton had previously expressed her support for Jeremy Corbyn.