Fear and Loathing in 2016- Donald Trump and the UK High Court

In the last few weeks, Donald Trump has refused to say that he will accept the results of the US presidential election if he doesn't win. He has also called for his supporters to go and monitor the polls, as he is afraid that they are going to be rigged against him.

This week, the High Court in London ruled that the government could only trigger Article 50, and begin the UK's withdrawal from the European Union, if they had first got Parliament to approve the measure.

What do these seemingly unconnected events have in common? They both terrify me.

Obviously, I am terrified at the thought of a Trump presidency, and I am writing another post about that. But for him to refuse to say that he'd honour the vote is unprecedented. His claims of widespread voter fraud are already calling the result into doubt. He is undermining the entire electoral process, before a single ballot has been counted. That is scary.

The High Court ruling has also given me the shivers. Not the ruling itself. I do welcome it, but I recognise that the law around the UK's membership of the EU is horrifically complicated. Is it an international treaty obligation, or a matter of domestic law? Can it be both? That's what the poor judges had to try and untangle.

And for their troubles, they have had a tonne of vitriol poured all over them. These headlines from Friday are particularly sickening:

It's the one from the Daily Mail that gets me. 'ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE' The ruling doesn't stop Britain leaving the EU. I'm resigned that that will happen eventually. It is just evidence that the UK's relationship with the EU is complex, and unravelling it will be an absolute nightmare.

But the link between these headlines, and the ramblings of the Donald, is this.

They are calling into question the very institutions that comprise a stable, democratic state. Free and fair elections. An impartial judiciary. The peaceful transfer of power. All of these are hallmarks of a Western liberal democracy. And now there are voices saying that somehow, these hallmarks have failed. That the system is rigged, and there is an elite controlling you, the ordinary people, and trying to frustrate you your wishes.

By seeking to label these checks and balances as 'enemies of the people,' or by saying the system is rigged against people, we may be unleashing forces we cannot control.

In 1995, this type of rhetoric was common in the USA. There were widespread anti-government messages, pushed by talk radio, the internet, and some elements of the Republican party. And then in April 1995, someone decided to act. He parked a massive truck bomb outside a federal government building in Oklahoma City. It was underneath the creche. 169 people died. 19 of them were children.

The UK is not immune. I live barely a mile from where the only MP in modern times to be killed by someone other than the IRA was shot dead in the streets of her constituency, by a man with far-right connections, at the height of the EU referendum. While this case is about to go to trial, and so I don't really want to write any more, the defence team has decided not to rely on medical evidence.

But I am scared. It only takes one person to be influenced by the messages they hear, or by the signs they see.

If Donald Trump wants to question the impartiality of the election process, or the British media want to undermine the objectivity of the law, then they must be prepared to face the consequences, and be ready to be held accountable if others decide to turn their words into actions.