The aftershocks of last week’s elections continue to rumble. The Prime Minister is fighting for his political life, while the United Kingdom now has separatist parties governing three of its four constituent nations.

In local government, the challenge posed by the result is no less sizeable – in particular, the views of some of those new councillors are deeply troubling.

On both sides of the spectrum, and across the country, people celebrated victory on Friday who have a disturbing track record of what many will deem to be extremist and racist views.

The sewer of hateful positions runs deep and wide. From Glenn Gibbins, elected for Reform in Sunderland last week, who previously posted that Nigerians should be melted down to “fill in the pot holes”, to Saiqa Ali, elected in Lambeth on Thursday for the Green Party, who in 2024 posted antisemitic imagery showing the Earth being crushed by a Star of David-emblazoned serpent.

These are just two examples. There are plenty more where those came from. They show that of late our cordon sanitaire locking such people out of elected office has broken down.

We’ve never had a ban on particular views on the ballot. Nor should we; a democracy lives or dies on its capacity to debate and test ideas of all sorts.

Instead, we as a society have chosen to reject such poison for many years. Most bluntly........

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