There is no shortage of fringe groups in the UK who will leap on any issue to promote their cause.
There are Covid Anti-Vaxxers who have demonstations from time to time. One of the leaders is Piers Corbyn, the brother of former leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn. He regularly gets arrested during protests.
However, the antidote to the anti-Vax tendency in the UK is the widespread support for the NHS which sometimes takes on the form of a weird secular religion. The faith in this institution trancends the brief careers of politicians and they spend most of their time proclaiming how much they support the Saints and Angels their white coats and uniforms that do such a heroic job in the NHS fighting the Covid virus. The faith that ordinary people have in the NHS has gone a long way to addressing peoples fears about vaccines such that the level of vaccine reluctance very limited compared to other countries.
Boris Johnsons Conservative party has managed to wrestle the Brexit issue from the Nigel Farage and the anti-EU UKIP party, which seems to have vanished. The costs of Brexit to the UK economy seems to have been eclipsed by the bigger effect of the Covid lockdowns.
The anti-immigration, xeno-phobes and general bigots seem to have their anti-foreigners sentiments addressed, again by the Conservatives. This time in the form of the Home Secretary, Pritti Patel who has set such an uncompromising stance on immigration that she sounds as if she would have few qualms about deporting her own parents. Such an elastic political institution seems to have taken the wind out of the sails of the psychotic fringe.
There has been nothing like the dramatic culture wars and deeply partisan politics that have spread across the US during the Trump years.
On the Continent, it is a different story. Few can beat the French for how much they despise their politicians and they regularly take to the streets to express their anger.
The ‘vaccine passport’ seems to be the big issue. This touches a lot of raw nerves. It is an inconvenience when travelling between countries, but if it is applied internally, that is a different matter. If you need to show it to your employers or in any public place, that kind of crosses a line for a very broad section of the population. The UK politicians are tip toeing around the issue and hoping it will go away. There are an awful lot of groups that don’t want to be on the recieving end of someones anger at been denied access to a public place. Least of all the police in the UK, who are very worried about having to enforce some ill concieved law.
On the Continent, where ID cards are common and you are obliged to carry them to show the police. Add vaccination status to that existing tension between the people and the authorities and there will be protests. We will see whether they grow big and loud enough to worry the politicians.
It is not so much people being psychotic, it is the politicians who fail to understand the limits of their authority. From time to time they need to be told.
The crazies will certainly be there, high as kites and keen to storm the barricades. But they may get support from the general public who object to a vaccine passport law, at the same time as accepting that there is a public health emergency. The French are have a tendency towards hypochonria at the best of times. Quite conflicted.
So there may be trouble ahead…