The Completion

On Sunday, a party Germany’s domestic intelligence service has classified as a confirmed right-wing extremist movement took 43.8 per cent of the vote in a state election. Its nearest rival, the sitting Chancellor’s own party, collapsed to 17.2 per cent, the worst regional result in that party’s history. Turnout hit 77 per cent, a record. For the first time since the fall of the Third Reich, a far-right party in Germany stands within reach of governing a state outright.

If your instinct is to read that as a German story, stop. It is not.

It is the most visible piece of a machine under construction for almost twenty years, tested first where the world was not watching, rehearsed on Britain and America as a dry run for the main event, and now, in Germany, complete. Not a new phenomenon. A finished one. And it is not finished only in Germany. Italy has it already. Britain and France are next in line. This piece traces the whole system, then ends with a warning about what that system means for the vote most of you are about to be told, confidently, is already decided.

Where the machine was built

Start in 2007. In Nigeria, a company called SCL Elections, working for the incumbent president, organised rallies specifically designed to discourage opposition supporters from turning out to vote. By 2015, the same network, by then operating as…