Here is where nightmare scenario of Gates Of Vienna becomes a possibility. Imagine the following and try to say it is implausible. Imagine another ten years of business-as-usual where our cultural elites fail to tackle the problem of the Islamic far-Right. The Islamic far right swells, and in response the EDL grows to ten times its current number (hardly implausible, given its prior rate of growth). Then, in response to something ghastly — another 7/7 for example — the EDL marches on number 10, reinforced by Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist and other allies. What, exactly, is the next step but civil war?

As unlovely as the EDL's membership may be, it is a collection of Sunday school picnickers compared with some of the forces on the continent. In the outrage over his atrocity, far too little attention has been paid to the amount of evil intelligence in Breivik's action. Through careful planning, he was able to carry out an attack that was, on a per-capita basis, as lethal as 9/11. Moreover, it was not targeted against a Mosque or an immigrant centre, but against the most vulnerable portion of Norway's ruling class: their children.

I have written before about the nature of the European New Right, and got some mockery for describing Guillaume Faye as the most dangerous man in Europe. Well, his first star pupil proves my point. Breivik is no bed sheeted Klansman or white-supremacist loser intermittently holding down a series of minimum wage jobs. He is the first of a new breed of European fascist: highly intelligent, highly competent, and highly dangerous.

I began this essay with an allusion to the moral default of the Cold War, but the real parallel may be far worse. Following the First World War, Ludwig von Mises noted that the Communists' willingness to embrace any length of violence had the effect of relieving the right wing militarists' restraint on using the same tactics, and thus fascism was born into the world. In Germany Rosa Luxemburg, having just helped deliver Russia into tyranny, attempted to repeat the trick in Germany. In response, the social democratic government unleashed the Freikorps, and you may remember how well that worked out.