Well.
This was the fiction, but practically they became an unignorable political force, in no small part to the vast amounts of column inches and TV time that was suddenly given to that pack of fruit cakes.
If fraction of the effort devoted to accommodating or attempting outmanoeuvre them had been devoted to debunking their b******* we would all be in a better place...

IMHO, anyways.

Instead we normalised the spouting of ridiculous jingoistic slogans as a substitute for debate, and frankly, the belief in magical solutions to complex problems.

And it seems clear that that mode of thinking has become extremely sticky in in many areas of the chattering classes / decision makers.