In our poisoned politics, the Conservative leadership race is a reminder of how social norms can wear away in a democracyNigel Farage has an echo. A rather tinny one, admittedly, but it’s uncanny all the same. Whatever he says, somewhere from the cavernous depths of Robert Jenrick’s ambition those words come floating back.Farage spends his summer campaigning for Donald Trump to be president? Back in August, Jenrick said he too would vote for the man whose own former chief of staff calls him a fascist. Farage endlessly portrays migrants as violent and dangerous, threatening to leave the ECHR because apparently Britain is being “walked all over by foreign criminals”? Jenrick too complains to the Daily Telegraph of what he calls “an institutional cover-up about the costs of mass migration” (by which he means ministers won’t keep a public record of crimes committed and benefits claimed specifically by migrants) while saying that leaving the ECHR would help “remove dangerous foreign criminals like rapists, murderers and paedophiles”.Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnistDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our