Never underestimate just how bad things can become, at just the wrong time. We have seen a perfect storm with the Labour leadership election, just as we saw one with the aftermath of the Scottish independence vote. Now we may see a third with the European Union referendum.

This year, the Jeremy Corbyn campaign has enjoyed a perfect storm of lax membership rules, the bewildered hurt and confusion and longstanding party members, and leadership opponents of whom most tried to play it safe and ‘one-step’ to Corbyn’s left.

Last year, the Scottish National party benefitted from the combination of a cutting Tory government and a Labour party at both Scottish and UK level which had done little real thinking about what devolution should mean about how it ought to change, and how it might use devolution to improve the lives of Scots. When the Scottish referendum was announced, few thought it would end in the near-total demolition of the old order; most thought it a mere formality to be gone through before the usual ways of life would resume.

But now, just as the SNP’s 2007 minority victory and stunning 2011 result should have been heeded as canaries in the mine of danger deeper down the pit, so too should be heeded the nearly four million people who voted for the United Kingdom Independence party this year. They may not have all been voting against the EU, but they were all voting Ukip because they were feeling pretty mad about things.

The elements for another perfect storm are amassing once more, and should be heeded.

What are these elements?

First, immigration is now the public’s top concern. And voters know that some of the UK’s powers in this domain now reside elsewhere. They do not like this fact.

Public opinion is changing on the question of taking Syrians in, but images of refugees crossing Europe and their arrival and settlement in western Europe could be transformative and upend the political order once again.

Meanwhile, new population growth projection figures forecast the UK will number 85 million in size by 2047. ‘There’s no room’ is already a familiar slogan, imbued with extra potency in a time of austerity.

Much of the country is feeling very unhappy. Much of the country will be looking about for somebody to blame.

With the Tories just re-elected, however unenthusiastically, and a Labour party too enfeebled to even bother blaming, the chance to stick one in the eye of ‘Brussels’ could be a much more enticing prospect than many have yet guessed. Do not underestimate the feeling of power that comes with the command, ‘Raise the drawbridge!’

In this context, this week’s decision that the ‘out’ option on the referendum ballot paper use ‘leave’ rather than ‘No’ may be a blessing in disguise. How refreshing, how deeply, viscerally powerful it can feel, to cry ‘No!’ to the big and powerful. In a time when people are feeling more powerless than ever, who would not want to seize their chance to feel mighty? How much less invigorating, perhaps even lonely-sounding, the mundane ‘leave’ is.

It is well known that referendums generally fall for the status quo. I had long been confident that Britons would vote to remain in the European Union. This is still the likeliest outcome. But as the ranks of former Scottish Labour parliamentarians – elected on a swing towards Scottish Labour in 2010 – now know, one week might be a long time in politics but one year can, in no time at all, turn the world on its head.

In times of uncertainty, people do not open their arms outward, they curl inward. We are living through the most unstable and worrying period of international stress I have known in my adult lifetime. With the EU referendum we should ready ourselves for another perfect storm hovering just over the horizon, one which might smash the UK adrift from the rest of Europe.

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Adam Harrison is deputy editor of Progress. He tweets @adamdkharrison

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Photo: Dave Kellam