These arrangements ensured political stability and continuity; but as a consequence, in the three major democracies of western Europe, radical opposition was pushed not just to the fringes but out of parliament altogether. ‘The system’ seemed indeed to be run exclusively by ‘them’, as the New Left had for some time been insisting. Making a virtue of necessity, radical students declared themselves the ‘extra-parliamentary’ opposition, and politics moved into the streets instead.
