Britain is much closer to tyranny than you think. Consider a recent social post by Zia Yusuf, one of Reform UK’s leading figures. “Recent events demonstrate why I view the Tory and Labour politicians who created the burning injustice of modern Britain as traitors to their country,” he wrote. “A reckoning is coming.”

He didn’t define those “recent events”, or what his reckoning would entail, but historically speaking, those deemed “traitors to their country” do not fare well.

Perhaps British exceptionalism reassures you that authoritarianism could not happen here. Well, American exceptionalism once excluded the possibility of someone like Donald Trump becoming president, let alone dismantling US democracy at a speed “unprecedented in modern history”, as one recent report put it. In just over 16 months, Trump has concentrated power in the executive, hobbled the media, attacked voting rights, politicised the federal bureaucracy, weaponised the justice system against his opponents and deployed the National Guard to Democratic cities.

An authoritarian leader could go further and faster on British shores. We have no codified constitution, no first amendment-style protection of free speech, no state governments, no federal courts. Parliamentary sovereignty means that any party with a Commons majority faces precious few obstacles to its agenda. Our unelected second chamber can be neutralised with ease. Reform proposes replacing the House of Lords “with a much smaller, more democratic second chamber”, which sounds superficially appealing, except how it would be “more democratic” is........

© The Guardian