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Available for over a year

This year’s general election prompted dire warnings of imminent dictatorship. It was marred by the intimidation of campaigners. And turnout was historically low. Over the summer, the far right fomented racist violence in English towns. When the authorities cracked down, some feared freedom of speech was at risk. Meanwhile, in America, both sides warn that the other threatens to bring the republic’s democracy crashing down. Democracy is a permanent gamble and such fears have always haunted it. But if panic is best avoided, so too is complacency. There remains the insidious fear that, while the forms remain, democracy can slowly wither. In this three part series, Phil Tinline sets out to trace where the red lines lie that keep our political system - and America’s - safe, by asking how we would know if they had been crossed, and democracy was on its way out. In this first episode he explores how recent events have revived two contrasting fears: that populist extremism is on the rise, and that a technocratic establishment wants to leech power away from parliament. And he examines how those concerns are shaped by the last constitutional confrontation the country faced: the crisis over prorogation, in the febrile summer and autumn of 2019. Contributors: John Bercow, Speaker of the House of Commons 2009-2019 Munira Mirza, Chief Executive of Civil Future and former Director of No 10 Policy Unit 2019-2022 Dominic Grieve, Attorney General for England and Wales from 2010 to 2014 Kim Leadbeater, MP for Spen Valley Will Tanner, former Deputy Chief of Staff at No 10 under Prime Minister Rishi Sunak Rob Ford, Professor of Political Science, University of Manchester Peter Kellner, political commentator and former President of YouGov Producer: Sarah Shebbeare