I have made no secret of my desire for what some call a progressive alliance. In the face of the UK's absurd voting system it makes obvious sense for parties broadly in agreement with each other to cooperate. After all, the whole of politics is about coalition building.
The Greens and SNP have said yes
The LibDems have said no, rather worryingly implying they cannot see common ground with Labour, implying in the process that they have learned nothing from the drubbing they were given for aligning with the Tories.
And Labour have said no because they seem to exist in a pre-2010 time warp.
I am disappointed. Egos are being promoted over policy and the offering of real electoral choice. J suspect that across the country millions will share that sentiment.
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Indeed -the lack of an alliance is a great shame. I think Howard Reed made a good point that even if the Tories get 40% of the vote, this would still indicate that an alliance could hold them to some extent, though I suspect voter apathy could significantly dent the hopes of an alliance holding back the Tory tide.
But I agree, some sort of an alliance focusing on winnable seats and not wasting energy on the safe Tory seats would make sense.
Im personally not impressed with Farron, he seems to not have the nous/intellect to make a good assessment of the situation and Corbyn has been simply foolish, signifying a retreat into la la land that there might be a hidden groundswell -that is doubtful.
In my view we’ve had a one party state for many years from the economic ideology angle now that one party state will become explicit. The question now is: will an emboldened Tory Party do their worst bu carrying on with a projected 12 billion a year of welfare cuts that threaten people with mental health issues/disabilities and go for out and out destruction of social housing which they have put on the back-burner? I estimate thet the ‘I’m-Alright-Jackists’ of this country could be around 30-35% of the electorate, enough to keep the Tories in as they preside over a welfare-state being stripped to the bone and the socila marginalisation of the non property owning class who are not financilised.
Not sure which way this will go but it doesn’t augur well. Some months ago, I was in my doctors surgery looking at the County Council ‘plans’ for socila care; it was a glossy brochure, that, on opening, revealed itself to be nothing more than a catalogue of private companies getting free(?) ads for their services with pictures showing the elderly in pleasant leafy surroundings -it horrified me as someone with an 85 year old mother.
“But I agree, some sort of an alliance focusing on winnable seats and not wasting energy on the safe Tory seats would make sense.”
What Corbyn could have said – but did not – is the following:
“Labour has much in common both in tersm of policy & outlook with other parties, because of the timing of this election there is no time to formally discuss with other parties electroal alliances, thus I call on all CLPs to use their judgement in terms of cooperating or not, with other parties to produce a result that represents the intersts of the widest number of voters, rather than a narrow clique”
Of course there is nothing to stop CLPs working with other parties, with or without Corbyn’s approval – they would be mad not to – if the desired result is other than a tory dictatorship centred on the south east.
I think that CLPs would not be allowed to come to any kind of electoral agreement with other parties and if they did refuse to put up a candidate this would be done over their heads
This might just be posturing, to prevent the drubbing that would inevitably follow (“Saboteurs!”) if the parties other than Conservatives/UKIP formally announced an intention to cooperate to minimise the ill effects of last year’s referendum. I suspect the narrative would change quickly if, following the election, calculus was such that a progressive alliance might be able to form a government.
I suspect, though, than any such hopes are slim. One indicator would be if parties (particularly Labour and the LibDems) were contributing to Gina Miller’s campaign for a progressive alliance. We’re very unlikely to find out if such is the case (because, Saboteurs!).
I also suspect that if the electoral calculus favoured coalition with the Tories rather than a progressive alliance, the LibDems would choose the Tories. The LibDems have past form on this. For example, they could have arrested the disintegration of UK politics by dissolving their alliance with the Tories sometime around 2011, rather than sticking it out for the full five years as they did. There were plenty of ground for dissolving the LibDem-Tory pact earlier on.
One of the positives of this election might be that it legitimises the Tory strategy. This is unlikely to change any of May’s plans. However, an increased majority for May will (a) amplify internal Tory divisions, since there would be scope for Tory MPs to oppose their leader without automatically bringing down the government; and (b) ensure the Tories completely own Brexit and its ill effects.
I think the election might have a beneficial effect on the UK population. Having won a referendum and a general election, it will be difficult for leave voters (and the media) to blame “remoaners” for the ensuing calamity. When the UK breaks up and living standards drop, it should barely be necessary to say “I told you so”. A raised eyebrow will suffice.
The pertinent question for a progressive alliance (or, for any opposition really) might be how quickly it can coalesce following the election. A lot of this will depend on how many MPs each party returns. The rest will depend on how quickly Corbyn can step down — and that, in turn, depends on how willing the rest of the Labour MPs are to allow a successor acceptable to Corbyn to appear on the Labour leadership ballot. As per last year, it’s unlikely that any new Labour leader will enjoy validity if s/he has not debated and/or adopted the strategies advocated by Corbyn and McDonnell. Simply pointing the lack of success of those strategies at the ballot box is unlikely to suffice, since the Labour party membership will justifiably feel that overly stern media coverage reduced Corbyn’s chances.
In my opinion, Brexit is likely to end as it began — as an internal Tory party conflict, with the electorate as mere passengers. A lot of aggravation and strife could have been saved if the Tories hadn’t bothered to consult us in the first place. This would formalise one party rule, but at least we’d all be clear where we stood. Opposition could then be based around lack of representation. This would be a lot simpler than continually having to counter disinformation about the mandate, or lack thereof, for such a profound change in citizenship and constitutional fundamentals.
Count me in on that.
I’m finished with Labour. Not because of Corbyn whom I’d like to give a chance – but because they are simply too tribal, too inward looking (this problem existed before Corbyn BTW).
As to what to say about the Lib Dems……..delusions of grandeur? Opportunists? supreme? I can’t trust such capriciousness.
I’m Green anyway because there is a Tory blue wash where I live every election anyway. But they made a of sense with their appeal for a progressive coalition.
But the deeper truth is that this supports the indicator of public opinion increasingly seeing politics as having nothing to do with them – because it doesn’t .
And it also seems to prove yet again the de-coupling of the big three political parties from society – existing simply for themselves and an increasingly narrow interest group here and there.
Tragic, so tragic nearly 10 years after the Credit Crunch.
It’s likely that Corbyn’s reaction is a direct result of suggestions at the last GE of an alliance between Miliband’s Labour and the SNP. There’s no doubt that had a very negative effect on English doorsteps.
As a Scotsman I don’t understand the horror felt in England about the SNP having a role in Westminster governance. You either support the concept of Scottish Independence or you support Scotland playing a role at Westminster. Voters can’t have it both ways, although it seems many want to.
Your comment on English voters is correct
Many tell me how grateful Scotland should be to England for keeping them and should shut up as a result
Richard, are these English voters from your local area? If so, they seem to be living up to those old jibes about Norfolk folk being web-fingered because of a certain amount of errrrr, shall we say inbreeding?
Yes, that’s an offensive remark, but no worse than the arrogant and stupid attitude they have towards the Scots. I suppose these people are all Brexit voting Britnats who believe all the rubbish about ‘making Britain great again?’
Their attitude to Scotland really is colonialist, isn’t it? How else to explain the contradiction in their thinking. They despise Scotland for being ‘too wee, too poor and too stupid’, yet they want it to remain part of union. If they despise the Scots so much, why would you want to keep them?
Answer: as a colonial possession, to maintain the fiction of British ‘greatness’.
This is essentially a form of racism.
Cambridgeshire in the main….
I have to concur with what seems to be an inherent sort of discrimination that too many English people have of the Scottish and the Irish.
“Many tell me how grateful Scotland should be to England for keeping them and should shut up as a result”
I often hear this claimed, but I think you are overestimating how many English voters actually care that strongly about whether Scotland stays in or leaves the Union. I think most English are either indifferent or think Scotland should leave.
PSR, any discrimination by English towards Scots is at least equalled by that of Scots towards the English. I have lived and worked in many places over the UK and indeed the world and the only time I have been told to go forth and multiply on account of my English heritage was when I was in a pub in Glasgow.
Corbyn frustrates me as much as he inspires me. He’s a genuinely decent guy, but he seems to know jack about Scottish politics and doesn’t want to get involved with it anytime soon. This is disappointing to say the least.
At the end of the day the Scottish independence movement (and the SNP in general) is now in the ascendance because the balance is so far off. He could go quite a way to correcting that by actively promoting an SNP alliance. Instead, he’s fallen into the Tory-laid trap of demonising Scotland’s representatives. They all see the SNP as a disease rather than the inevitable consequence of an imbalance. They can’t see past that perception and they doggedly refuse to even try. Cue the end of the Union.
He could be actively pointing out that Norway generated 17Bn from oil revenues last year, Westminster only a few million. He could be pointing out that Scotland will take its oil when it leaves and then start taxing it bloody well properly. He could be pointing out that Scotland will be wealthy and connected while rUK will be isolated. He could be pointing out that enabling the SNP as kingmakers could empower the SNP and weaken the SNP position at exactly the same time, and could just possibly save a Union that’s, in reality, on its bloody knees rather than a thrusting powerhouse of a nation that the world wants to be like. In essence he could take the whole Tory narrative and turn it on its head. But no, he doesn’t do these things – he lets them lead instead.
It’s not a case of “if” this is the best Westminster has to offer, it’s a case of this is all that has been served up for decades. And I’m f***ing sick of it.
Bring on Indy. I really don’t mind leaving Jeremy Please-Stop-Punching-Me Corbyn behind.
I understand your frustration with Corbyn and I share some of it but I would say that Corbyn is in a bit of hole here because as a socilaist he cannot support national identity politics as the underlying are are financilaisation/asset bubbles and distributive issues.
As I see it, the rise of nationalism in Europe is a result of neo-liberal austerity and would not have happened if the EU had maintained a Keynsian stance which the founders had before Friedmanite monetarism took over. So I suspect Corbyn s trying to maintain that vision.
Corbyn and Labour have failed to get an alternative narrative across partly due to a Blairite preponderance of Tory Lite and LINO M.P’s. As a Corbyn supporter I accept that Corbyn’s policy of non-combative ‘politeness’ at PMQ has failed utterly but I still say that the main issue is economic ideology with the EU issue being a useful distraction for the neo-libs that benefits them while people are focused on the ‘wrong’ area.
If I were Corbyn I would be happy to do a deal with the Greens and allow Caroline Lucas a free run, as Labour should be fully endorsing a green agenda anyway. The SNP will dominate Scotland with or without a deal, which can more safely be left until after the election. The Liberals though have little to bring to the party. A remain commitment will be attractive to some but could do Labour as much harm as good.
Corbyn may be leader but he has little control over the party machinery and still must do his best hold the party together in the run up to this election. SLab would never countenance an alliance with SNP and to be fair this would gain little anyway maybe defeat one or two Tories. The Lib Dems have said that they would countenance a Coalition with the tories but ruled out one with Lab so any calls for a progressive alliance from them is very opportunistic. An alliance or local agreements with the Greens and with Plaid could however have some traction and benefit particularly the latter.
One never enjoys being the bearer of bad news but, based on the prevailing situation, those of us on the progressive side of the political spectrum should brace ourselves for maybe a generation of Conservative government. Trust me, whatever internal divisions they may have, the Tories are in for the kill. It comes naturally to them. After all, they are the principal proponents of fox hunting. It’s even worse than the Michael Foot moment. Brexit has been a catalyst for social division, leaving voters fragmented and confused like never before. Theresa May and her core advisers have rightly (for them) sensed the opportunity and taken it.
As you said yesterday, the GE has little to do with Brexit. Not until we have PR can we expect any progress; and the Tories will never vote for that. Tragicaslly, we are entering a lengthy period of ‘controlled democracy’. If blame has to be allocated, I’d say Ed Milliband is the real ‘villain of the piece’. Although a committed Green, like you Richard, I’ll probably be voting strategically (i.e. LibDem). It’s an even bigger ‘Omnishambles’ than Osborne’s budget.
End of Thursday morning rant.
Your rants are welcome
Agreed -the only good news around is that the ghastly furtive and creepy Osborne will leave politics. He was a gap year amateur and ineptly caused huge socila damage to the fabric of this country -he is now free to be the wallet-lining shyster that he is.
John D might be right that we could have a decade or two to go before the cycle is over. Are we witnessing a neo-liberal kondtratievian cycle here? lets hope not but if we are we’re in for two decades at least of this stuff before it burns out.
I’ll be obliged to vote Lib Dem again as it’s the only party that offers the vaguest shadow of a challenge to the Tory ‘pocket borough.’
Do pre-election alliances form in states where they routinely have coalition governments?
It seems very likely the Torys will win with an increased majority and given the opinion polls and the near certainty that the twin Brexit and Austerity policies will be disastrous there could be a backlash on the same order as 1997 at the next GE, presumably 2022.
Chris Johns ( Formerly UK Treasury and the National Institute of Economic & Social Research and economics lecturer in London and Cambridge Universities but more recently Bank of Ireland, Welsh Assembly advisor and Irish Times Business correspondent) is good position to see a more international perspective is very negative about Brexit see http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/chris-johns-may-almost-sure-of-mandate-but-could-lose-uk-1.3053099 for example.
Even though it is tempting to hope the Torys will make such a hash of things that they will be decimated in 2022 – five years is a long time to wait and I will vote tactically and have added a Tactical2017 page to the Progressive Pulse web site (About to be officially launched). http://www.progressivepulse.org/blog/tactical2017/ Happy to add additional suggestions. In my own constituency, Hexham, sadly the sitting Tory candidate received over 50% of the vote last time; I’m not sure what form of tactical would work but I’ll keep an eye on the local elections for guidance.
I suspect I too can make little difference
But I will be voting tactically
Good article Sean, from someone with highly interested but slightly detached perspective. My expectations are much the same
My MP is Jeremy Hunt …. sadly even tactical voting will have little impact. I shall be supporting campaigns elsewhere
It will be interesting to see if Labour’s manifesto includes a commitment to introduce proportional representation.
My guess is that it won’t. Labour never want to share power. They would rather stick with a system that gives them total power once every 15 or 20 years. The alternative is to share power and relegate the Tories to a permanent rump.
It would be a shame if it did not
The Lib Dems and Labour were never going to agree to a Progressive Alliance. That doesn’t stop us from having one anyway. Have a look at what Neal Lawson from Compass says about a ‘grassroots alliance’ at Nehttp://www.compassonline.org.uk/together-we-win/
If you refuse to vote Labour in a seat where it’s a 2 horse race then you’re voting the Tories in. Same goes for Lib Dems/Greens/SNP/Plaid. Right now we have to vote for the least worse option to deny the Tories a majority, then after the election we need to start doing some longer term planning for an Alliance. If you don’t want 10 years of Tory rule then please vote for the party that has the best chance of beating them in your constituency!
The idiotic reluctance of major parties with aligned interests to collaborate in their mutual self interest will allow the Conservatives to achieve another majority. The first past the post system almost requires parties to form two main blocks, and crushes anyone else. There won’t be much point of a progressive alliance in opposition, and “I told you so” won’t be of much value in five years time.
With median earnings of a full time employee of around £27,000, and plenty of people not earning at all, the fact is that anyone earning three times that *is* relatively wealthy, even if they don’t feel it.
These things tend to go in cycles. With the rise of inequality and populism, present conditions are similar to the 1930s, or possibly even the 1910s. I fear things are going to get much worse before we start to rebuild the state, like 1945.
“Many tell me how grateful Scotland should be to England for keeping them and should shut up as a result”
Dear Many,
(If I were Idina Mendel I’d just sing to you)
“Let us Go. Let us Go
Can’t hold it back anymore
Let us go, let us go
Turn your back and slam the door
Here we stand
And here we stay
Let the storm rage on
The cold never bothered us anyway!”
Really, you have no idea how grateful we’d be if you stop clinging on to us.
Love,
Scotland
🙂
It was evident to anyone who watched the behaviour of Tory MPs in the chamber yesterday why they are calling an election.
It is to destroy Labour and go for a bigger majority.
Even May smiled at Skinner as he tried to challenge the Tory party putting forth candidates who had been implicated in the emerging election fraud. Theresa can’t help being nasty too it seems.
This behaviour has all the hall marks of a party that thinks that it is untouchable.
Sure – such behaviour has been known to back fire – but in our case, not quickly enough perhaps? Or not at all.
Democracy is being abused once again. And it is tempting to see democracy as something which no longer can help and other more unsavoury methods start to be considered in order to achieve justice.
But then I came across this.
I was watching Michael Moore’s film ‘Sicko’ about the US health system and he interviewed of all people the late Tony Benn who says (I did my best to capture it):
“I think that democracy is the most revolutionary idea in the world – far more revolutionary than socialist or anyone other ideas.
If you have power you use it to meet the needs of you and your community.
The idea of choice put forward by capital all of the time depends on having the freedom to choose.., well people shackled with debt don’t have that much freedom to choose.
People in debt become hopeless and the hopeless do not vote. Yet if all the poor in the USA and the UK voted for someone with their interests at heart then a real democratic revolution could happen.
However, people are controlled and there are 2 ways that this is done:
1. Frighten people.
2. Demoralise them.
An educated, healthy and confident people is much harder to control that one that is poor, demoralised and frightened”.
I thought it was rather timely that I saw this and it gave me some hope even though the Labour party in particular may have signed its own death warrant.
But my conclusion is now not to change politics – we have all the politics we need – but to change DEMOCRACY – the mechanics of democracy that should govern how politics operates . That is what is going to keep me going from now on I hope.
Just like we need to save capitalism from itself, democracy needs all our help too.
Polling average as of 18 April –
CON: 42.3%
LAB: 26.4%
UKIP: 10.9%
LDEM: 9.9%
GRN: 4.0%
Anyone else spot the slight problem with a progressive alliance?
The idea that this is any kind of runner needs to be laid to rest. It isn’t going to happen. Some may switch votes to get the Tory out but a whole more wont. Getting agreement with the leaders of the parties will be the easy bit. trying to persuade dyed in the wool supporters to switch votes is an entirely different matter. And thats if the arithmetic adds up.
I’ve said it before but it bears repetition: the Labour party – properly led with sensible, imaginative, forward looking policies with wide appeal – is THE progressive alliance.
But votes are not even spread
That means it works in some places
And that has to be worth it
Steve
The Labour party are cowed. How can you be progressive when you daren’t even take on the lies told about you? Consider for example that Labour apparently ‘bankrupted us’? Absolutely rubbish and when that was put to Ed Miliband on live TV during the last election he did not tell the voter that that was wrong. He accepted it.
How can you call yourself progressive when as a party they do not openly associate themselves with this blog or the man who writes it? Or the wider Tax Justice network?
Labour’s heart is in the right place but it is too tribal, too insular to be of any use to the British public at the moment. This cuts it off from one of the biggest traits of being progressive – being able to form alliances with like minded parties like the Greens.
Even the Tories are good at this – their coterie of alliance support is in the City, Banking and high finance, the media because we (and they) know that their local activism is weak. It has to be because they bus it in during elections.
Yet here stands Labour – in splendid isolation – hoping to make a difference.
PSR – the fail of Labour is symptomatic of the failure of the Left everywhere -a lack of ability to provide a clear and meaningful narrative about neo-liberalism and why people are angry and upset. because of this, they have aloowed shysters like UKIP and the brexit campaign to channel discontent in the wrong direction. Milliband was a grotesque failure in this respect. Corbyn at least managed to say: ‘Austerity is ideology and not necessity’ which compared to what went before was more or less Wittgensteinian!
The most grotesque thing i came accross during the Milliband time was Duncan Smith revealing his utter illiteracy at a Tory Conference claiming Labour had caused the GFC of 2008! There was no challenge to it nor all the groundless challenges about Labour being spendthrift which Richard has debunked many times -quite unbelievable.
Well, the explicit one party state is here (though it has arguably been here for many years).
The French at least have a 4 Party choice with more than a cigarette paper’s width between them -the public is regressing to what John Le Carre called (during the Thatcher years) a Matronocracy,
Perhaps the 5 years until the next next election will allow politicians and thinkers in the Rebel Alliance to convince the public of the nonsense that is Austerity.
5 more years of unchained Tory neo-liberalism is 5 too many for me. It is going to be too high a price to pay in my view.
My constituency has never been anything but Tory. Labour are a far behind 2nd. But I shall vote Green. And until Labour come to their senses and realise that the Tories will never be defeated on a regular basis without some sort of electoral pact, I shall never vote Labour again. With an electoral pact it is not just a matter of not splitting the vote, but of two parties’ members working together against the Tory candidate.
An assumption that your version of ‘a progressive alliance’ is everyone else’s…
If you mean everyone who is not a Tory, say so.
‘Progressive’ is about as elastic as ‘liberal’.