The Politics of The 2020s: How Progressive Politics Can Win In A New Decade

By Will Barber Taylor

We stand in the eye of a storm. For the fourth time the Labour Party has lost a general election and the potential of a Democratic President occupying the White House by the end of next year is uncertain. To be a progressive is to be an anomaly in a world in which it is fashionable to be starkly at the end of one spectrum, be it right or left.

The term itself is of course open to interpretation. I’m sure both Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn view themselves as some form of “progressive” and there will be many people who do so to whom the word may not apply. So, what, if we are to make the next decade one in which progressive politics flourishes is the type of progressive, I mean? Is it to redistribute wealth on a large scale? Is it to say that we should all have the right to vote whether we are in prison or not?

For simplicities sake it may be easier to see “progressive” as applying how you want it to in the context you understand. For some that will be Corbynite for some Blairite but ultimately these invasive ideological nicknames won’t do anything. Does the average voter care whether you prefer Marx over Giddens? Maybe there will be some who do; there will be many who won’t. Many will simply be concerned with how you or your party can make their lives better. What I shall attempt to do in this piece is address the fundamental problems, as I perceive them, with the current state of progressive politics and how it is possible to fix them to fight for victory.

Our House in Order

One of the key issues that persists in progressive politics today is the sense that our house is not in order. Both Labour and the Democratic Party have been beset with cases of antisemitism and enough has not been done in either party to ensure that racist views are not extolled by their representatives and members. Only once it becomes clear that zero tolerance is given to such despicable lies can we ensure that we are not seen as bigots and hypocrites. It is a moral issue and one that is vitally important to the return of successful progressive politics across the Western World.

It’s A Vision Thing

“Vision” is often a dirty word in politics, and it isn’t surprising why. For many the idea of a vision is comparable to clean and polished politics to cooperation and focus group lead politics. Yet, vision is key to any successful political campaign. This election has perhaps proved that vision isn’t even necessary; the Conservatives managed to squeak home by repeating their desire to “get Brexit done” a message as sloganistic as possible. Labour and the other parties had the same problem; the Liberal Democrats seemed a strange reflection of the Conservatives whilst Labour seemed unsure of its position and caught between leaving or remaining; though this was not the policy it was how the public interpreted it.

Labour’s issue in this election was not lack of policy, it certainly had a great deal of it, but rather a cumulative effect. The party promised to nationalise one industry and then another and another whilst also providing money to the WASPI women, veterans who had not got the same pension as fellow officers who were white, the planting of billions of trees. The list was endless and for many voters, for a party that had justifiably attacked the Conservatives in 2017 for using “the magic money tree” the mantra of “how will you pay for it” dogged the party. Yet within all these policies, many of which had noble aims, there was not cohesive sticking plaster; no thematic resonance that could be easily summed up. Labour’s manifesto was a patchwork of a variety of aims with not an easily definable central tenant. It is here that all the parties fell down; they lacked strong, well defined visions.

Vision is important and should have a well-defined and easy to understand message. In 1945, Clement Attlee and the Labour Party’s vision of Britain was clear; to rebuild Britain anew and to make it a truly equal society, no longer festooned with the rigid class system that had dominated it for centuries. In 1964, Harold Wilson’s vision was one of scientific and technological revolution; of taking Britain into a new age and not to be afraid of technology that could transform the landscape of Britain but rather to embrace it. In 1997, Tony Blair’s vision of Britain was a country no longer of Empire, but a country that was to redefine itself on the world stage as a young, dynamic nation that worked both with Europe and the United States to achieve a brighter future both home and abroad.

These three visions are perfect examples of how to articulate your ideas in a way that allows the public to understand them and to win; they rely not simply on national unity (each focuses on the way the country can become better, not one section of it, but “the country” as a whole) but also the sense of change. Change is always reactive; whether to war, the development of technology, the failures of the government and that is how our vision must be formed. We cannot simply say that if we stand for one set of values that this will mean that we will get elected — politics just doesn’t work like that. Does this mean we should become Conservative, reject our innate opposition to them? No because then why would anyone support or vote for us? Rather it is about understanding what people think and understanding how we can respond to what they think. We must be reflective and innovative at the same time; a tight and precarious tight rope walk but one we must walk if we are to succeed.

The same attitude applies as much in America as in Britain. Why, fundamentally, did people vote for Trump? They voted for him because they thought his vision of the country, however inarticulately put, was one of change; change away from the sense that their states that had elected Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 were not seeing the change as Obama had promised. They thought their communities of coal and steel would return and that, above all else, they wouldn’t just have their jobs back — they’d have their communities back too. Patriotism is not and never should be a dirty word and it is here that we can find the vision we need in order to win; in towns, in cities, in the countryside — a vision that fundamentally speaks to people’s inner desire not just for peace but also cohesion. We must base our vision in that and not attempt to string decade old policies together and call it vision. The fact we have to listen to people and understand their fundamental concerns about their community leads me on to my next point:

Consultation, Consultation, Consultation

It is wrong, I think, to suggest that grassroots politics does not work out on the doorstep and this will be an argument that, with Labour’s defeat, will be prominent over the coming days and weeks. Labour’s grassroots campaign had its issues — certainly if any campaigners followed Novara’s bizarre advice — but if you are going to win an election, then you need strong grassroots activism. Getting people engaged, active and wanting to help out is how you will get your message across and out there. But it goes beyond simply getting the activists to knock on doors; it is about ingraining the message and the political party as firmly into the individual seat as possible.

I’m not simply talking about it being ingrained as in a seat where Labour have won consistently in the past; we must make the presence of the party felt deeply in as many constituencies as possible. There are events and in places like Grimsby and Blyth Valley where the Conservatives won by 8,000 and 718 votes respectively, we need to place our party back into the heart of the constituency. This is not to repudiate the work of many fine Labour members and MPs but if a community feels like it is not being listened to by the party that is meant to represent it, where else will it turn but one that seems to? We know that in certain areas campaigners were diverted away from vulnerable seats and that should not have happened — not simply for electoral reasons but that is demonstrates an underlying problem.

People think the party only cares about them when it wants their vote; this has been an issue that has been deeply rooted into constituencies for years. When Gareth Snell first stood for election in the by election in Stoke in 2017 there were justifiable complaints from residents of council flats that they hadn’t seen Labour campaign there since 2001. How is this acceptable? How can we as a party that wishes to govern, only meet the people that we serve when it is convenient for us?

To win, not just across the country but in seats in which we should have kept this time, we must engage with local communities as much as possible. We have to, as the Labour Listens projects of the 1980s demonstrated, listen to the concerns of the people. It is only by understanding them and providing answers to their concerns in a way that seems genuine to them that we can succeed. Co operation is needed between the party and the people — which brings me on to my next point.

Co — Operation — Both Economic and Political

There is no doubt that the Conservatives are an irresponsible party that do not take responsibility for anything. They gave G4S charge of the Olympics games which they utterly messed up and the government were forced to call the police in; they let infrastructure across Britain crumble and yet blame councils; their economic policies cause heart ache and yet the Home Secretary has the gall to comment that poverty isn’t their fault. Who, Madam Secretary is it then? The magic pixies that live inside the Prime Minister’s feted locks?

There is, therefore, a great many people who despair of the economic situation the Conservatives have produced. There are also, of course, many who have done well from the Conservatives and are not perhaps as dismissive of the Conservatives economic stewardship. To win we must gain support from both of these groups; but how? There seems to be a great chasm between them; in truth it is merely a chasm created by ourselves. Economic reform is justifiable and needed; we cannot ignore that fact. As the great Senator for Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy once said when Democratic colleagues suggested they should not raise the low minimum wage:

“If there is one cause the Democrats should stand for it is improving the wages of working people. If we are not going to fight for the wages of working people, who will fight for them?”

This should be as part of our agenda as our very name. Yet, as this most recent manifesto and the one before it argued, we must nationalise to reform; only through taking the economy wholly into our hands can we engender change. For many people this was seen as an unnerving prospect and the Conservatives played upon it. The Republicans are doing the same in the US over the fight for Universal Healthcare.

The echo of the supposedly fiscally sound is the same wherever you go “Well, how will you pay for it?” It is a question that stuck to the party throughout the General Election like glue; it didn’t matter which interviewer or which station the questions of how such an economic programme would be paid for was repeatedly asked. Many will point to this meaning that the media is somehow biased; that isn’t the reason it kept getting asked — it was continually asked because people were desperate to know.

This undoubtedly hurt the party — Boris Johnson only had to mention Liam Byrne’s infamous note once during his head to head with Corbyn on ITV. The idea that progressive parties are somehow frivolous with money is one that is mythical; yet it also one that returns again and again to stop them from getting elected. How then, can you balance reforms to the economic system that are needed with attracting voters who may be afraid of nationalisation? The answer is to ensure greater cooperation; not simply as a financial policy but as a means of extolling our vision for the future.

In a world in which globalisation has driven many to feel as if they don’t matter, as if they cannot influence the way their lives are lead there is one way in which this sense of isolation and helplessness can be alleviated; by ensuring that these individuals have greater influence in the way their companies are run. This is a task that may prove difficult; the idea of co operatives is one that some in business feel nervous about and the recent manifesto’s promise to take ten percent of shares of every company employing more than 250 workers and to redistribute them to workers was billed as industrial espionage by the Conservatives. Yet the idea that workers have some greater stake in where they work not only makes sense in improving the personal feelings of workers — happiness indexes have been calculated for several countries and in nations like Iceland where the government have pursued policies that are designed to increase happiness their GDP has risen also — but to help reform an economic inequality that has grown with that of global business; the feeling on unaccountability. Why did so many people vote for Brexit? They felt the EU was uncountable to them. This is a message we must send in future economic reforming policy; we want to make the economy accountable to the people that are at its beating heart. This must be at the heart of our future economic policy — not a sense that the government will just run everything, rather that it will exist to reform and to guide; to encourage and to bolster, not to hold it back. In work poverty is one of the great issues that has to be dealt with

Yet co operation should not simply apply to economic policy — it must apply to our policy with other parties. We are in a position where the Conservatives can pass a great deal of legislation simply by turning up. It is vital that, whilst we are in the minority in Parliament, we must work with other parties to do our best to prevent the most destructive elements of Boris Johnson’s manifesto becoming law. This will be a difficult if not impossible task, but it is necessary one to ensure that progressive ideals are not swept away. Johnson will not be able to fulfil his promises, that much is clear and this leads me on to my next point.

Test Your Promises

The Labour Party’s most recent manifesto has been called many things and as I dealt with above, economically it has caused people to repeat the same question over and over again — “how will you pay for it?” There are many worthy aims in the most recent manifesto but even had Labour been able to gain a majority, which never looked likely, it would have been difficult to implement. This is why our manifesto promises in the future must be not only reflective of our vision, progressive and reforming but also do-able.

Does this mean we should not promise more houses? No. Does this mean that we should not fight for an ambitious green agenda? No. It means that we must ensure that what we put before the public, what will be picked over by the media and the other parties is as well costed, as logical and as do able within the five year term which we are standing for. Nor does this mean that we should limit ourselves to the manifesto in Parliament — if more can be done then more shall be done. But to imply, as the Conservatives have done, that they can do all they set out to do without raising taxation or without further cuts is ludicrous.

We should not think that because the Conservatives have won on such a manifesto this means that we should double down and copy them; rather it means we should test our pledges into within an inch of their life, examine ever aspect of prospective legislation in order to create a progressive manifesto that shows the Conservatives up for what they are — charlatans willing to promise anything regardless of whether they can fulfil it or not. Our duty is, as progressives, to defend honest and promote truth — which leads me on to my next point.

A New Place In The World

Our place in the world has changed in the last few years, not just because of Brexit but because of changing economic winds. Brexit, whether it is a success or not, has changed the perception of the United Kingdom for decades. In this election, whilst Brexit may have been prominent, both main parties have shunned foreign policy. This is fundamentally a mistake. Not only do we live in a society, so goes the meme, but we also live on a planet and one that through technology is much more integrated than at any other time in human history. The internet should provide the perfect platform for nations to connect and interact with one another and yet we are seeing nations and individuals that are willing to utilise it in the spreading of fake news, disseminating hatred and bigotry on a scale that would have been unthinkable ten years ago. There are concerns that many people have both about radicalisation and the coarsening of debate that must be tackled by any progressive party in the future. We must work across countries to find a solution that does not restrict freedom of expression but ensures social media companies like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and others take the responsibility they have for enforcing policies that eradicate unacceptable behaviour.

Yet we not only need to look to the internet to see why a new progressive foreign policy agenda is needed. The scars of Iraq are deep yet does this mean we should ignore the plight of the Rohingya Muslims? That we should look away at the plight of the Kurds in Syria? That we should stay silent on China’s internment camps? It doesn’t. If we are to be the standard bearers of justice we cannot ignore the injustice that is directly in front of us; we should not be a nation cowed by international affairs and we have to be a nation that understands how to confront them.

Intervention to save lives is not a dirty concept. Yet mistakes were made in the past — advice offered by members of the armed forces were not listened to by David Cameron during his intervention in Syria and his inability to provide a solution to the crisis to Parliament led to more suffering in the region. We cannot make such rash decisions — yet this does not also mean that we should step away from a responsibility we have to pursue justice in the face tyranny wherever we see it. What greater legacy can be given than to not only ensure the transformation of our own nation for the better but also help others to improve the lot of their citizens?

Yet foreign policy should not only deal with nations in conflict; our foreign policy must ensure we work with other nations on important, cross country schemes which help in tackling organised crime and disease. Whilst we may be out of Europe this does not mean we should not and cannot partake in discussions with European leaders and the EU; it would be wrong to interpret the Brexit result as meaning we should ignore European politics and the issues that face Europe. As our closest neighbours and allies, European stability and prosperity is British stability and prosperity — they are not divided but linked even outside the EU. Brexit is now a fact and any further attempts to fight against it will not engender any greater support from the people of Britain for our cause.

Similarly, Democratic candidates in the United State may be tempted to enjoy impeachment they should not let this consume them. Impeachment is sadly a sideshow — the Republicans will not, as they have made clear, impeach Trump simply because if he goes who logically could hold the coalition Trump made together? Focussing too much on impeachment will inevitably lead to calls of subverting democracy. Whilst these are, ultimately silly arguments sometimes the silliest arguments have a tendency to stick.

Any Democratic candidate should not only focus on domestic policy but also foreign policy. Trump has made a mess of his foreign policy, simply because the incoherent grifter has no grasp of it. North Korea have not agreed to anything with Trump and are continuing to engage in testing of nuclear weapons despite Trump’s fawning over Kim; Syria is a mess because of Trump’s decision to pull out and let Erdogan massacre the Turks; his ridiculous border wall has only inflamed tensions between the US and Latin America, nations that should be working together to fix their problems are at logger heads. Whilst Trump’s domestic agenda has been ineffective, his foreign policy has been a true disaster and one that is his biggest weakness; even Fox could not condone his recent actions in Syria. It is on foreign policy that progressives can and must attack Trump’s presidency.

The Dream Shall Never Die

These are, to my mind, the key areas that progressive political parties must focus on if they wish to win. An overriding vision that is optimistic and easy to understand, that is informed by interaction with voters across the country, a vision that is deliverable and that promises economic reform on a scale that does not seem threatening; a vision that demonstrates that progressive parties can be trusted not simply with domestic affairs but also with foreign affairs — that such a party in government can and will deal with the issues that exist outside our borders and directly affect the people we represent.

It is crucial, not simply for ourselves and our self interest that we do all we can to ensure progressive politics can once again win elections — it is more important for those who we hope to represent; the people who will feel disillusioned and dismayed with us but still need a voice to echo their hopes and their fears. We cannot abandon those who are most at risk of being taken advantage of; those who fear the harsh winter of cuts and fiscal conservatism, those who yearn for a better tomorrow. We are, in truth, only as effective as the sum of our parts and if our parts are ineffectual, if our parts are more invested in point scoring over insignificant party rules or pointless, hollow ceremony then we should not be surprised when the people turn their back on us.

That is why progressive parties must adapt, must learn from their mistakes and ensure that they are not defined by them. It is our passion, our commitment and our determination to make a better world that defines us from other political persuasion. Only through the commitment that we have to change can we ensure that change does come, and it comes for everyone in society; a change that will ensure the most vulnerable and least able to fight back are provided for. As that great Irishman and socialist George Bernard Shaw once said:

“Some men see things as they are and say, why. I dream things that never were and say, why not.”

This is a maxim that we should and can live by and only then will we ensure that the work goes on, the cause endures and the dream shall never die.