Europe is facing a humanitarian crisis, far too serious to be reduced to being the subject of petty political point-scoring

Despite David Cameron's flippant dismissal, something must be done to aid those suffering in Europe's humanitarian crisis. Photograph: Calais Jungle on 17 January 2016 by Malachy Browne (License) (Cropped)

In a week where Chancellor George Osborne had given the government one miniature PR crisis by claiming the retrieval of 3% Tax from Google as a victory (Churcher & Woodcock, 2016), it was almost inconceivable that a member of the government could make things worse. Almost.

During Wednesday's Prime Ministers Questions, Prime Minister David Cameron, as nothing more than a cheap shot at his opponent Jeremy Corbyn, dismissed the refugees in the 'Calais Jungle' camp as 'a bunch of migrants' (Dearden, 2016). The Prime Minister has been roundly criticised for his lack of tact or concern.

The particularly troubling thing is that this is neither Cameron's, nor his government's, first time treating the, largely Syrian, refugees that have fled to Europe with such disdain. A senior minister and Cameron himself have previously dehumanised refugees with words like 'swarm' and suggestions that towns were being 'swamped by migrants' (Elgot & Taylor, 2015; Syal, 2014).

This Conservative attitude does their position no favours and does them no credit. Having already resoundingly rejected UK involvement in taking a share in a proposed Europe-wide support network for those refugees who have fled into Europe (Parker & Robinson, 2016; BBC, 2016), such language doesn't paint their stance in a positive light.

As it happens, Cameron's stated priorities with regards to the refugee crisis are not tremendously far from the broad consensus: the people, made refugees by war, want to go home (Capaldi, 2016).

Cameron's plan is for the UK, firstly, to support the refugees who have stayed in North Africa and the Middle East (Watt, 2015). Then, secondly, to push for international resolution on a plan to create safe spaces in war-torn Syria, to allow those fleeing to return home.

Leading progressives like Guy Verhofstadt, former Prime Minister of Belgium and leader of the Liberals in the European Parliament, have stressed the need for similar priorities (Verhofstadt, 2016). Yet Verhofstadt also points out the big weakness undermining those in Cameron's position: being too tied up in managing and attempting to satisfy domestic nationalism to tackle the bigger picture.

However much of a priority it is, truly, to provide aid to those who have remained in Syria and Lebanon, the fact remains that turning a blind eye to those who have, and continue, to arrive in Europe will not solve anything. In Europe, conditions are worsening, restrictions are getting more severe, and there is a risk of hearts turning colder (BBC, 2015; Crouch & Kingsley, 2016).

What is especially unhelpful in that charged atmosphere are comments that belittle or dehumanise refugees, especially when those comments come from a Head of Government - and one who is, no less, part of the continental council whose job it is to come up with a solution to this major humanitarian crisis.

How can a political figure think anyone could take them seriously if they can be so flippant about people in distress? How can they be relied upon, trusted, to develop a respectful and humane response to a very human crisis?

This isn't a time for cheap, political point-scoring. Like it or not, refugees are here in Europe. Pettiness won't change that, only a concerted humanitarian effort in both Europe and the Middle East can alleviate their plight. Being prepared to stand together in support of vulnerable people is the only way out of this crisis.

Still opposition even as Italy on verge of completing historic year for LGBT rights, but progressives must maintain their optimism

The Catholic Church stands in the way of Italy extending legal recognition to same-sex couples. Photograph: St Peter's Basilica from Pixabay (License) (Cropped)

Later this week, the Senate in Italy will be deciding how to respond to condemnation for the lack of legal recognition of same-sex couples (BBC, 2016). The government of Matteo Renzi, Prime Minister and leader of the Partito Democratico, has put legislation on same-sex unions before the Senate to introduce civil partnerships after criticism from the European Court of Human Rights.

Italy was ruled by the ECHR in the summer as being in breach of human rights by not allowing same-sex unions (Kirchgaessner, 2015). That ruling seems to have inspired fresh hope of progress, with campaigners out in numbers over the weekend to call for a change in the law (Kirchgaessner, 2016).

The road to change in Italy, though, is still filled with obstacles. There are deeply ingrained attitudes to overcome (Scammell, 2016) and the power of the Catholic Church is behind the conservative opposition (The Guardian, 2016).

However, the public campaigns for same-sex unions show that there is a possibility of change. The successes of other civil rights campaigns around the world also highlight what can be accomplished. Big steps forward where made last year, on a number of fronts - even when just considering the fight for LGBT rights.

In the US there were reassuring steps, with a Supreme Court ruling establishing that equal marriage was a constitutional right (Roberts & Siddiqui, 2015). Barack Obama celebrated the decision as making the 'union a little more perfect', marking a rare win for the Democrat President in an extremely partisan time in the White House (Jacobs, 2015).

Meanwhile Ireland became the first country in the world to secure the passage of equal marriage by a popular referendum, with an emphatic 62% voting in favour (The Irish Times, 2015). That vote had the additional significance of leaving Italy as the last Western country to not have some form of civic union for same-sex couples (Duncan, 2016).

Later this week in the UK, the Commons will be considering an amendment to the Civil Partnerships Bill that aims to extend civil unions - originally intended as a same-sex alternative to marriage - to opposite-sex couples (Bowcott, 2016).

Though it may seem like a sideshow, at a time when these matters are being debated, it would be a positive and signal step to make all forms of civil union equal, whether marriage or partnership, regardless of gender pairing. For those who are socially excluded, the aim is to be treated as equals.

A chance to take some steps towards that parity approaches in Italy. Yet the outcome of the Senate vote is far from certain. Italy has had a difficult history with liberalising reforms. Campaigns have long been left to parties on the fringe, such as the Radicals, who have campaigned for everything from the separation of church and state to the rights to divorces and abortions (Moliterno, 2000).

And over everything, the Catholic Church casts a long shadow (The Guardian, 2016). The Pope, weighing in on the upcoming vote, declared that god wanted only one type of family union, procreative and insoluble, and no other.

It can be demotivating as a progressive to have a year filled with conservatism, populist nationalism and neoliberal austerity, with discrimination still protected by powerful institutions. To discover in the news that, in the middle of a humanitarian crisis, those most in need of help face segregation - in the most recent case, refugees being forced to wear red wristbands as distinctive markers used to distinguish them (Taylor & Johnston, 2016).

But 2015 also served as a reminder of how much that is positive might be achieved, even under a conservative stranglehold. Progressives must draw upon these accomplishments for strength as they move forward, in order to, as Yanis Varoufakis argues (Varoufakis & Pisarello, 2016), maintain the optimism needed in the continued struggle against discrimination and the hegemony that protects it.

Crisis in the neoliberal economic system may not be a guaranteed springboard for a radical new economy, but it does signal the need to prepare a coherent alternative

With the world economy in seemingly constant crisis, progressives need to have a credible alternative ready. Photograph: Euro Bank Notes from Pixabay (License) (Cropped)

Yesterday brought some gloomy economic news. The global economy is struggling, markets everywhere are slumping, and to all intents and purposes the great recession appears to be heading on into its eighth year (BBC, 2016). Not even a new low for unemployment in the UK could bring much cheer, as wages continue to stagnate (BBC, 2016{2}).

With 20% of Europe's young people unemployed (European Parliament, 2016) - as many as 50% in some cases and trapped by nearly a decade of slim to no opportunities - and with austerity cutting away at social security (Gaffney, 2013; Nielsen, 2014), it wouldn't be surprising for some on the Left to at least take in hope in the idea that the lack of return for all of the precariousness and the sacrifices might be a crisis in the making for the neoliberal order.

And yet, as Yanis Varoufakis has warned, a crisis is not so easily exploited by progressives (Varoufakis, 2015). In fact, they often play out at the expense of the Left. With the aims of the Left so often dependent upon the building of a social institutions - something taking time and public support - progressives can find themselves in the unenviable position of defending the establishment in the face more extreme populist positions.

So, building an alternative economy is not going to be accomplished overnight. Neoliberalism certainly wasn't (Ridley, 2016). It took decades, around a half century, of work and preparation for the neoliberal theorists to promote their cause to the mainstream.

That doesn't mean, however, that some of the work has not already been done. For the Left, the construction a new path has been bubbling away since at least the beginning of the great recession - almost a decade ago - and breakthroughs have been made.

In the past year, Syriza won two elections and a referendum as an opponent of the prevailing system (Mason & Skarlatos, 2015) - and even as they have been strangled and forced to concede endless ground their leader Alexis Tsipras continues to argue for the room to build something more inclusive and sustainable (Tsipras, 2016). Yanis Varoufakis, now the former Finance Minister of Greece, has become a figurehead for the European Left for the way in which he stood against the austerian establishment.

In Spain, the 15M Indignados movement has taken just two years to launch the Podemos party and become a real presence of the national scene (Jones, 2015). In the last year it has won control of some major cities with its municipalist ideas, becoming an inspiration for movements across Europe (Gutierrez Gonzalez, 2016).

Also of note is that in Utrecht (Perry, 2015), in the Netherlands, and in Finland (Unkuri, 2015), trials are being rolled out to test the merits of the Basic Income. An idea that could erase poverty and bring some salve to those suffering caused by the precariousness of the times, the Basic Income is an important idea whose time has come.

There has also, of course, been the rise of Jeremy Corbyn and Momentum within the Labour Party (Mason, 2015). Corbyn is faced with plenty of struggles with his own parliamentarians and with the mainstream media. Yet his ideas have led to a huge upsurge of engagement with the Labour Party that represents - regardless of whether it is enough to win a national majority - the emergence of a significant voter base for radical democrats in the UK.

As elsewhere in the world, much like how Spain's Podemos was born from the Indignados, this base of voters has been brewing and coalescing in the UK since the Occupy movement launched its protests around the world in 2011. Occupy saw individuals and groups coming together, organising themselves, in a massive show of civil disobedience.

All of these elements carry with them ideas and theories about how the world might alternatively be constructed. Yet so far they have been, not to sound disparaging, just protests or singular parties, isolated in the mainstream.

The next step is overdue. A part of it is coming from Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party, in a move that seems like something New Labour's masters of spin should have come up with a decade ago. Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell is taking his rockstar economists, assembled in October as an anti-austerity economics advisory body, on the road to debate and promote the building of a new economy.

Another part will come from in the not too far future with the launch of Varoufakis' movement for rebuilding democracy in Europe in February (Wingard, 2016). As he has been keen to stress, the next step has to include the building of a broad movement, bringing together many ideas, across the whole of Europe (Varoufakis, 2016; Varoufakis & Sakalis, 2015) - on the same scale as globalised neoliberalism also functions.

To topple a broken and unequal system in a time of crisis may not be more than a romantic Left-wing notion. But the stumbling of neoliberalism, from crisis to crisis, makes it essential to put together the various threads of thought into a coherent proposal that is ready to step up when neoliberal thinking finally runs of credibility.

From the basic income to the reduction of full time hours, a living wage to a living rent, municipalism to community energy, there are many elements that could fit together and complement each other. The job ahead is to construct that bigger picture and start showing it to the world.

Conservative Energy Bill changes energy priorities at exactly the wrong time

After a rapid expansion, new community energy projects are in retreat as Europe's governments focus their energies on other problems. Photograph: Solar Panels (License) (Cropped)

Only a month ago, David Cameron, on the UK's behalf, signed the Paris Agreement (ITV, 2015). Those accords, however vague, nonetheless committed Britain and 199 other countries to the reduction of carbon emissions and to work towards a target of zero emissions (Vaughan, 2015).

However today, even as this weekend a senior UN official has praised the agreement for showing that the world can come together (Goldenberg, 2016), Cameron's government is promoting an Energy Bill that is leading the UK away from those goals.

The government's Energy Bill, in the Commons for its second reading, has been criticised for prioritising short term economic gains over the long term picture of sustainability (Lucas, 2016). The bill has been accused of encouraging the pursuit of coal and fossil fuels instead of leaving them in the ground and for failing to address fuel poverty - the scandal that as many as one in ten struggle to afford basic warmth.

That drive towards fossil fuels follows on the heels of cuts to subsidies for community green energy projects, which where allowed to lapse (Harvey & Vaughan, 2015; Vaughan, 2015{2}). Under the Coalition, the Liberal Democrats had encouraged these community projects (Davey, 2013). Their government research showed that community energy projects were sought out by the public to keep costs down, as well as fight climate change and to help in disadvantaged neighbourhoods - making a difference on many social and economic fronts.

These cuts to community energy subsidies and encouragement of fossil fuel recovery would seem to be a drastic change of direction for the government's public stance on energy. However, this disappointing shift in policy would not be the first. As has been pointed out elsewhere, the government had long been undermining its own commitment to clean energy (Monbiot, 2015; Monbiot, 2014), with a previous bill encouraging the maximization of exploitation of fossil fuel resources.

At the time when is there a need not only for clean and sustainable energy but also for a way to take power over the energy we consume out of the hands of big energy companies and despotic states, to increase competition and reduce the cost of energy, support for decentralised clean community energy should be a priority.

Community utilities providers have a proven track record of success in Germany and the US (Thorpe, 2014; Heins, 2015). With community projects still taking their first steps in the UK and the municipal movement in Spain acting as an inspiration across Europe, now is the time to be encouraging communities to get engaged with civic life in pursuit of the common good.

In Argentina, Macri's broad Centre coalition secured the Presidency. Yet the question remains: when can the Left cut ties with neoliberals to pursue truly radical reforms?

Mauricio Macri, pictured casting his vote in the August primaries, united the Centre-Right and Centre-Left opposition to defeat the Kirchner candidate and become the first non-Peronist, non-UCR President. Photograph: Mauricio Macri vota by Mauricio Macri (License) (Cropped)

After twelve years in power, the Kirchnerist faction of the Peronist movement, in the form of the Partido Justicialista, lost their grip on the Presidency of Argentina (Watts & Goni, 2015). In the second round of voting Mauricio Macri, leading the broad centre coalition Cambiemos, defeated the Justicialista, and former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, backed Frente para la Victoria candidate Daniel Scioli (BBC, 2015).

Macri's victory has been received positively as, possibly, the beginning for a new moderate Argentina (Cottle, 2015). And yet, while neoliberals, in particular, rejoice in a pro-market victory, Macri's Presidency has only come with the complicity of the centre-left, specifically the Union Civica Radicale (UCR, Radical Civic Union).

That tentative alliance raises the question of whether, sooner or later, those with Left-wing tendencies, particularly within UCR, will feel the need to go their own way - though there is a lot of work ahead before a progressive slate could win without some sort of agreement with, or against, the Peronist movement.

Not the least consideration is that the election of the conservative liberal Mauricio Macri will not, alone, be enough to change the direction of Argentina. Although, the defeat of Kirchner's populist Peronist candidate - which has brought a positive response from neoliberal pro-market voices - has been regarded as a new turn for Argentina and, possibly a little optimistically, the overthrow of populism (Rodriguez-Brizuela, 2015).

While the Peronists are still the largest group in the Congress, that may shift over the course of Macri's term as half of the Chamber of Deputies is elected every two years in legislative elections. And the efforts already launched by Macri at tackling Argentina's immense economic challenges have received praise (The Economist, 2016). So, for the moment, the momentum is with Macri.

However, Macri's support came from a coalition primarily divided between the Centre-Right party Propuesta Republicana (Republican Proposal, PRO) and the Centre-Left party Union Civica Radical - backed by a mix of supporters from across the centre (The Argentina Independent, 2015). So what of Macri's Radical partners?

Despite the party's name, the UCR is a moderate centre-left party, seen by the harder Left as bourgeois, that has for decades been caught between other factions. The traditional opponents of the Peronists, some internal and breakaway factions such as the Radicales K have nonetheless found themselves sometimes allies with Peronist factions, in pursuit of reforms that promise social justice and improvements to the lives of citizens (La Nacion, 2006).

Yet the authoritarian character of the Justicialista - with fears ranging from electoral fraud to intimidation and suppression of the press, along with policies like the confiscation of pension funds to plug financial holes (Marty, 2015; Crandall, 2012) - seems to have helped align the UCR with the opposition. That has led the UCR on the path joining Cambiemos, despite its mainstream, globalising, neoliberal approach (Rodriguez, 2015).

Now, it would not be a surprise to see the election of 2015 presented as a contest between the market and the state. Yet in reality, it was more after the fashion of the statist, populist and nationalist Peronists, holding a long-term authoritarian grip on power, versus a broad opposition, that Macri has succeeded in rallying around his open and 'neoliberal' way - that embraces the global system.

That is a story replicated across Europe in different shades - liberals and social democrats shackled to the neoliberal mainstream, in the face of rising fear and nationalism, rallying to protect positive gains embodied in the the establishment institutions. So why, the question might well be asked, would or should the Centre-Left consider breaking away from the Centre-Right? It is certainly clear that the global economic crisis is not over and that populist nationalism has not retreated - even in Argentina after its defeat.

The answer is because, ultimately, neoliberalism is no friend to social progress.

For all his moderate liberal credentials, as Mayor of Buenos Aires Mauricio Macri behaved in a typically neoliberal way - defunding social programs in search of competition at the expense of social security (Esperanza Casullo, 2015). And Argentina's Macrinomic path out of its present crisis will likely follow the same austerian path as many countries in Europe - particularly the UK under George Osborne Chancellorship.

But that doesn't mean that some overnight, clean break is imminent. Progressives in Argentina must build gradually towards an unshackling, because the election demonstrated that there is not yet much of a political space for a radical alternative to Peronist statism or the neoliberal market. Yet Macri's election has levered open the door and progressives must step into that new space to develop a fresh consensus around a just, sustainable and liberating alternative, amenable to the building of broad Left movement.

As the Conservative Housing Bill faces criticism, Spain's municipalism movement offers hopes for an alternative way forward

The housing crisis in the UK is deep rooted and impacts on everything around it. Photograph: Regency Houses from Pixabay (License) (Cropped)

The housing crisis is one of the biggest challenges facing the UK. On Tuesday, the Conservative government's attempt to address it, the Housing and Planning Bill, returns to the Commons for its third reading.

The bill aims to introduce one of the government's priority manifesto promises, namely the extension and expansion of rent-to-buy (Foster, 2016). The Conservative plans, including forcing local authorities to sell-off high value vacant properties, have however faced criticism and protests.

Progressive critics have warned that the Conservative plan will only exacerbate problems, risking simply shifting housing out of the reach of the poorest (Chakrabortty, 2016). The dangers of the direction in which the Conservatives are heading only highlights the need to explore other avenues to find creative, positive alternatives - the most promising of which appears to be the new municipalism movement.

The Housing Crisis

Britain's housing problem is extremely serious, but can be boiled down to two main factors. First, a shortage, and second, the exorbitant cost. Recommendations call for at least 200,000 new homes to be built each year to keep up with demand (Rutter, 2014). Yet building is not even keeping up with the sell-off of social housing into private hands and costs, for buying or renting, continue to rise far beyond the reach of ordinary people (Williams, 2016).

In the face of these problems it is of the utmost importance to stress that Britain's housing crisis is at the root of so many other problems and is the impediment of so many paths to reform. Britain's housing crisis is central, not least, to the struggle to arrest the cost of living, which is afflicting both businesses and individual citizens. To name just one problem, welfare reforms, whether progressive or conservative, are hindered by the huge cost of housing benefit.

Nor is it an exclusively modern problem. The large and integrated problem of housing is a long term issue, even being pointed to as the weak link in William Beveridge's analysis and his attempts to build a flat-rate, contributory, subsistence system of social welfare (Birch, 2012).

"The attempt to fix rates of insurance benefit and pension on a scientific basis with regard to subsistence needs has brought to notice a serious difficulty in doing so in the conditions of modern Britain. This is the problem of rent. In this, as in other respects, the framing of a satisfactory scheme of social security depends on the solution of other problems of economic and social organisation."

Amongst the impediments to fixing Britain's housing problems is the matter of buy-to-let (Gallagher, 2015). Alicia Glen, New York's Deputy mayor for housing and economic development, remarked in 2014 that one factor undermining efforts at establishing affordability was the small scale of private rented housing in the UK (Murray, 2014) - an inefficient and expensive system that ignores the benefits, particularly reduced costs, of operating at scale.

Conservative Opportunism

Into the breach have stepped the Conservatives, with plans that represent an attempt at a fundamental shift, not only from public to private but also from rental to ownership (Allen & Parker, 2015). However, Conservative plans to increase housing stock in the private buyers market - by opportunistically siphoning homes out of the social housing sector - so as to drive down prices through competition, will not by itself tackle the crucial element of affordability (Williams, 2016).

In fact, critics see it as only further alienating ordinary people by taking away affordable rented housing and consolidating more of the UK's housing within a market house price bubble - far beyond the reach of those earning around the national average (Chakrabortty, 2016).

For the Conservatives, the point seems to be to complete the plans of Thatcher and theories of Willetts from the 80s and 90s (George & Wilding, 1994). Those efforts focussed on dismantling the welfare state in favour of purely market systems - which included privatised social insurance and privatised housing.

From the perspective of a progressive, the obsession with subjecting the public welfare to competition for 'earned privilege', in a kind of conservative meritocracy that ignores preordained advantages but also, of course, disadvantages, is distressing. In a system that seeks to marry negative liberty, the removal of obstacles, with selfish conservative elitism - pursuing market solutions which look for cost cutting 'competitiveness' even at the expense of livelihoods - social security would begin to look fragile.

The fact that the conservatives are ascendant and have the majority necessary to impose their ideological system makes it urgently necessary to develop a realistic, alternative progressive solution.

Better Ways

In opposition to the Conservative response to the crisis is Caroline Lucas of the Green Party (Lucas, 2016). Her Lucas Plan calls for a serious rethink of the UK's housing model. It addresses the escalating rents by calling for a Living Rent - with a clear cap that not only tightens the reins on out of control rents but seeks to reduce the cost of housing down to an accessible level.

Lucas combines this with the need for getting on with plans for building new 'eco-fit' homes and renovating existing housing to be more energy efficient. These steps could together help to tackle two of the key elements in the battle to arrest the cost of living: the cost of housing and the cost of energy.

However, there are other questions around the issue that cannot be ignored in an effort to rethink the housing model. How should these homes be built, owned and run? There is a clear divide, with scepticism being poured from one side to the other for the idea of centralised authorities holding monopolies over something as fixed as land and shelter - whether that be scepticism towards the state or the exclusionary and elitist actors in the private market.

Hope for a new way forward might be found in the new municipalism movements (Gutierrez Gonzalez, 2016). In Spain, a number of cities have elected administrations born from the 15M Indignados protests, affiliated with Podemos. These local based projects are finding new ways to organise and operate, including massive horizontal co-operation between different city administrations (Shea Baird, 2015).

In Barcelona, for example, the new Barcelona En Comu led city council is making headway in tackling their housing shortage with a plan to use empty, privately owned houses for social rent properties (Rodriguez, 2016). The plan has already secured the use of 150 properties, with maybe 100 more soon to be added - with the owners compensated - which has provided secure, social rent accommodation for 450 people.

This has been achieved at the municipal level, an example of what might be achieved in cities where citizens learn they can run their own public spaces for the common good. Where citizens learn that they can lead radical administrations towards creative solutions. Exactly that kind of active and participatory concern on the part of citizens in the common good, embraced alongside a decentralisation of power, is not beyond the UK's ability to adopt.

In fact, the UK has already seen this kind of co-operative movement with community energy projects. In the UK, there have already been community owned and run green energy projects which have sought to install wind turbines and solar panels (Vaughan, 2015). However, what little support there has been from the government in the form of tax relief has been slowly cut away (Voinea, 2015).

That move has angered those on the Left who believe that community energy represents a way to a sustainable, affordable future that can oppose the power of big energy corporations (Lewis, 2015). Yet, even under attack, community energy has shown that this kind of civic action is possible in the UK. That they are possible, at least, should be an inspiration to those looking for fresh solutions to the problems of housing and energy in the UK.

On the housing front, the Lucas Plan, backed by a renewed appreciation for housing associations and an embrace of giving residents, citizens, and the community a greater stake, offers the outline for a progressive way forward. One that combines smart legislation and regulation with decentralised municipal action in pursuit of smart, creative ways to ensure availability, affordability and sustainability.

Corbyn tries to give Labour a fresh start to the new year, but infighting and bitterness again sours efforts to take party forward

Corbyn's reshuffle ensures his own views are better represented in key posts and increases representation of women, but has been soured by more squabbling. Photograph: Jeremy Corbyn at CWU Manchester event in October 2015.

Ahead of the return of MPs to their work at Westminster on Tuesday, Jeremy Corbyn set out to give the Labour Party a fresh start to 2016. In the light of the divisions in his shadow cabinet during his first few months, Corbyn sought to do this with a reshuffle of his team (Mason, 2016).

For progressives, whether supporters of either Corbyn or Labour's 'moderate' faction, or neither, a fresh start has to be considered a positive step. However, as seems to be becoming an unfortunate trend, the effort looks at risk of being buried beneath internal squabbling.

That would be a disappointing start for the Left in 2016. While some victories have been won by progressives in opposition, in only a very few months - like stopping the implementation of tax credit cuts and at least delaying the eventual onset of their affects (Stewart et al, 2015) - the Left still needs to rally and present an effective opposition in the year ahead.

Despite rumours and speculation, facts were scarce as Jeremy Corbyn set about the task of reshuffling Labour's shadow cabinet on Monday. The clearest consensus seemed to be that making too drastic of a change would be foolish (Kuenssberg, 2016), as it might be interpreted as the taking of revenge on some shadow cabinet members who had spoken out against the party line.

In the event, the reshuffle itself was small in scale (Perraudin, 2016) - although it took days to resolve itself, almost running over into Prime Minister's Questions. Only Michael Dugher and Pat McFadden were ousted from the portfolio's of Culture and Europe, respectively. Maria Eagle moved sideways to culture, replaced in the Defence portfolio by Emily Thornberry, with Pat Glass taking on the Europe brief - certainly increasing the representation of women on the Labour frontbench.

However, controversies have still arisen even from those small alterations. Labour's, now former, frontbencher Michael Dugher took to twitter and the media circuit to denounce Corbyn, claiming he had been sacked for being straight talking and honest (ITV, 2016). Other rumours circle as to why certain MPs were singled out, with words like disloyalty and incompetence being used, and other frontbench MPs have resigned (BBC, 2016; Sparrow, 2016).

To let the beginning of a new year be eaten by more infighting would be a tragic state of affairs for the Left. Some sort of symbolic break, even small, from the first few months could have been a positive move, establishing Labour on a new plateau. After three months in charge, while there had been difficulties and threats of splits, Labour had also, nonetheless, had some successes upon which to build such a position.

At the moment, Corbyn is the Left's most prominent leader - seen as a principled man, an idealist (White, 2016), and as a leader willing also to be an activist, out on the streets in support of a cause (Perraudin, 2016{2}). Corbyn won the Labour leadership election with a huge swell of public support, his party comfortably won the Oldham by-election, and they were also deeply involved in forcing the Chancellor to backdown over the implementation of cuts to tax credits.

Coming up in 2016 are local council, London Mayoral, Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament elections in the Spring, and potentially the EU referendum in the Summer, in all of which progressives need to present a strong and coherent message. There are also policies like the Conservative's Housing Bill that need to be properly scrutinised and opposed. Yet that can only be the case if progressives can come together and working constructively, side by side for the common good.

That means the Left, and in particular Labour, need to learn to play nicely with others - as the political system in the UK still gives too much power to one faction for any single opposition party to make much headway alone. The various groups in opposition need to start finding real ways of working together on common issues - particularly, Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens, but also with the progressive though nationalist groups like the SNP and Plaid Cymru.

A reset, and a fresh start, would have been nice for the Left. For now though, the best that the Left can hope for from Labour is that bridges begin to be rebuilt. The squabbling has to stop (Jones, 2016). Labour's MPs have to remember that their party is the largest on the Left and that the position comes with a responsibility to lead scrutiny of the government - a government that has shown itself to be far less than invulnerable. The time has come to focus on that battle rather than internal intrigues.