The Alternative Guide to the EU Referendum: 4 basic things you should know about the background to Britain's EU referendum

Photograph: European Parliament at Espace Leopold from Pixabay (License) (Cropped)

With the question of Britain's membership of the European Union being put to a referendum, it is important that people know what it is that they're voting for. Whether instinctually in or out, the core of progressive thinking is basing decisions on the facts. So, from a progressive view, here are four of the basics necessary to making an informed decision.

I: This isn't the first referendum

Back in the 1970s, Britain's Conservative government of the day, under Prime Minister Ted Heath, joined the then named European Community. It was not until later, under his successor, Labour's Harold Wilson, that the decision was put to the people in the form of a referendum.

As in 2016, 1975 saw Britain already committed to the EU and the question was whether to end that partnership. As now, the referendum followed a period of renegotiation of the terms of membership and the question divided the government.

The main difference is that in 1975 membership was a new step, at the beginning of a new phase for the project and today Britain has long been a member and has to consider the impact of its membership over a significant period of time.

In 1975, in answer to the question "Do you think the United Kingdom should stay in the European Community?", Britain voted by 67% to remain.

II: How the EU has changed since 1975

The European Union has come a long way from where it began as the steel and coal trading agreement between the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, through the European Community of the 1970s referendum into today's political maze.

Today's European Union is the successor to a set of international organisations, including the European Coal and Steel Community, founded in 1952, and the European Economic Community (EEC), founded in 1958. These bodies worked for cooperation between nations in Europe following the war - founding thinker Robert Schuman said to "make war not only unthinkable but materially impossible" between, particularly, France and Germany, through economic integration.

The organisations created a common market in Europe that would reduce direct competition between countries for control of natural resources, and secure for businesses in any member country access to the resources they needed, without endless red tape, treaties and national policies requiring domineering control over resources that in the past gave unequal preferential treatment for one domestic economy.

The Maastricht Treaty of 1993 formed these various bodies into the European Union was perhaps the biggest change there has been between 1975 and 2016. It was certainly controversial - leading to the founding of what would become UKIP.

Yet these efforts to promote integration are fully within the spirit of the European project - pursuing a step by step, democratic integration of Europe - as laid out in the Schuman declaration:

"Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a single plan. It will be built through concrete achievements which first create a de facto solidarity."

The most controversial change, however, has been less a change than an ongoing process: the continued expansion of the European Union, with the entry of new member states. As the borders of Europe have grown larger, the balance of economic strength between member states has also shifted. The economic weakness of some of these countries, and the relative, comparative, lack of wealth of their citizens, has stoked fears about mass migration into richer member states.

III: What the EU looks like today

The four main components of the European Union today are the Council of the European Union, the European Parliament, the European Commission and the European Court of Justice.

The first two are the Council and the Parliament. The Council gathers the representatives of the elected governments of each member state, with equal representation - like to the United States Senate or the German Federal Bundesrat. The Parliament meanwhile houses MEPs, elected by proportional representation from regional constituencies all across the European Union.

Because the Council sets the policy direction, and the Council and Parliament must vote to pass legislation, fluctuations in which parties are enjoying popular support across Europe affects directly and indirectly the priorities and approach of the Union. With an particularly inward looking conservatives currently dominant in domestic politics in most European countries, conservatism controls politics at the European level as well.

The Commission is the Presidential executive branch that, based on the policy priorities set by the council, proposes legislation and takes responsibility for seeing it implemented across the EU. The Commission is headed by a President who is nominated by the European Parliament and the Council jointly and heads up a body of 27 Commissioners, one from each member country covering different policy areas, and an estimated 50,000 civil servants (compared to around 19,000 working fro Manchester City Council).

The Court of Justice (ECJ) is the highest court of European Law, responsible for interpreting the laws. It is to this organisation that member state courts refer questions of application of European Law.

Between these separate bodies have been created various agencies, carrying out various responsibilities including the European Regional Development fund - whose creation was pushed for originally by Britain and Italy. It invests EU common funds in poorer and less developed parts of Europe, on a regional rather than national basis, to encourage modernisation, create sustainable jobs and stimulating growth - including investing in transport links and telecommunications like broadband.

Yet these funds remain a source of tension, with exit campaigners complaining that too much leaves one national entity, particularly a rich one like the UK, to be spent in another. The reality is that the spending is redistributive, not from one country to another but from richer regions to poorer, with the aim of building up the poorer so that it can stand with less redistribution needed in the future.

IV: Progressive Europe after #ThisIsACoup

The referendum on whether Britain should continue to be a part of these institutions has pricked a sore progressive nerve. After the way senior and influential European figures were seen to have treated Greece, and its Radical Democrat governing party Syriza, during bailout negotiations, and the way the will expressed in Greece's elections and referendums was ignored - decried as an attempted coup against the government of Greece - influential figures on the left have begun to really consider an uncoupling, for fear of being unable to implement progressive change within the European system.

The trouble for progressives lies in the fact that, though stark lines have been drawn by the referendum question, they do not have a clear side to take. Conservatives are supporting the European status quo, that they currently dominate, and the far right are supporting exit - with no third position available.

While there is cynicism with regards to the EU's policy achievements, its process of compromise and alliance-building has seen policy developed and implemented on a much wider scale than might have otherwise been possible - ensuring that issues common to all the people's of Europe can be sorted out by them, mutually, on that same scale.

The value of that approach is seen in the efforts of others on the Left to build an alternative to the two options presented in Britain's upcoming referendum. At the least, it shows how it remains preferable to the possibility of a 'Brexit'.

Over the last few years, Yanis Varoufakis, an economics professor and former finance minister of Greece under Syriza, has consistently argued that there is danger for the Left in letting the mainstream establishment collapse. Rather than cheering the neoliberal implosion, he has sombrely called for progressives to help prevent it so as to avoid the catastrophic affect upon those most vulnerable and to buy time to build an alternative.

From Varoufakis viewpoint, only the Far Right has ever benefited from social and political breakdown, or economic crisis, while the Left has succeeded most from pushing for reform of the system - requiring most often to build up structures and ideas over time to acts as foundations and infrastructure on which to stand its achievements.

It makes sense then that Varoufakis has led the formation of Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25), as a cross party platform, to push the progressive case. That organisation has others like Another Europe alongside it, pursuing a different and more progressive form of European government. What unites them is the belief in the need to form pan-European parties and movements to push for a broad democratisation of those Europe institutions that remain aloof or too little accountable.

What do progressives want today?

Fearful of conservative domination of Europe, it isn't surprising that the Left wants out of what could easily look like a rigged game. Yet there are Varoufakis' warnings to consider, which contain a wider implication within, for those on the Left whose instincts lean towards exit.

Out of Europe there awaits only nationalism, seen in the continued rise of the Far Right which so nearly won the Presidencies of France and Austria, given yet more license to drive more wedges between more people - arresting social progress to a narrowly sectarian view of the world.

Exit also stands it contrast to citizens movements, governing cities and provinces on the principles of municipalism, that offers the most hope for progressives right now. It would be easy to take the lessons of the municipal movement as license for the Left to withdraw and focus on the local.

Yet those pursuing the municipal cause have a more outward view, looking to build alliances between municipalities, between cities, across the entire continent to bring democracy closer to the people and to bring those citizens together in solidarity.

For progressives, the future, the path to their aims - for justice, liberty, equality, progress - still runs the international road. In Europe, that still means looking outward, looking at politics on a continental scale. To that end, the European Union remains the infrastructure that we have.

Exiting one continental system without another to join, when so much for the Left depends on international cooperation, is reckless and wasteful. Between voting to remain and voting to exit, voting to remain is the only option that chimes the broad vision. But it shouldn't be a vote cast lightly.

Remaining is not an "end all" solution, but a first step. The next step for progressives should be to get involved with the movements to reform Europe, to democratise Europe, to beat back austere conservatism and discredited neoliberalism, all in favour of a more compassionate alternative.

This is Part 1 of  a multi-part series, "The Alternative Guide to the EU Referendum" - click here to go to the introductory hub

The Alternative Guide to the EU Referendum

Over the next month, The Alternative is going to delve into the key aspects of the EU referendum and take a look at what it holds in store for progressives. To that end, this article will serve as the hub, gathering each of the parts together for easy access.

Pt.1   4 basic things you should know about Britain's EU referendum

Pt.2   4 things you should know about TTIP, free trade and the European Union
Pt.3   4 things you should know about influence, peace and security in the EU
Pt.4   4 reasons Progressives should reject Nationalism and choose Remain

Introduction: The Referendum for Progressives

In short, this isn't one. What stands out most of all about the referendum is that there is no truly progressive option. The ballot will offer people a choice between a bureaucratic mainstream status quo and a Right-wing nationalist reaction that proposes returning to the past (or a heavily revised version of it, at least).

The question posed to progressives is how to respond to these imperfect choices. When deciding between them, there are some basic values that they need to consider: Internationalism - Cooperation - Equality - Justice - Liberty.

Internationalism is a broader vision of people, one that does not distinguish between the value and importance of people in one country from another and believes in the possibility of cooperation between them.

That spirit of cooperation is key to enabling those people to then work together for mutual benefit and, in so doing, pursue equality. As for justice and liberty, they are the structures and principles, the terms, on which those people organise.

The roots of progressive thinking are trying to bring together all of these ideas in one society, that embodies them all: the equality of the left over the hierarchy of the right, the justice of democrats and the liberty of liberals, bound together with a broad humanism and mutual endeavour.

Achieving this things means thinking about, and working towards, the future. It means making and encouraging progress, and encouraging others to think about the future as well - and that is a difficult task, because the future is undeniably terrifying.

The future is where we find change, uncertainty and a lack of guarantees - a spark for anxiety is there ever was one. All the while, the past is favoured as a place of guarantees, of certainty, of familiar structures and reassuring traditions.

"The past is comparatively safe, next to the present, because we know how at least one of them turns out."

The European Union represents an attempt to build towards the future and that makes it terrifying. But it has also been ensnared by the times, to become, in many ways, an organisation of the status quo. As a result that project is unfinished. There is progress still to be made.

The question that progressives must answer is which of two imperfect choice presents the best next step in the path to achieving its goals. This series will aim to offer the facts needed to decide between the options and take that next step towards the future.

Speech from the Throne: Conservatives use Queen's Speech to try and rebrand their efforts in government

By way of the somewhat ludicrous annual spectacle of a grand procession to bring the sovereign to the House of Lords to read it out loud, the government has announced its legislative programme for the year.

The main drive of the 2016 Speech from the Throne was a big rebranding attempt by the government, even against the distracting backdrop of the impending referendum, to try and reframe its political agenda as a 'life chances strategy'. There where elements of it throughout the speech.

The speech featured a number of policy ideas that had already been announced. There was Help to Save, a government aided savings scheme for low paid workers that was announced by the Chancellor that is similar to a Labour scheme previously cancelled by the government. There was also the Chancellor's tax on sugary drinks, mention of infrastructure investment like broadband roll-out, the Northern Powerhouse local devolution project and the controversial push to a seven day NHS.

New announcements along the lines of 'life chances' included new measures to improve education for prisoners, overhauling the prison system to focus on how to give prisoners a second chance. The focus on a new strategy meant that other matters were pushed to one side.

Though bullishly promised, forced academisation seems to have slipped down the order and became a promise to ensure excellence in schools. Considering the negative reaction that the policy has received, it's absence is unsurprising.

More surprising perhaps is that the government has made no definitive move in its wrestle with the House of Lords. The lords has rebelled against government policy numerous times since the last election, yet the so called Sovereignty Bill was reduced to just a reference to a commitment to "uphold the sovereignty of Parliament and the primacy of the House of Commons".

Of course, talk of austerity was pushed aside as well. No new measures were announced but the speech did include the now familiar claim that the government will "continue to bring public finances under control so Britain lives within its means".

Back in the Commons, the debate on the Speech was started by a Conservative backbencher who was perfectly on message, making sure to repeat the phrase 'life chances'.

Jeremy Corbyn, in his response, was sure to pick up on the theme of 'life chances'. He set about listing ways in which austerity has completely undermined any strategy to improve life chances - from the bedroom tax to cuts to disability allowances.

What is clear is that Cameron's circle is trying to reframe its time in government, digging up phrases like 'One Nation', to try and recast new policies like competition in higher education as improving 'life chances', even as 'progressive', through justifications like greater choice for consumers.

In the Commons today, Prime Minister David Cameron was at his most smugly comfortable at the heart the Westminster establishment on a day of extraordinary ritual and pageantry. He wielded the word progressive like he meant to claim it and rebrand it as well - a chilling signal of revisions to come.

True progressives need to be wary of these efforts. The Conservative media machine has proved itself very effective in the past, so it isn't hard to see them finding success pursuing a revision of history to emphasise, or de-emphasise, events as they see fit. The reality of hard times should not be forgotten by progressives and they should not let the reality of those times be lost in public debate.

A new realignment of the Left is underway and Proportional Representation and the Basic Income are at the core

In Castlefields arena, Natalie Bennett addresses protesters from many different movements, who came together in opposition to the Conservative government in Manchester last Autumn.

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, Liberal and Liberal Democrat leaders Roy Jenkins, Paddy Ashdown and Charles Kennedy followed a course that sought to 'realign the Left' in Britain. Powered by the dominance of Thatcherite conservatism, it sought to change the approach of the left and ultimately lead to co-operation between progressive parties, in opposition to the Conservatives.

First through Liberal-Labour pacts, of which there is an even longer history, next through the breakaway SDP/Liberal Alliance, and then in the form of New Labour-Liberal Democrat talks and cooperation. And Kennedy's 'Real Alternative' campaign banner, even in opposition to a Labour government, reflected the general cohesion of aims on the Left, if not of methods.

That particular movement on the part of the Lib Dems ended with Nick Clegg's leadership. Clegg took the Liberal Democrats back to a policy of equidistance between the two big parties, Labour and the Conservatives.

However, the fall of the coalition and succession of a Conservative to a majority government seems to have triggered a new phase of realignment. The resignations of Clegg and Miliband led to the election of new party leaders, seen to be of very different stripes from their predecessors.

Tim Farron, the new Lib Dem leader, is a campaigning Northern MP and former Party President who stood aloof from, and in polite opposition to, the coalition. So far his efforts have been concentrated on focussing the Lib Dem fightback on the party's roots - in campaigning locally for community issues and nationally on matters of conscience.

Jeremy Corbyn's election as Labour leader seemed to send shockwaves through British politics. Portrayed by the media as a move back to some Michael Foot and Tony Benn, 80s-esque, hard Left position, Corbyn has faced disquiet and malcontent within the Parliamentary party since taking over with a landslide of party members' votes.

After the last five years, the seemingly inevitable alignment of the Liberal Democrats and Labour was shattered. It would be understandable to think finding new common ground would be difficult or impossible between the party Clegg had taken to the Centre, even Centre-Right, and the party Corbyn has been accused of taking to the hard Left.

Yet a new realignment of the Left is under way and the policies that will define the shift are already emerging in the policy debates of both parties.

Both the Liberal Democrats and Labour now seem to be on the same page, finally, when it comes to proportional representation. Both Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, from Labour's Left, and Chuka Umunna, from Labour's Right, have expressed support for PR. And both parties are engaged in consultations over their future approach to policy, including the welfare system - debates in which the idea of a universal basic income is playing a prominent role.

Ahead of the EU referendum, Farron has even called for a progressive political alliance on Europe - making internationalism again a core value across progressive parties. That matches, in a limited way, the arguments that Caroline Lucas, the Green MP, has been making since the last election that progressive parties need to start working together.

As for the Green Party, in true Green fashion Natalie Bennett is following Caroline Lucas' lead in standing down as party leader once her term is up later this year. So who will lead the Greens through this new realignment, and how they will handle it on into the 2020 general election, is unknown.

But the challenge ahead of the three leaders of Britain's main progressive parties is clear: to stop the Conservatives winning their way to back-to-back governments. Aligning in support of some core common policies is a start.

The next step is to commit to the kind of cooperation on various campaigns and causes that can foster the good will between parties. That mutual respect will be needed to build a real electoral alliance, that stands together behind a limited set of core ideals in opposition to conservatism.

Progressives have a Senedd majority, but it counts for little when politics is reduced to partisan games and point-scoring

The Senedd, home of the National Assembly for Wales. Photograph: Senedd from Pixabay (License) (Cropped)

Following an election that left Labour one seat short of a majority, the Senedd sat down to vote in a new First Minister. A majority of votes was needed to appoint the new head of Wales' government, who was expected to be Labour leader, and current First Minister, Carwyn Jones.

Instead, the Senedd was left in deadlock, 29 votes to 29 (BBC, 2016). Apparently disliking the attitude of the Labour leadership, Plaid Cymru put forward their own leader, Leanne Wood, for the post - a nomination that received the backing of both the Conservatives and the newly beseated UKIP.

It was a move that almost produced the upset of Leanne Wood, as leader of a party with just 11 seats of 60 in the Senedd, being nominated to the post of First Minister. Wood's rise on the back of Tory and UKIP support was stopped by, the now sole, Liberal Democrat Assembly Member Kirsty Williams.

Williams said she opposed the 'ragtag coalition' that included UKIP, and nominated Carwyn Jones because Labour where the only party given something approaching a governing mandate by the people (Williams, 2016).

Another vote, to try and break the deadlock, will take place next week, with negotiations ongoing in the mean time between Plaid Cymru and the Labour Party. However, the two parties have long been known to have a difficult relationship, seen not least in Plaid voting against a public health bill because a Labour minister had insulted them.

The decision was criticised by health unions, who called on the assembly to stop playing games with the nation's health (BBC, 2016{3}). Whether because of bad blood, or Plaid seeing an advantage in Labour's obviously weak position, the Senedd has been again reduced to games. Plaid might even be tempted, as negotiations continue, to keep exploiting the situation to extract policy concessions (Servini, 2016).

That would be a dangerous move. Reducing politics to a game, to scoring points, to a language of wins, gains and losses, undermines a fundamental reality - that politics is supposed to be about representation. The 'any method so long as we win' mentality also ignores our methods always have consequences.

That is an idea that George Osborne and the rest of the Conservative establishment failed to grasp during the London Mayoral election. Osborne was quoted as saying the Tories offensive negative campaign was just the 'rough and tumble' of 'robust democracy' (Sparrow, 2016).

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to 'govern from the centre'. Without even a robust internal debate (Kuenssberg, 2016), the Conservatives attempt to bully their policy through using whatever tactics suit them and with little testing or consensus-building.

To truly govern from the centre, means having proper respect for the democratic method (Urbinati, 1994):

"...the method of pursuing a political goal through free discussion by replacing force and imposed consent with dialogue and the search for consent... a pact of civility through which citizens and groups defend and develop their ideas - their diversity - without losing the attributes of their common humanity."

In Wales, progressive parties have been handed a comprehensive majority of votes and seats. That presents an opportunity for Labour, Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats to get to work on moving Wales forward over the next five years.

But first Labour and Plaid Cymru have to get past their differences. In refinding the capacity for civility, they may find a renewed progressive political strength and will - and through cooperation achieve far more than they might with petty divisive squabbles and cheap tactical gamesmanship.

Local Elections: An alternative look Labour's election result, where it leaves them and where progressives go from here

The progressive pitch of the three parties, Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green, who may have in places tripped each other more than the Conservatives in the 2015 UK general election.

"It's a disaster", run the stories. The worst performance in half a century (Rawnsley, 2016). A disaster that, conveniently, demands that Labour change direction away from Corbynism and back toward Blairism.

The trouble with that assessment is that the context is all wrong, and so the conclusion that follows is flawed. The reality is that there are few recent historical comparisons that can be made for the present situation.

Up against an almost unbelievable barrage of negative press and critics of every stripe briefing against him, from almost every direction, the results from the local and assembly elections were, all things considered, pretty impressive for Jeremy Corbyn's Labour.

Labour are leading the executive in Wales, London and Bristol - all of which, if publicised well, could be beacons for re-legitimising the idea of Labour in government. The party also topped the national polls on 31%, ahead of the Conservatives on 30% and the Liberal Democrats, recovering to 15%.

Labour in Scotland

The only major 'blemish' in Corbyn's first major election test were the party's struggles in Scotland. But presenting the results in Scotland as part of a 'Corbyn disaster' narrative is misleading.

In Scotland - where Labour have been outflanked on the Left by the SNP, whose blend of Social Democracy and separatism has rendered Labour nearly unnecessary - Corbyn's Left-wing stance is winning, just not really to the benefit of the Labour Party itself.

They have also been outflanked on the Right by the Conservatives, who have unsurprisingly become the banner-bearers for Unionism (it did used to be literally in their name, after all). In fact, Ruth Davidson's Conservatives, who suffer for connections to the Westminster party, are now the Scottish Unionist Party in all but name.

Essentially, the debate in Scotland has moved beyond the traditional UK divisions. For a useful historical comparison you have to reach a long way back, to the separation of British and Irish politics.

The emergence of the Irish Parliamentary Party, out of what had previously been a Liberal Party stronghold, substantially weakened the party in Britain. As it grew, it limited the abililty of the Liberals to win majorities. That led to a period during which Liberals and their Irish allies, and the Conservatives and their Unionist allies, spent two decades trading turns in propped up minority governments.

While in 1906 the Liberals won a landslide majority of nearly 400 seats on nearly 50% of the vote, the emergence of the Labour Party in England squeezed them. The scales tipped decisively when the Liberals became divided, infighting, and protracted war led to a period of National governments that simply coalesced into a new Conservative majority, with Ramsay MacDonald's Labour as a weak and still growing opposition.

Labour has lost its substantial position in Scotland to the SNP, as the Liberals lost theirs in Ireland. But the lesson seems to be that infighting and splits will do far more damage than adapting to the new reality over the border.

Labour in England

The real crux of the Labour-Conservative battle is in England, where Corbyn's party topped the polls. Response to this thin victory, 31% to 30%, hasn't been especially positive. But when it comes to a general election, how do the numbers compare?

In the 2015 UK general election, in England alone, the Conservatives won 41% of the vote to Labour's 32%, for 319 and 206 seats, respectively. In 2010, Conservatives won 40% to Labour's 28%, for 298 and 191 seats. Further back, in 2005 when Labour won an outright UK majority of 403 seats, the Conservatives won 36%, matched by Labour at 36%, for 206 and 278 seats, again respectively.

Corbyn's support in England falls somewhere between the two, between triumph and disaster (Williams, 2016), between a Labour majority and a hung parliament scramble. In 2015, Liberal Democrat support collapsed and both of the two main parties benefited, though the Conservatives more so. However much Labour might have eaten into Conservative support, the Conservatives simply consumed the Lib Dems to keep themselves afloat.

For the Conservatives, everything depends upon their strength in England, particularly in the South. So when a, supposedly, weakly-led Labour wins victories in London, Bristol, and holds Southern councils like Southampton and Hastings, Conservatives should be worried, because when push comes to shove, they have no where else to turn.

It could certainly be said that Tony Blair pressed the Conservatives hardest on this weakness. Blair managed to match the Conservatives for votes in England, while Brown and Miliband did not. And Blair beat them in a general election, while Brown and Miliband did not. However, Blair also had the advantage of facing a weak and disorganised Conservative Party, that Brown and Miliband never did.

In its brightest days, and also the Conservatives darkest, Blair's Labour won 44% of the vote in England to the Conservatives 34%, taking 329 seats to 165 - against weak and disorganised opponents, struggling everywhere except their South and East heartland, and versus weak third party opposition.

Labour's 400+ seat majority under Blair included some 80 seats in Scotland and Wales. A boundary review in Scotland reduced the number of seats, mostly Labour, in Scotland by thirteen. Heading into 2005, the heights of 419 and 413 seats were reduced to 403. 56 seats in Scotland was now approximately 46. And in Wales, where Labour won 34 seats in 1997, support has reduced over time to 30, to 26, to 25.

For all praise for his achievement of eating into Conservative support in England, by even 2005, if Blair's Labour had not been able to rely on Scotland, its majority would have evaporated. The party, even under Blair, would have been reduced to 315 seats - even including 30 seats in Wales - and the party would have had to turn to around 50 Lib Dems in order to govern.

For two elections, 1997 and 2001, Labour were able to win majorities in England, but they almost immediately fell back into large minorities of support as their primary opponents recovered and stronger third parties began to challenge. Labour's brief four years of winning majorities in England came against weak opponents in London, the West and East Midlands, in the North, Yorkshire and Humberside, and by encroaching on the Conservative heartlands where they could.

And in that fact, the Conservatives can usually take comfort in Labour's own weakness in England by comparison. Numbers past past and present make clear that there is a well of potential Conservative support in England, in most parts of the country, that can put the party over the top - even in supposed Labour territory.

Almost decisive since 1997 has been the Conservatives incursion into Labour territory. Between 1997 and 2010 there have been 15 seats in the North West, 10 in Yorkshire, 20 in London, 15 seats and 20 seats in the East and West Midlands respectively which saw a complete reversal of positions - 80 of the 329 won in England in 1997.

Before talking of taking seats from the Conservatives in the South East, in a New Labour master stroke, figuring out how Labour might win its own backyard seems like more of a priority. Ed Miliband won maybe 10 of these seats in 2015, only to lose several others from the same regions back to the Conservatives - with numbers propped up by the Lib Dem collapse.

Reality Check

Harold Wilson, at his peak, only won 285 seats in England to 216 for the Conservatives. Without Scotland, even the headline victory of Wilson's Labour would have been reduced to a majority of just 2 seats. Against the historical background, Blair's approximate, and astonishing, 140 gains in England in 1997 - lifting Labour from around 190 to 330 - looks more the result of extraordinary circumstances than the profits of a particular campaign.

Labour's support has, since it broke out from being the trade unionist representative ally of the Liberals, always been a coalition of fellow travellers - from moderate reformers who might have been liberals in other times, through trade unionists and the industrial working classes the party claimed to represent. In 1997, Blair tried to expand that alliance into the affluent South and East with a pitch to swing voters that did not produce lasting gains and alienated the party's core in the process (Mason, 2015; Mason 2016).

At the moment, Corbyn is maybe only on par with Brown or Miliband in terms of support across England and seems intent on making gains back mainly in areas Labour has lost ground. Without some new political earthquake discrediting the Conservative Party and creating an opportunity to delve into the South East and pitch social justice - smotheringly Conservative in its representation as the South East is, with the second place party now usually UKIP, who are even more conservative -  the best case scenario for the Labour Party in England would seem to be 250 to 280 seats, supported by maybe 25 in Wales.

With a Britain-wide best case for Labour, for now, of 275 to 305 seats - short of finding a way of forcing Britain's provinces to readopt the old two-party politics - the Left, and Labour in particular, has to start taking the prospect of electoral alliances seriously. Even a convenient Blairite rebrand isn't likely to break through the Southern attachment to conservatism without losing ground of its own elsewhere.

There are, however, more than 30 seats - largely in the South - where the Liberal Democrats remain the main opposition to the Conservatives. And the Green Party took 4 second places and around 20 third places in 2015. And in these and many other places, the parties will have tripped each other up to the benefit of the Conservatives.

Where Labour has less chance of winning, they should be actively interested in ensuring that the Conservatives have a difficult time of it too. This means accepting that Green environmentalism and Lib Dem civil liberties pitches will cut deeper amongst some current Conservative voters than what Labour might pitch - all the while building the possibility of forming a working, progressive government later.

Despite the barrage of negative press, Jeremy Corbyn's Labour has shown it can win and has secured control of executive positions that will legitimise it as a party of government. But when 2020 rolls around, for reasons far beyond Corbyn's fault or control, that may not be enough. If an alliance with the SNP remains taboo in England, a progressive majority might still be possible without them. But it will probably require progressives of different stripes working together to get there.

Local Elections: Conservatism is far from dominant in a divided Britain, but people still await an alternative

Yesterday saw local council elections across England and assembly elections in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, that emphasised how varied the politics of Britain's provinces is becoming.

With so many pressures, on so many parties, from so many directions, the local and assembly elections were always going to be a fraught and complicated affair. As it happens, the changes forced were in small increments and, in broad context, left matters largely as they were (Kuenssberg, 2016).

But the biggest story of the night is really the way in which politics has taken on different shapes in different parts of Britain. In its different provinces, politics is being reshaped to fit provincial rather than British themes (Mason, 2016; Mason, 2015). Old divisions are being broken down, new ones are springing up and some groups are adapting while others are not.

The broad picture showed the Labour Party largely hanging on, with inconvenient losses matched by surprising gains and holds. However Corbyn still finds himself wrestling with the internal contradictions left to him by previous leaders, who failed to solve the fundamental disconnect between the party and its supporters. The Conservatives too managed to broadly hang on and even made the publicity friendly gain of becoming the official opposition to the SNP in the Scottish Parliament.

The Liberal Democrat slump also seemed to have hit bottom, with the party's vote mostly stabilising at about 8%. Yet there were also signs of life, with some gains won on the back of astounding swings of around 10-15% - an increase in supporters in the thousands - that will provide some useful fuel for their #LibDemFightback narrative.

UKIP's night was largely devoted to establishing themselves, securing their bridgeheads rather than breaking new ground. Their results matched 2015 and followed suit by again paying off in second places, and this time with both council seats and seats in Wales' Senedd.

Yet this broad, federal, party picture hides a much more complicated set of movements beneath the surface.

The results in Scotland redrew political lines to reflect the new reality of debate in the country. The SNP, now without a majority but still in position for a strong minority government, have set out Scottish separatism as the movement with the momentum. The Conservatives are the opposition, and Unionism is their opposing force.

In that debate, other issues are being sidelined and with them the other parties. Labour, who are really struggling to distinguish themselves in the separatism-unionism debate, look the most lost. The social democratic Centre-Left have seemingly rallied around the SNP, while the those following the Unionist cause have unsurprisingly gathered about the Conservatives. The principled opposition to the SNP approach to governing, on issues of civil liberties and the environment, has gathered around the Greens and the Lib Dems. That doesn't leave much room for the Labour Party.

The Liberal Democrats night in Scotland lays out their own particularly strange journey. While across Scotland their support seemed to settle to the national average of around 8%, in particular constituencies they won huge victories, even against the SNP, with 15% wings bringing thousands of voters. That was enough to give Will Rennie a constituency seat with a 3500 vote majority in North East Fife, along with gaining Edinburgh Western.

By contrast with Scotland, the election in Wales almost felt like a delayed continuation from the 2015 general election. The Lib Dem vote levelled out at around the 8% margin seen elsewhere, and in Wales, last year, but in this situation that meant Lib Dem seat losses suited to the 2015 slaughter. And yet, party leader Kirsty Williams won her constituency with a 10% swing to increase her majority by thousands of votes.

Meanwhile UKIP gained representation in Wales through the regional list vote, taking seats at the expense of the Conservatives and the Lib Dems, thanks to 13% of the vote gained mostly at the expense of Labour. That number reflected their Britain-wide 2015 performance, and seemed to confirm the Senedd election as almost a rebalancing - representation adjusting to match their performance.

In the local council elections in England, Labour lost seats but - again - largely held their ground. The Lib Dems showed more surprising resilience, taking a projected 15% of the national vote share and even an overall gain of more than forty council seats and control of a council. As in Wales, UKIP appear to be rebalancing, losing votes but claiming some council seats, in seeming redress from a year ago. The Conservatives lost almost fifty seats and control of a council, but for a sitting government the results are as undramatic as could be hoped.

That stands in contrast to London. After eight years of Boris Johnson, with Labour struggling, the Conservatives must have thought that this was a clear cut opportunity. Yet it was Sadiq Khan's campaign that has had all the momentum, despite the dirty tricks and negative campaigning of the Conservatives - run not only by Khan's opponent Zac Goldsmith, but endorsed from on high by Conservative leadership (Hattenstone, 2016).

As the dust settled, Sadiq Khan had become the new Mayor of London and Labour hold a commanding position in the London Assembly. Presented as the candidate representing a diverse and inclusive London, his election confirms the stark contrast between the politics of London and the Conservative majority in Southern England won in May 2015.

The sum of these results is to say that Conservatism is far from dominant in the UK because Britain is, beyond the simplistic divisions of Westminster majorities, composed of a number of different provinces over which Conservatives do not hold sway. London is a progressive beacon in the conservative South. Scotland is dominated by a fundamental question of its identity, while Wales seems to be struggling to find its own in a post-industrial world. Across the North, Labour's former heartlands, that post-industrial world has left Labour increasingly locked in a struggle with UKIP for its soul.

The results show conservatism to be an ideology ruling others from outside, at arms reach. But they also suggest that people are still waiting for a real and clear alternative to be put forward - and for someone to stand behind it. At the moment, progressives do not have a clear alternative pitch to offer and they are too divided into factions, and parties seemingly incapable of cooperating.

There are sparks here and there that show a pitch might be formulated in time for the 2020 general election. Support for Proportional representation is widening. There is growing acknowledgement of the need to tackle the housing crisis, including the rental sector. Welfare, inequality, austerity, basic income - these are all showing up on the public radar.

The future of these ideas, of turning them into policies, will require progressives to recognise the necessity for an alliance backing a clear positive alternative. An alliance internally within Labour, an alliance between Labour and other parties, an alliance between different parties in different provinces. Britain is divided, but progressives can do what conservatives can't and unite it behind a common cause.

Local Elections: What can local government do about the housing crisis?

Government's 'Right-to-Buy' policy is a parasite feeding itself on social housing stock, another drain on the scarce resources at the disposal of local government to protect the public welfare of their communities.

Few things symbolise the UK's problems like the housing crisis. The escalating price of housing has plagued Britain for more than a decade, and has roots even deeper than the housing bubble that contributed to the 2008 Financial Crisis.

Beveridge, who had answers for so many other issues of social welfare, struggled to address the complications and implications of the housing sector (Birch, 2012). The housing benefit bill, his stop solution gap, has only escalated.

The housing crisis will be a key issue in this week's local and assembly elections. Studies released suggest confusion over the nature of the crisis, with a misplaced belief that immigrants are somehow responsible for the housing shortages and rising prices (Tigar, 2016) - rather than the more complicated reality behind the broader issue of cost living.

But there are fewer doubts about the impact of the crisis. The overwhelming majority, in a society that places emphasis on home ownership, have been disenfranchised (Helm & Doward, 2016), being effectively priced out of ever taking part. More division and social strife are not going to solve that problem.

The housing crisis, beneath the murky layer of divisive negative politics (Oborne, 2016), has dominated the London Assembly debate. As expected, that has led to candidates making grand promises and trying to find ways to work around Westminster-imposed austerity.

For instance Caroline Pidgeon, the Liberal Democrat candidate for Mayor of London, has proposed using the Olympic levy to fund the building of 50,000 homes under direct Mayor's office supervision (Hill, 2016) - to be council houses kept safe from the government's social housing draining Rent-to-Buy policy.

A similar pattern has emerged in Scotland. Devolved control over taxation is being taken as an opportunity to differentiate the country from Westminster government policy.

The opposition Labour and Lib Dems have both proposed to use new tax powers to raise tax, by a penny in the pound, to increase education funding - in stark differentiation from the cuts policy of the Westminster government. This follows into housing.

The Liberal Democrats have pledged 50,000 new homes for Scotland, with four fifths being for social rent (BBC, 2016), while Labour have pledged 60,000, with three quarters to be rented out by councils, housing associations and co-operatives (BBC, 2016{2}).

Increasing social housing stock is definitely a good idea, not least for the social security it offers. It is also one of the few ways that has been shown to help in keeping the housing benefit budget under some semblance of control (Johnson, 2015).

So far government aims to encourage home building has stalled in private hands, regardless of policy (Wright, 2016). So the question remains if these devolved institutions will have more luck than Westminster in getting developers to, effectively, act against their own interests and increase the housing supply.

That is a particularly tough ask when councils have been dealt an even shorter leash than other devolved bodies. While some powers have been handed over for various areas, the capacity to fund them has been decreased and the level to which democratic authority extends is being curtailed.

From alterations to local business rates or the administration of schools being made centrally at Westminster and imposed on local bodies (Butler, 2016; Cook, 2016), to responsibility for social care being added to the jobs of protecting front line services even as council funding is being dramatically slashed (Wintour, 2016; Oliver, 2015), local bodies are being handed new responsibilities and poor funding hand in hand.

In the face of these restrictions, how much can councils really do to help ease the housing crisis?

Well, elsewhere in Europe, municipal governments are getting organised - building horizontal alliances with other councils, pooling funds and looking for innovative solutions during times that have imposed thrift on an entire continent (Zechner & Hansen, 2016).

In Spain, Barcelona En Comu have been leading a municipalism movement that has seen it working with local citizens and other cities to overcome the hindrance of austerity. The movement, of whom Mayor Ada Colau is a member, has found innovative and resourceful solutions to increase social housing availability in the city (Rodriguez, 2016).

Westminster's support for local government has been sporadic and erratic (Wainright, 2016). To fill the gaps left in budgets, local government has to look to build new kinds of partnerships. And a spirit of cooperation will have to be a part of that.

Regardless of who wins where, all councillors and assembly members will have to be willing to work across party boundaries, and even across local government boundaries. To overcome the challenges ahead, local government needs elected figures with constructive voices who are prepared to cooperate and build alliances across the usual borderlines and divisions, in order to protect vital services and the welfare of their communities.