As Theresa May triggers Article 50 this week, progressives must begin forging new path to protect cherished values post-EU

This week will see Theresa May trigger Article 50 and the negotiations will begin to part Britain from the European Union. With this just over the horizon, there was another outpouring of support for the European Union on its 60th anniversary on Saturday (BBC, 2017; BBC, 2017{2}).

Even now the question has been settled by Act of Parliament (Asthana et al, 2017), there remains understandable opposition. Only a third of voters chose to support leaving the EU - contrary to the 52% claims of the 'Brexit Majority', that opponents of Brexit are have apparently had the last word on the matter.

However, while opposition, resistance and mourning will continue, there also needs to be a concerted effort and determined focus on building the new friendships, alliances and institutions that will ensure cherished values in the years to come.

The first frontier for this will be the city. As citizens of neighbourhoods and municipalities there is a whole new path, a local front, on which to work for progressive values to play a vital role in everyday lives.

In the United States, the Republican control of Federal institutions - the Presidency, the Supreme Court and both the Senate and the House in Congresses, however ineffective its leaders may be in using it (Revesz, 2017) - people have found in the city a frontier for effective opposition.

With the Dakota Access Pipeline having been green-lit again, opponents in a number of American cities have sought a new approach. Working with local government, they have sought to take public money out of the hands of the banks and financial institutions that back the pipeline.

The first divestment success has been won in Seattle, where community pressure led to the city announcing it would pull its money from the DAPL backing bank Wells Fargo (Gabriel Ware & Trimarco, 2017). Other cities have sought to follow their example - under the banner of public money being used only with more socially conscious partners (Tobias, 2017).

There is hope to be taken in the contrast that can be seen between the ineffectiveness, U-turns and deadlocks of central governments from the US to the UK and Spain, and the changes, such as divestment, that can be won at the municipal level.

In Barcelona, at the beating heart of the municipalist movement, Ada Colau was elected to the role of Mayor two years ago (Burgen, 2015) and governs the city with the support of just 11 of 41 members of the city council, in the form of the citizen's movement Barcelona En Comu.

And yet. The impact of the movement has been huge, not least in terms of the visibility that its open, engaged and transparent approach. For instance, the city has cut the pay of elected officials and freed up some $200,000 to support a social projects fund (Russell & Reyes, 2017).

Tackling housing issues was at the top of the list of things to address for Colau when she took office, as a former housing activist. The first issue they took on was empty homes. Right from the start, there were fines for holding properties empty in the city for a long period of time (Kassam, 2015).

The first step was to start securing these empty properties for social housing at a social rent - a project that in the first year freed up hundreds of homes (Rodriguez, 2016). It was accompanied by subsidies for those who are falling behind on their rent (Kassam, 2015), as part of the fight against eviction and homelessness.

More fines, and larger, were around the corner for long term abusers who had failed to respond to smaller fines the year before (Badcock, 2016). Yet there is also a carrot to go with the stick, as those willing to make empty properties available for low rents are offered subsidies on renovation and property tax rebates.

The second is tackling the negative impact of tourism in Barcelona, particularly on housing. In particular, AirBnB has been targeted by the city council for working around the city's tourist license approach to curbing the huge number of tourists (The Economist, 2016).

Reestablishing municipal control of important local services has also been a feature of Colau and Barcelona En Comu's time in office. In order to tackle costs, both a municipal funeral company and a municipal water company have been voted through (BComu Global, 2016; BComu Global, 2016{2}).

And Barcelona En Comu has been active on the international stage too. Working with other cities and local governments horizontally (Zechner & Hansen, 2016), they've been at the heart of organising on a range of issues from support for refugees and fighting TTIP.

This is of particular significance to those mourning the impending loss of EU membership. Over the past few years, continent wide city forums have become more prominent. From sharing best practice, to partnering up to take on big challenges together, municipal government is showing just how much of an impact it can have.

There are sparks of municipalism springing up around Britain too. In Preston, in face of the council's funding being cut in half, councillors have been trying to find ways to make the city more self-sufficient (Sheffield, 2017). The start of that has been to redirect procurement through local businesses - doubling its investment in local businesses over three years - to boost the local economy.

And in 2015, Bristol City Council established 'Bristol Energy' as a municipal energy company to fight unfair energy prices (Melville, 2016) - with assistance from the EU's European Local ENergy Assistance (ELENA).

Last year's local council elections showed that in Britain, even under the dark cloud that seems to hover over progressive movements at the moment, winning big elections is still possible on the ground, in local government - even in the days of the "unelectable" Jeremy Corbyn.

Sadiq Khan became Mayor of London, despite the hostile campaign of Zac Goldsmith; and Labour won three other Mayoral elections in Bristol, Liverpool and Salford. Meanwhile the Lib Dems made the most gains of any party.

With more cities getting devolution deals and brand new mayors come the summer, there are not just more chances for progressive parties, but for progressive local action by and for citizens.

In Greater Manchester, the favourite, Labour's Andy Burnham, has already made a number of significant promises that could make a big difference at the municipal level, including longer term security of tenure for renters, longer term security of funding for the community and voluntary sector and paying off student loans for graduates who stay and work in the Greater Manchester NHS (GMCVO Hustings, 2017; Weston, 2017).

But there is more to be done. For instance, an experiment with participatory budgeting in Madrid, were funds were earmarked for local projects decided by online polling, caught some attention in Greater Manchester were the People's Plan was formed, with journalist Paul Mason expressing his support for the idea (Mason, 2016).

What all of this reminds us is that real political and social change starts in your own community, in your own municipality. Whether trying to fix local services or build an international movement, the starting point is your own neighbourhood.

On health, housing, energy - on any of the chief issues - action can be taken at the local level that makes a tangible difference. With Brexit, one path towards cooperation is closing. But others are open and we must turn out attention towards getting the most out of them.

Relief as Far Right falls short in Dutch election, but there's no future in that feeling: Progressives need reasons for optimism

Elections to the Dutch House of Representatives, seated at the Binnenhof, saw the Far-Right fall short of power. Photograph: Binnenhof from Pixabay (License) (Cropped)

The "Wrong Kind of Populism" had been defeated claimed Mark Rutte, leader of the governing liberal conservative VVD (BBC, 2017). Rutte celebrated the defeat of Geert Wilders and his Far-Right PVV, despite his own party's loss of 8 seats, and called the Netherlands the breakwater of the populist tide.

Despite Rutte's good cheer, the results will bring progressives relief but little optimism. Yes, the Far-Right was prevented from claiming a victory, but the debate has already been affected by them. Policy has lurched ever more into their prime, exclusionary, territory (Henley, 2017).

It was also a defeat of the Far-Right that will only be finalised when a broad spectrum of parties are rallied together into an effective coalition - that will have to include perhaps everyone from staunch conservatives to the Left-Greens.

That pattern that has been followed everywhere that a far-right challenge has emerged. The results have not been good. Look, for example, at the Brexit referendum and the US Presidential Election.

The Remain campaign needed support from a broad spectrum if it was to fend off the Leave challenge, but it did little to inspire the radical Left to get on board - in fact there were Left Exit groups. In the US, Hillary Clinton fell short in the face of the same challenge. In both cases, working class men walked away from the Left and the Centre in disillusionment.

As the nationalist tide rises, it pressures the Left to rally behind the uniting of all the mainstream forces. And, further, to accept some bad policies to head off worse. The result has been confusion and despondency about alliances and policies that leave a bad taste in progressive mouths.

It was the kind problem that came between the Remain Camp, and Hillary Clinton, and the Left. How could the Left, radicals, progressives, stand behind parties and institutions that backed the neoliberalism that had helped create the inequality and austerity that had fostered the Far-Right?

Such alliances are not a realistic basis for building a progressive future. The Left, and even the Centre, have conceded too much to Conservatives in the scramble to fend off the extreme Right - accepting too much of the Right-Wing narrative, letting politics be defined by it.

The existential threat that the far-right poses must, however, be faced and opposed by radicals and moderates alike. And if the need for opposition inspires a new period of cooperation and collaboration in Western politics, then all the better. In bitterly partisan times, it would be refreshing to step outside the bounds of narrow party interest.

But these broad coalitions must be formed on the basis of inclusion and not concession. They must form an open dialogue and take representation seriously: too many people have been left feeling excluded and ignored.

It is doesn't feel good to cheer when the Far-Right doesn't win. It feels more like the relieved sigh of the battle-hardened, weary and despondent, at keeping Rome standing just one more day. We need something more. Hope and idealism. We need inclusive alliances that aspire to something better.

May's Brexit: An unnecessary conflict between Executive and Parliamentary authority in Britain

At every turn, Theresa May has antagonised Parliament and picked fights unnecessary fights.

Today Theresa May has her authority in the Commons put to the test. So far as Prime Minister she has drawn some very stark lines, creating some poorly considered battles and today's vote seems amongst the least necessary.

The PM made her Brexit Bill intentions pretty clear. She wanted a simple bill, passed quickly. No flourishes, just a straight forward rubber stamping from Parliament to authorise her to trigger the UK's biggest constitutional change in lifetimes.

Considering how May ignored and excluded Parliament rather than engaging from the beginning, the rubber stamp should never have seemed likely to come easily. In fact her determination to keep this to executive authority alone has been almost obsessive.

From the beginning, May has tried to portray the referendum as giving her a personal mandate to wield reserve powers - despite the referendum never being a legally binding vote, whether or not you accept its result as a guide for future policy. That is particularly astounding When you consider that May is trying to change the constitution by executive power alone.

When this position, of cutting Parliament out of the process, was challenged, May's Government went to court - ostensibly to legally exclude Parliament. When the judges faced harassment and media attacks, the response from May's Cabinet - which should have been standing up for judicial independence - was at first absent and then poor.

Then, the Lords sought, in the form of amendments to the court-ordered Brexit Bill, to guarantee the UK's commitment to protecting EU citizens currently resident in the UK and to ensure that the Commons plays a definite role in ratifying any Brexit deal. The PM's response was almost ludicrous.

First she took to the press to virtually order the Lords to comply with her narrow aims on the bill. May then took the unusual and aggressive step of making herself personally present in the Lords to watch over the debate.

To do so, she sat on the steps of throne, a privilege afforded to her as a member of the Privy Council - the Queen's council of advisors. That knowledge expresses a lot about the nature of the dispute over how Brexit is proceeding: the Prime Minister turning to executive authority and reserve powers and privileges to bully and exclude Parliament.

The most obvious question is: why? Why bother? In her quest to treat the referendum as a personal mandate, May seems determined to undermine every other branch of government. She is picking fights in every direction.

Look at her initial approach to negotiating with the EU. She ignored the EU's position - that negotiations would only start when Article 50 was officially triggered and that the EU member states would negotiate collectively - and set off to try and negotiate with each member directly.

Theresa May seems determined to antagonise everyone and everything around her, drawing lines and making fights out of what should be collaborations. And that speaks volumes about the way the Conservatives are governing Britain.

The Budget: Hammond's budget all about tweaks - spending headlines mostly in the millions rather than the billions

Philip Hammond delivered his first budget today. Photograph: NATO Summit Wales 2014 by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (License) (Cropped)

Philip Hammond looked relaxed, even made jokes, as he delivered his first - and apparently Britain's last - Spring Budget. The Chancellor's budget was one tweaks, all framed as adjustments to increase fairness. He began by summarising current economic trends, noting the highest number of women in employment ever. Growth projections are up slightly, but a projected drop in borrowing is only short term.

The long term economic plan of his predecessor George Osborne, to eliminate the deficit and produce a surplus to whittle away the national debt, was much delayed. Its aims where pushed back again by Hammond today. The promised fiscal surplus now not likely be seen until a long way into the 2020s - at least.

As for spending, the numbers he was pitching were all notably in the millions rather than the billions. £200 million for school repairs. £100 million for A&Es. A few hundred million for devolved administrations. £700m for councils to tackle urban congestion. The one exception appeared to £2 billion for Social Care - yet that was immediately qualified as being spread over three years.

Those spending commitments were companied by big companies seeing Corporation Tax fall again, as planned, to 17%. Perhaps as a counter to the criticism Conservatives have faced for their tax cuts for those at the top end, Hammond did however announce a halving of Director-shareholders' tax-free dividend allowance - noting it as a very generous tax break for investors.

For income taxes and wages that affect the overwhelming majority of people, the Personal Income Tax Allowance and the National Living Wage will both increase, to £11,500 and £7.50 respectively. The Universal Credit taper rate will also be reduced from 65% to 63% for earnings over allowances. Yet the overall positive impact of these is likely to be slim.

It is not surprising then that Jeremy Corbyn attacked the Chancellor's budget as one of "utter complacency". Corbyn painted a picture of people in precarious work - unsure of where they'll find work or what money they may make tomorrow, queueing at food banks and one of a million working households getting housing benefit because working pay doesn't cover the rent - for whom there were few measures.

The Labour leader expressed anger that public servants have still seen no pay rise in seven years, due to the Government's freeze on pay, and that no funding security has been given to the NHS despite there being an obvious crisis, despite the fact that corporations are still going to get their year on year tax cut.

The Chancellor's budget has offered only a range of small spending increases, in a very concise series of measures, and it is hard to see them as sufficient. Analysts, such as Kamal Ahmed at the BBC, have characterised the budget as representing 'pain delayed' - taking advantage of the short term boost that Government finances are experiencing this year.

This is not the start of a public investment led drive to build a path out of austerity. With the debt and deficit still hanging heavily over Britain, these feel like stop-gap measures to assuage certain political pressures in the present, and to ease the way to the further austerity that waits ahead.

Budget Preview: Will Hammond act to end Conservative pattern of money being redistributed away from most vulnerable?

With the National Debt is still rising, will the Chancellor be able or willing to find some money to invest in essential services? Photograph: Pound Coins from Pixabay (License) (Cropped)

Philip Hammond faces his first budget as Chancellor on Wednesday and he has a lot of pressure to handle. The overall Conservative promise to alleviate the country's debt is still a long way from started and there are spending decisions that Hammond will find it difficult to avoid addressing.

Funding plans for Schools, Social Care and Personal Independence Payments (PIPs) all indicate a troubling pattern of money being redistributed away from the poorest and most vulnerable areas that need it most - not an image that Theresa May, if she is to keep her promise of a Britain that works for everyone, will want to reinforce.

Schools, even those under financial pressure, face up to 3% in budget cuts. Social Care has seen billions cut from the system. And, Theresa May's government is trying to wriggle out of coughing up more money to cover a court-ordered expansion of the PIPs welfare programme.

How the Chancellor addresses these concerns is important. He has already done the press rounds in the past week to assert there will be no big spending and rolled out, the now standard Tory line, that problems are less the result of low funding and more of not following 'best practice' (BBC, 2017). But will that line be maintained through Wednesday?

On Schools, Hammond faces a situation that will be hard to explain away. The government announced plans for a new funding formula in December, that came with the less than reassuring 'assurance' that no school would lose out by more than 3% (Weale, 2016).

That is hardly going to offer succour to schools in poorer areas. As Andy Burnham (Bean, 2017), Labour nominee for Mayor of Greater Manchester, asked the Prime Minister in the Commons: how does the Prime Minister expect to get more working class children to university by cutting schools funding across the North West?

Meanwhile, Social Care has become the particular Tory baggage with which to pummel the government. With £4.6 billion in cuts since 2010 and shortfall predicted (Full Fact, 2016), it is about the hardest area for the government to argue that funding cuts don't make a difference.

In fact, the previous Chancellor George Osborne did begin to respond - but only with an, at best modest, increase in funding, that was planned to come in with this budget, but would only raise around £200 million nationally (Merrick, 2016; BBC, 2016).

The plan also does not actually involve a boost in cash from the government itself, but rather put it onto local councils to raise more in tax - up to 2% extra. However, the one, and particular poignant, flaw in this approach is that wealthier areas will be able to raise more for themselves than the poorest and most vulnerable who need it most.

Across Schools and Social Care, there is a very clear pattern emerging of money being withdrawn from where it is needed most to make tax savings for those from wealthier areas - simply, regressive economics.

That pattern is reinforced in the government's insistence upon not spending the extra £3.7 billion that an expansion of Personal Independence Payments, ordered by the courts, would call for across four years (BBC, 2017{2}) - less than a billion a year to take care of people primarily with mental health problems.

An aide to Theresa May was heavily criticised for his callous remark that funding need to kept to only the "really disabled" (BBC, 2017{3}) - for which he later apologised - but it summed up the Conservative attitude.

Under Conservative government, the services people depend upon in their everyday lives are being squeezed. Money is being siphoned out programmes that serve the most vulnerable and leaving them to find ways to fend for themselves - whether they're young, old or disabled.

There are rumours that the Chancellor will respond with a little more money than is currently planned (Kuenssberg, 2017). However, a lot more investment is needed to convince anyone that the government is moved by a real comprehension of the difficulties people actually face when the public services they rely on are disappearing.