Tsipras has his governing mandate, but weariness and disaffection dominate the mood and demand a positive response

Alexis Tsipras has been returned to power in Greece. Photograph: Alexis Tsipras - Caricature, by Donkey Hotey (License) (Cropped)

Once again, reality has made a fool of the polls. Against all of the indications pointing to a tight and inconclusive contest, Alexis Tsipras and Syriza have once again secured the position as the largest party at the elections in Greece (Smith & Wearden, 2015).

For Syriza though, it won't be all smiles and celebrations. The election also showed the clear limits of Tsipras' style of popular radical democracy. Voter turnout has waned drastically, with people worn thin by crisis after crisis and exhausted by Victory or Death stand-offs with creditors.

Alexis Tsipras resignation, back in August, was a gambit that triggered an election, with the purpose of shoring up his parliamentary support (Smith, 2015) - and possibly in acknowledgement of public weariness. His party's numbers in parliament had been irreparably dented by the rebellion of the Left Platform faction over the signing, by the Syriza leader, of the bailout terms negotiated with the European Union (Henley & Traynor, 2015).

In the run up to the election, the power of Tsipras' populist approach and personal appeal, for which Tsipras has been criticised (Patrikarakos, 2015), appeared to be on the wane (Smith, 2015{2}) - in line with the general disaffection. Yet on election day, Tsipras and Syriza proved resilient. In that sense, his gambit was successful.

Victory gives to Tsipras the task of building a majority coalition. At one stage, Syriza's falling popularity made it necessary to float the possibility of a coalition with Pasok and To Potami - the establishment social democratic and social liberal parties, respectively - in a centre-left and pro-European alliance (Ruparel, 2015).

In the end, though, the scale of the victory matched that of January and will allow Tsipras to rebuild his coalition with ANEL (BBC, 2015). But this time, he will be able do so without the most rebellious of the factions within his own party. That group, the Left Platform, had split away to form up under their own banner as Popular Unity. They stood against Syriza in the election, only to lose every single one of their seats, falling beneath the parliamentary representation threshold (Nardelli, 2015).

Few of Syriza's other opponents fared much better (Malkoutzis, 2015). New Democracy, under their acting leader Vangelis Meimarakis, could not, in the end, close the gap to Syriza and finished over seven points adrift. No other party managed to collect more than 7% of the vote. When it came down to it, it did not seem to be that Tsipras had triumphed, so much as he had found himself as the last man standing.

Being the only credible option left has given the Syriza leader a strong position that he will need, as the task facing the victor doesn't offer much in the way of joy (Elliott, 2015). The second term Prime Minister now has implement the austerian conditions of the bailout agreement and, importantly, negotiate for debt relief - without which the country will plunge back into chaos.

Tsipras will also need his strong parliamentary position because the biggest winner of the night was not Syriza. With voter turnout down to just 56%, the mood in Greece is now clearly dominated by disaffection and weariness. Despite his emphatic victory, Tsipras will have to lead his Syriza government without the kind of popular public mandate he had enjoyed for the first half of 2015.

Until now, Tsipras has tried to follow a radical democratic course in which he aimed, it seemed, to use the popular mobilisation of the people as a powerful political bargaining chip. Yet Syriza's victories with this strategy were limited and, in the case of the OXI referendum vote, became little more than a pyrrhic demonstration of dissent in the act of compliance.

With the people clearly tired from the strain of the crisis and weary and frustrated by pyrrhic acts of dissent and defiance, Tsipras and Syriza - at least for the moment -  have exhausted their popular political capital. That fatigue will limit the hands that Tsipras will be able to play in his game of political poker with the European austerian establishment.

Tsipras idea of radicalism has long been about popular power (from Horvat, 2013).

"I believe that today 'radical' is to try to be able to take responsibility for the people, to not be afraid of that, and at the same time to maintain in the democratic road, in the democratic way. To take the power for the people and to give it back to the people."

He and his party must now, because the people are tired, instead show that they can use parliamentary power - and they must use it to restore the people's belief. Their disaffection and weariness need to be healed with hope and opportunity, because, in the long run, a political crisis can be as dangerous to Greece as the economic crisis that currently engulfs it.

As the dissenting economist Yanis Varoufakis has made clear (Varoufakis, 2015; Luis Martin, 2015), the collapse of the mainstream systems into crisis does not, and has never, benefited a rational and progressive Left. Crisis breeds fear and fear feeds narrow and extreme responses.

Tsipras has his mandate, but the big challenge is still ahead. He must rebuild the economy and visibly tackle the old corrupt establishments, both in Greece and in Europe. And he must, above all, find a way to show people in Greece and Europe a positive and reforming way forward.

Tsipras' repeat use of popular votes raises questions about radical democracy and his approach of 'pragmatic radicalism'

Alexis Tsipras' radical united social front faces a challenge as breakaways found Popular Unity party ahead of September election. Photograph: Ο ΣΥΡΙΖΑ-ΕΚΜ για την παραγωγική ανασυγκρότηση της Θράκης by Joanna (License) (Cropped)

Alexis Tsipras, Prime Minister of Greece, has resigned. Having succeeded in steering a new bailout agreement through the Eurozone and then through the Greek Parliament, Tsipras has taken the decision to resign and submit his work to the electorate for their judgement (Henley, 2015).

The decision has been seen as either a canny political gamble (Smith, 2015), albeit one with good odds of paying off, or as the latest in a line of dangerous political games that exploit the system (Patrikarakos, 2015). There is, however, an alternative explanation.

From very early on, Alexis Tsipras has been clear as to what he thought was meant by being 'radical' (from Horvat, 2013).

"I believe that today 'radical' is to try to be able to take responsibility for the people, to not be afraid of that, and at the same time to maintain in the democratic road, in the democratic way. To take the power for the people and to give it back to the people."

By that barometer, what Tsipras has done is entirely consistent. His radical democratic vision is a difference of method. Compete at elections and win power, of course. But to then reform and change that power, or through the party give access to that power, to the wider public - rather than allowing them to be alienated from it by their own representatives (Gourgouris, 2013).

Radical democracy of this kind requires action. It requires a radical to engage with political games and try to win. To that end, Tsipras and Syriza did something quite remarkable: they brought together in a single party - at first a coalition, an electoral alliance - for however short a time, a broad progressive group that included communists, socialists, radicals, social democrats and even centrists.

While for many, radicalism has been epitomised best by Yanis Varoufakis' symbolic opposition to austerity and the European austerian establishment order, Tsipras' radicalism is not about the particular policies that come out of the process. The Syriza leader's version is a radicalism of methods not necessarily of ends - an assessment that has led to the unsurprising detachment of Syriza's Left-wing in advance of the autumn elections (Henley et al, 2015).

This has been particularly obvious in how Tsipras and Syriza has often had to be pragmatic about the kind of changes they can actually make (White, 2015) and begrudging, even defiant, in their compliance when forced to accept the implementation of policies with which they do not agree (Gourgouris, 2015).

The idea of radical leaders who take moderate positions and try to reform from within the system, accepting to an extent its challenges and constraints, is not a unique situation (Frankel, 2015) - Lula in Brazil, Mitterand in France, and others, have all made such attempts. But Tsipras' version brings the people along as an active participant.

In that light, Tsipras' surprise use of a referendum during bailout negotiations (Traynor, 2015), maybe should not have been so surprising. Its seemingly confusing message might then be seen as asking the people for a judgement on him and for their endorsement of his approach: a show of dissent in the act of compliance. With this coming election, Tsipras again turns to the people according to his method of keeping them engaged with the business of government.

Tsipras' version of radical democracy could in fact be called 'pragmatic radicalism'. It aims to end the alienation of the people from the business of government, not just to achieve this or that policy. Doing so requires pragmatic leaders, willing to wade into public affairs on behalf of the people, who can be realistic and accept the practical limitations of what can be achieved in that sphere - relying instead on what might be achieved in the future by having the people as an active and vigilant partner.

This alternative viewpoint comes, however, with a few words of caution.

A leader falling prey to their own popularity, or of seeing the opportunity to exploit it, is always a risk. Yanis Varoufakis, Tsipras' former right-hand, has already suggested that Tsipras is turning into a figure like France's former President Mitterand (Anthony, 2015), who led Parti Socialiste to power on a Left-wing Keynesian platform, only to, ultimately, conform to the pressures of the European economic order (Birch, 2015). There is also a fine line in democratic politics between involving the people in the form of popular rule, and in using their support, ostensibly for a personality, to strong arm the political system.

Understanding the difference will have become a crucial issue by the time Yanis Varoufakis and Pablo Iglesias, leader of Podemos, meet for a conversation hosted by The Guardian in October. By then, Tsipras will have presumably won a resounding endorsement for Syriza from the people of Greece, Jeremy Corbyn will have been elected to the Labour party leadership, and Iglesias will be on the verge of leading Podemos into December's Spanish general election.

A new Left-wing politics will be taking its first steps into the sun. When it does, it needs to be in possession of positive lessons derived from serious critique of popular radical democracy. That means understanding what keeps people engaged with the decision making that affects their lives, and, how radical parties can reform the system to empower these people in their day to day lives. But it also means being aware of the danger of potentially falling into simplistic, even personal, popularity contests.

Crisis after crisis from Greece to Calais and the Mediterranean have dented the Left's belief in a European future - but they show internationalism is needed more than ever

The agreement between Greece and its European creditors has sent ripples spreading outwards across the continent. Greece, despite its comprehensive referendum rejection of austerity, has nonetheless been forced to accept harsh terms and without debt relief will still face more trouble in the long run (Smith & Stewart, 2015).

That forced capitulation has dented the belief of the Left, and of the radical Left in particular, that it can challenge and overcome the dominant neoliberal austerian narrative. That feeling of powerlessness has clearly shaken the Left's commitment to a future in Europe - though there are those such as Caroline Lucas who are argue that reform, not surrender, of the EU is still the way forward.

In Spain, Podemos - the radical Left party seen as equivalent to Greece's Syriza - has suffered from a slump in the polls (Nixon, 2015), while the mainstream Left, across Europe, is stumbling. Even Denmark's Social Democratic government, under Helle Thorning-Schmidt, has fallen (BBC, 2015). That leaves just eight EU countries with Left-of-Centre governments (Nardelli & Arnett, 2015 - including Italy and France.

There are those who have begun to argue, in the UK, for a 'Lexit' campaign, focussing upon a Left-wing scepticism towards the European project (Jones, 2015) - on a campaign critical of 'European' austerity politics.

The trouble with that assessment is that it ignores how 'Europe', and its institutions, have simply been the vehicle, rather than the originator and pusher, of the neoliberal agenda (Chessum, 2015).

"European project has been used by capital, and national governments which represent that capital, to make the poor pay for the economic crisis, and to bring down left wing governments where they seek to prevent this. With European politics at a crossroads, it is vital that the British left focusses on the real task at hand – building a radical political alternative that can challenge these forces – and not just on building an obsession with fighting the super-structure of the European Union."

National, social and fiscal conservative governments have used their positions on the European Council - the assembled representatives of the EU member states - to roll out their austerian economic scheme (Lucas, 2015).

"With the European council made up of ministers from each member state, it often simply reflects the prevailing currents in European politics. The imposition of austerity in Greece – forcing a population to pay the price for a crisis they didn’t cause – is simply an extension of an economic logic that spans our continent."

Caroline Lucas has argued that simply lashing out the EU itself isn't enough and isn't directing the blame where it really lies (Lucas, 2015). Lucas argues that the aim should be, instead, to reform the Union.

Amongst Europe's mainstream Leftists too, there are still those who are arguing for more European integration. Pier Carlo Padoan, Italy’s finance minister, wants new movement towards EU political union to be seen as the solution to the problem of national conservative member-state governments using the EU to impose their terms on Greece (The Economist, 2015).

That 'stay and fight for reform' mentality has been also been picked up by anti-austerity Labour leadership candidate Jeremy Corbyn (Watt & Wintour, 2015). After being pressured to make his position clear on Europe, Corbyn said that Labour should work with European allies for reform.

In a Europe where the dehumanisation of migrants and refugees (Elgot & Taylor, 2015) and Far-Right rhetoric (Mudde, 2015) are on the rise, the answer cannot be to retreat. For the Left, walking away means giving up on internationalism and solidarity.

Instead, the priority must be to reclaim Europe. To reform its institutions, around internationalism and humanitarianism, and return to Europe a spirit of coordination and cooperation - an energy that desperately needs to felt, all across the continent, from Greece to Calais and the Mediterranean.

The fiscal politics of Osborne and Merkel are a retreat to the Nineteenth Century - fortunately we find Oscar Wilde there reminding us why we need to resist

In The Soul of Man, Oscar Wilde warns against impertinent attempts to tyrannise over the lives of those to whom support is extended. Photograph: Oscar Wilde via photopin (license) (cropped)

When looking at the harsh terms laid before Greece, as the conditions for the aid it needs (Traynor et al, 2015), it's hard not to draw comparisons with five years of budgets authored by George Osborne and welfare policy managed by Iain Duncan Smith.

The Osborne-Duncan Smith approach has been to make harsh cutbacks in funding for welfare and offer harsh terms of compliance for receipt of what little is available  (Stewart & Wintour, 2015; Malik, 2013). Greece has been offered much the same austerian deal by European leaders, headed by Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel.

After all of the poverty and destitution, with support shrinking under the weight of austerity cuts, there came one more indignity: conservative European leaders demanding that Greece effectively surrender its fiscal sovereignty. The proposal seems almost like something out of Victorian England, where the charitable would offer, as Oscar Wilde describes:

"a sentimental dole, usually accompanied by some impertinent attempt on the part of the sentimentalist to tyrannise over their private lives."

France's Socialist President Hollande apparently spent considerable effort trying to wrangle a deal out of Chancellor Merkel, only for the deal that emerged to be something unlikely to achieve much more than incite further resistance - as seen by #ThisIsACoup trending on twitter. Italian Premier Matteo Renzi, of the Centre-Left Partito Democratico, has also been open in his opposition to austerian attempts to further humble or humiliate Greece (Ekathimerini, 2015).

However, there were others who did not want to extend any assistance at all and appeared more favourable to Greece being shown the Eurozone door (Traynor & Rankin, 2015).

Between the UK Conservative Party, and its trimming away of social security, and the conservative leaders of the Eurozone, there seems to be more concern for a kind of narrow and ideological fiscal rectitude than for the alleviation of suffering, for either individuals or communities. A society where freedoms reduced to a framework within which we must compete for dignity. It's like the nineteenth century conservative-liberal French Premier Francois Guizot has returned.

When challenged by radicals over suffrage being restricted to a propertied elite, he responded with the words "enrichissez-vous". That is, "enrich yourselves". (Rapport, 2008). That social attitude seems to have returned, throughout Europe. It says: there is the ladder - your rights, liberties and hopes are at the top, as privileges to be attained - if you want what is enjoyed by the elites, climb and put yourself on their level.

That ideological composition can only function on an assumption that humans are equals, with failure as the exposure of a weakness of 'moral character' - all of which, of course, precludes incapacity or plain disagreement. The historical interest that the democratic Left has taken in equality of outcomes, and the liberal Left has taken in equality of opportunity, is not the result of people being equal. It is because they are not - and nor is the world in which they live.

As such, the Left has tried to resist these conservative narratives, where money comes first and limited support is only offered with conditions (Williams, 2015) - though often not resisted enough (Wintour, 2015), at least by the standards of Oscar Wilde:

"We are often told that the poor are grateful for charity. Some of them are, no doubt, but the best amongst the poor are never grateful. They are ungrateful, discontented, disobedient, and rebellious. They are quite right to be so. Charity they feel to be a ridiculously inadequate mode of partial restitution, or a sentimental dole, usually accompanied by some impertinent attempt on the part of the sentimentalist to tyrannise over their private lives. Why should they be grateful for the crumbs that fall from the rich man's table? They should be seated at the board, and are beginning to know it. As for being discontented, a man who would not be discontented with such surroundings and such a low mode of life would be a perfect brute. Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man's original virtue."

Europe and its spirit of internationalism and co-operation has been taken hostage. Austerian national conservatives have subsumed its values beneath fiscal conservatism and the 'national interest' (The Guardian, 2015).

Not only in Greece, but in the UK and the rest of Europe, the Left need to find an answer to the power of the politics of austerity. Part of that will be reclaiming Europe as a coordinator of positive, co-operative and democratic movements. The rest will be rising above rivalries to co-operate in pursuit of an alternative, one that puts the common good at the very heart of any fiscal plan - instead of leaving it on the periphery to be handled and fed by the invisible hand of the market.

The referendum in Greece is asking a deeper question about dissent: do we have to conform in order to belong?

Protesters gather on Syntagma Square in the centre of Athens. Photograph: Syntagma sqr @ 3-Jul-15 via photopin (license) (cropped)

Last week's deadlines for Greece to secure the money it needed, to pay what was due to its creditors, came and went without a deal (Traynor et al, 2015). Even with the deadlines being pushed back, and the future of the Eurozone in the balance, no agreement was found.

Without alerting his European creditors first, Prime Minister of Greece Alexis Tsipras, of the Radical Left Syriza party, subsequently announced his intention to hold a referendum on whether Greece should reject or accept the austerian terms to which Greece have been expected to conform (Traynor, 2015). It was a decision that has been treated as controversial by those who reject his party's anti-austerity agenda.

But this referendum stands for even more than whether to say no, or say yes and submit to austerity. The big question that will hang over the whole referendum concerns the right to dissent.

Syriza's election victory, on a manifesto that promised an end to austerity has already been opposed by Europe's economically conservative elite (Lapavitsas, 2015). Pressure has again now been exerted by them to ensure a result favourable to their priorities at the referendum (BBC, 2015).

This struggle between Greece and its creditors - between their conflicting ideological aims - forces us to ask whether, in order to belong and take part, must we always toe the same narrow line as everybody else, or do we have the right to disagree and yet remain?

There is a strong feeling on the Left think that, as far as the Right are concerned, the answer they're receiving is no. Voices on the Left have criticised Eurozone policy towards Greece as an ideological crusade designed to inflict humiliation upon a country for deviating from, and posing a threat to, a particular political script (Williams, 2015). The Left have also faced opposition within Greece, where former Prime Ministers have joined the Yes campaign (Smith, 2015).

Meanwhile there has been support from the Left for the difficult game that Alexis Tsipras and his finance minister Yanis Varoufakis are playing (Elliott, 2015), presenting themselves as reasonable, responsible reformists. Back in 2013, Tsipras made clear his wish to save Europe, to reform it back onto its old path of democratic co-ordination and co-operation (Horvat, 2013; Tsipras & Zizek, 2013).

Even with the referendum looming, Greece's leaders have continued to try and squeeze out a negotiated deal (Rankin, 2015). As they have struggled to find a deal, there has been a show of support even in the UK, which has seen anti-austerity protests in solidarity with Greece and the creation of a crowdfunding campaign to raise money for a bail out (The Guardian, 2015; Feeney, 2015).

There have also been efforts to demonstrate the theoretical validity of Syriza's position of opposition to austerity, by exposing the failures of the austerian approach (Fazi, 2015). Even the IMF, one of Greece's creditors, has admitted that the debts of Greece are unsustainable without greater support and, effectively, and end to the pure austerity approach (Khan, 2015).

In the face of these arguments, there have been the first signs of a softening towards the hardship in Greece from their major opponents, represented by the German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble who said that Greek people would not be left 'in the lurch' (Hooper, 2015).

However, compassion in the face of suffering is one thing - and important. But tolerance and acceptance of difference is also essential. Greece has a right to dissent that has not been respected - a right to refuse the conditions with which it has been presented and yet remain a part of the Eurozone, and the European Union.

Underlying this referendum will be the question of whether the European powers will respect the democratic will of the people of Greece should there be a no vote - and austerity be again rejected. If that decision is respected, then there may yet be hope for Europe. It might still become a truly democratic place, with the necessary space for dissenting and alternative voices.

For Cameron and the Conservatives, austerity is the long term economic plan

Anti-austerity protesters out in large number on Saturday 20th June. Photograph: #EndAusterityNow March in London via photopin (license) (cropped).

If it wasn't already clear, David Cameron made sure of it at Prime Minister's Questions today: the Conservatives have no intention of austerity being just a corrective interim measure (Eaton, 2015).

Last week Cameron laid out that his intention to turn the UK from a "low-wage, high-tax, high-welfare society to a higher wage, lower tax, lower welfare society" (Mason, 2015). For those who feel this deviates from the Conservative message of prioritising debt and deficit reduction as the purpose of austerity, they're missing the bigger picture.

Tackling debt and deficits was only ever the first phase. For the Conservatives, austerity is the long term economic plan. As Cameron stressed at the Lord Mayor's Banquet in 2013:

"We are sticking to the task. But that doesn't just mean making difficult decisions on public spending. It also means something more profound. It means building a leaner, more efficient state. We need to do more with less. Not just now, but permanently."

This reaffirmation of the Conservative agenda comes in advance of the announcement of, what will likely be, enormous cuts to public sector spending by the Chancellor in July. If the Conservatives are likely to get anywhere near their stated 'spending reduction' targets, there are going to be some very painful budget cuts.

While Cameron was being challenged at the dispatch box during PMQs by Harriet Harman, Acting Labour leader, over the impact of cuts to tax credits on the poor, Parliament was invaded by protesters who were campaigning to protect welfare spending on disability allowances (BBC, 2015) - both likely Conservative targets.

Along with the anti-austerity protests of last weekend, these outbursts seem more in tune with what the data tells us. Even as of last year, the UK public stated their willingness to pay higher taxes if that was what it took to have fully funded public services (Campbell, 2015).

So why is the talk of high wages with lower taxes and little welfare, when it could be of high wages with higher taxes to fund better welfare? The answer is that the Conservatives are pursuing a long term, ideologically driven plan, to redraw the UK according to the austerian agenda.

The disparity between the Conservative majority government and the rest of the UK over austerity, with the governments mandate coming from less than a quarter of the UK, presents an opportunity - but only if Progressives can come up with a compelling alternative. At the 2015 UK general election the Liberal Democrats and the Greens both offered Tax rises, while Labour and the SNP both offered to slow cuts to allow economic growth to lessen the burden over time. They now have to find a way to bring their themes - of liberty, sustainability, justice and local self-determination - together into a coherent opposition narrative.