The Alternative Debunk: Far-right populism, privilege and coming to terms with change

Britain, as a country, is depicted around the world as the very personification of privilege. We are tea-supping, tradition-adhering, aristocracy-adoring, wearers of bowler hats. There are people in this country who are proud of that depiction.

That isn't really a recognisable image of Britain today. Except for the privilege. At the core of British concept of liberty is privilege: middle class affluence, home ownership, private schools, inherited wealth, the older sort of social networks.

This privileged middle sort have done well out of globalism - well prepared and adapted for the rising demand for high skill, education and flexibility. But in Britain, globalisation has seen both winners and losers.

As the cushioned middle class have gained, the fragile lives of the working class have been threatened. The old dependable industries have gone, deemed to costly. With them has gone job security, in the name of chasing efficiency.

Pressure to be productive has risen, even as security and stability has declined. It shouldn't be a major surprise that since the 1990s a new era of civil rights movements has sprung up, working to unite people and push back.

There is a point of view that it has also forced working class people to be seduced by the hate-filled, divisive, rhetoric of the far right - to get on board with populist movements that scapegoat refugees and immigrants and minorities.

However, the facts don't support it.

The reality: the far right isn't a working class movement. It never has been. In fact, populism tends to be better supported by the petit bourgeosie and the rich - with the backing only of a violent minority of working class people. Far-right populism is, at it's core, reactionary politics. It is the establishment pushing back against reform. It is about the fear of losing status amidst crisis - it is the moderately well off frightened of losing their privilege.

Something held up against this view are the voters who backed the latest President of the United States into office. Their lack of a college education was presented as a fait accompli of poor, white, racist and ignorant, working class men. But the facts paint a more complex picture. It is true that 70% of Fourtyfive's supporters didn't have college degrees - but then 71% of Americans don't have college degrees. And most of his supporters earn over the median income $50,000 a year.

Now, the middle class base of far right populism doesn't mean appeals are not made for support from ordinary working people. In times of crisis, the populist narrative finds fertile soil among people whose interests it does less to serve. It must be tweaked to include the working class in a narrative of privilege, but it remains simple, emotive and effective.

For the far right, and the privileged few who drive it, the impact of neoliberalism must have been a dream come true: post-industrial Britain, Wales and The North, Labour and left-wing heartlands, excluded from the benefits of globalisation - even as it dismantled the basis for prosperity under the old order.

Huge numbers of people left without job security, sometimes even social security. Communities stripped of their resources, their high streets becoming abandoned. All that was left was to exploit their fears and give them scapegoats.

The story is not an original one: of a majority that are going to lose their status and money to a minority, or minorities, courtesy of a discredited establishment - itself painted as a minority that no longer represent this fearful majority. Legitimacy is questioned. Mandates undermined. A web of emotive propaganda aimed at dividing society, turning the affluent in fear against it's fringes, to the benefit of a reactionary few.

This is the core of the narrative that divided and felled the Second Spanish Republic, used to justify a military coup. The toppling of the Weimar Republic. The upholding of first slavery and then segregation in the Deep South by Dixiecrats.

There have been few places, even in these times of a 'far-right populist wave', where populists have secured a broad base of public support - broad enough to make a claim of significant support from working class people. The barrier that seemed to have some significance was 13% - the level of popular support the far-right in Western Europe have struggled to break through. But the rise of authoritarian governments in Eastern Europe, threaten to make the West less an anti-populist bloc than an enclave.

There are more exceptions. The Fortyfifth President in the United States, Jair Bolsonaro as President in Brazil, and the FPO in government in Austria, the electoral success of Lega and M5S in Italy - these are among the few to have made major electoral breakthroughs in the West. But we know Fortyfive's supporters were mostly affluent and middle class. Are the supporters of Bolsonaro, Heinz-Christian Strache, Salvini and Grillo, much different?

In Britain, rising inequality has started to bite even the privileged middle class. Fears about pensions and wellbeing in old age, stress and pressure at work - core fears of the working class - are worrying Middle England. That made them the dominant supporters of Brexit, some 60% of all Brexit voters - to just 17% of Brexiters who were working class. Populism succeeded, with Brexit, in pulling the middle class apart from the working class, and turning them against the liberal democratic political establishment.

Under pressure and fearful of change, it is the middle class who are the movers of the times. The statistics tell us that when the working class face these crises, they don't vote - their feelings of disenfranchisment become inaction.

Yet there is hope in this analysis. There is common cause to be found between the middle class and the working class. They have the same fears and face the same pressures - though one is far more insulated from them than the other, and felt them later. There is a common platform to be found. One that can unite people on what they have in common: a desire for social security, for wellbeing at work and in old age, for a functioning local community - and a desire for opportunity.

The question left for progressives is, what party or alliance will be the vehicle for such a programme? Whoever they are, they need to get to grips with a simple fact: change scares people. Our answer needs to be bring them together in solidarity.

The Alternative Debunk: Trade, sovereignty and the World Trade Organisation

There is a line of thinking that runs, 'the real obstacles to trade in the twentyfirst century are no longer tariffs, but non-tariff barriers'.

It is a view that has been expressed by Jacob Rees-Mogg, Brexiter and Tory backbencher, as part of his reasoning for Britain leaving the EU. Breaking these non-tariff barriers, as luck would have it, was also the founding mission of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

If non-tariff barriers are an obstacle to the UK economy and trading on WTO terms would put us at the heart of an organisation working to undo them, it seems like a simple enough equation. It would appear to be a marriage of supreme convenience.

That view is, however, put to us by Britain's conservative and far-right establishment. That means it requires scepticism and further examination. So what are we missing?

Well, the first thing to note is that there is nothing simple about trade. Trade branches out into all aspects of international relations, domestic lawmaking and standards regulation, and as such encroaches on national sovereignty. And negotiations can take years.

The second, is that the 'non-tariff barriers' being referred to here are domestic laws and standards, created by sovereign parliaments and assemblies to regulate how things are made and sold in their jurisdictions - as well as subsidies favoured sectors.

Going blindly down the road that leads to the untrammelled trade that would-be barrier-breakers like Mogg would like, could lead to a place no one pursuing greater sovereignty had ever considered ending up. So let's be clear about where that road leads.

Background: Barriers to Trade

Historically, the old barriers were taxes - known as tariffs - put on imports. They would produce revenue for the national coffers and protect domestic production. Economics is never simple though, and tariffs were deeply entwined with foreign wars and domestic unrest.

Competition between nations over resources - resulting a mad scramble to occupy and to exploit, to invade and to seize valuable territory, even from neighbours - was the driving force behind war, colonialism and imperialism.

In Britain, the old barriers of tariffs mixed in a toxic brew with aristocratic landownership. The result was landlords with collosal power to inflate prices at the cost of middle class merchants and the working class who could barely afford the cost of bread.

That led to the Anti-Corn Law League, of which liberal free traders Richard Cobden and John Bright were leading activists, which in the 1860s fought to undo taxes on corn imports that poured subsidies into the pockets of landlords and starved ordinary people.

The Anti-Corn Law League eventually won out, but their campaign didn't bring a permanent change of mindset. Rather they influenced the Liberal Party, who continued to vie for power with the Conservatives who supported the system of tariffs.

While Britain went back and forth, other countries such as Germany and the United States used tariffs to protect their domestic industries from foreign competition - trying to catch up and compete with the British Empire, whose colonies allowed for the casting of a far wider net in which to find resources.

The international ramifications of this inward-looking national-oriented system were disastrous. On the foreign front, war between countries as they scrapped for resources. On the domestic front, poverty and civil unrest. It took two world wars, and the rise of democracy for that message to sink in.

Bretton Woods: Peace Through Interdependence

After the Second World War, delegates and economists from around the world gathered in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to figure out how to achieve a lasting peace. What they struck upon was the core of what the free traders had been arguing for a century: interdependence.

The result was the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), unprecedented international cooperation and the largest surge in world economic growth in history as the Western economies recovered, interwined in peace.

From the 1940s through the 1970s, tariffs were cut and cross-border movement and free access to resources flourished. The predecessors to the European Union were founded on ending the French and German fight over access to, and control of, the Rhine Valley's resources.

Government intervention went hand in hand with this system. It was necessary to ensure tight regulation internationally and to correct market imperfections domestically - most recognisably in the form of the welfare state, aimed at ensuring citizens' economic wellbeing.

There were consequences, good and bad. International cooperation was joined by deep domestic links between states, industries and unions that played it's part in a prosperity that was more widely shared than ever before. Inequality was lower. The wealth gap narrower. Opportunity for social mobility was tangible.

And yet the deep corporate-state links meant that collusion was substantial, while international cooperation gave rise to multinational corporations - businesses with a power that reaches beyond the limitations of national jurisdictions.

WTO: Drive for Efficiency

At the end of the 1970s, stagflation brought to an end the soaring economic growth of the era. Global growth hit a wall that capitalism has been trying to find a way around ever since.

The next phase for trade would be driven by the overthrow of the careful system of controls and regulations. The Bretton-Woods system had fostered within it the huge multinational corporations that now, as growth stagnated, threw their weight behind the Reagan-Thatcher system and the deregulation boom.

It was struck upon that, even with tariffs world wide brought down to historic lows, there were yet other barriers to doing business that might be limiting growth. Beginning with the Uruguay Round of negotiations, the drive was now achieve maximum global efficiency through the elimination of non-tariff barriers.

The GATT was superseded at this point by an organisation founded on and dedicated to achieving these goals - these new underlying principles. This was the World Trade Organisation, the WTO.

If Bretton-Woods and the GATT was about achieving peace through interdependence, achieved by a gradual reduction in tariffs, then the purpose of the Uruguay Round and the WTO was to take that interdependence and use it as leverage to eliminate non-tariff barriers and pursue market efficiency.

As with the Bretton-Woods model, there were consequences. One of the most obvious impacts has been the global stagnation in wages for low-skilled workers in the new era - with labour embattled, their hard won rights being undermined and squeezed.

Not all of this is the result of globalism. But the benefits were not widely enough shared, technology undermining rather than enhancing workers' security, and gains were often made through doors being opened to exploitation. Income inequality accelerated.

In the now

The body known as the World Trade Organisation is the arch-mover of globalism. A forum for diplomats and lobbyists, it is where the negotiations are done for deals that break down not only borders, but the so-called non-tariff barriers - in reality, domestic laws and standards that protect the quality of products.

The groups of elite Brexiters, most of them very wealthy, who are selling the idea of leaving the EU on WTO terms, have hitched onto the back of the campaign for national sovereignty. But leaving on WTO will do nothing to enhance sovereignty in terms that most people would recognise.

Within the EU, the UK has a say alongside other members on how it interacts with each of them and how it's domestic standards and regulations are set, while also having a say on how the whole EU bloc interacts with trading partners around the world.

Exiting the EU will downgrade the trading relationship between the EU and the UK. And if the UK reduces it's standards to attract new trade with other non-EU countries, it will make it harder to trade with the EU - as most of the EU's trade barriers depend on products meeting their high internal standards.

Any change of policy will require long term negotiations with the more than one hundred and fifty WTO members - all of whom will want their say to prevent their own trade being adversely affected. And let's not forget the WTO mission to reduce non-tariff barriers.

The drive to align standards within the EU has been one of getting countries to agree and enforce the highest common denominator. On the outside, the only 'advantage' to be gained is through the pursuit of the lowest common denominator on standards.

Whether it's the banning of plastic packaging to regulations about what chemicals can be used in the production of food, from the regulation of working conditions to the terms upon which businesses can receive subsidies or support - there is money to be made by opening the doors and lowering regulations.

But the reality of trade on WTO terms means few countries actually negotiate on their own. Most have spent decades building mutually beneficial deals and blocs - like EU - to increase their influence and reinforce their position to protect domestic conditions.

Switzerland and Canada have spent the better part of twenty years trying to negotiate their trading relationships with Europe. And the North American countries - USA, Canada and Mexico - have been back and forth over how to organise their trade for mutual benefit.

Even at present in America, their far-right President upset and forced a renegotiation with the countries neighbours by trying to reestablished protective tariffs to favour domestic production - a move that hurts trade partners and pours money into the pockets of the wealthy domestic business and land owners.

In such a complex web of negotiations, the confrontational approach of Brexiters and their supporting organisations - like the IEA - who have argued for ligitigation at the WTO to force the EU to lower it's standards, is unlikely to win the UK any allies.

In the future

The WTO was established in 1995 as the product of the Uruguay Round as the forum for negotiating global trade and as an arbiter for settling trade disputes. It has been the forum where successive agreements have been negotiated to reduce countries' tariffs and pursue deregulation of domestic standards.

In pursuing those goals the WTO has been accused of undermining the sovereignty of member nations with it's rules - much like Brexiters have loudly and virulently alleged of the EU project.

People who supported Brexit have hoped the UK might use it's historic influence protect some domestic sectors, but any such provisions would immediately irk other WTO members whose export opportunities would be limited.

The reality is that a No Deal Brexit, exiting onto WTO terms, does nothing to improve Britain's sovereignty. It means trading much as we do now, but without our open access to the Single Market - and the investment boost that gives us - and any EU specific deals through which we had previously enjoyed trading access to third party countries.

The main possible benefit would be, as Rees-Mogg himself has claimed, would be in slashing trading tariffs - ostensibly, it would seem, with the US, India and China. But the only way that would have any impact would be if our non-tariff barriers - our food standards, for instance - where lowered substantially as well.

And allowing our domestic policy to be driven, slashed, by the demands of overseas corporations who want to pour lower standard goods into the UK - likely undermining domestic businesses - is unlikely to be seen as an increase to national sovereignty.

If Britain could even manage to unilaterally start slashing it's tariffs and standards to attract America and Chinese suppliers - over likely objections and litigation in the WTO - the cheaper supplies would be of much lower quality, taken on at the cost of major damage done to domestic supply chains.

The post-war world has achieved interdependence on an historic scale. It cannot now be undone. Our predecessors choose to give up total sovereignty for that interdependence and the peace it brought. No one should be under any illusions: an exit from the European Union on WTO terms is another aggressive step into, not away from, globalisation, which does not restore sovereignty.

As we stand our sovereignty is pooled. We take part in building a consensus in Europe that affects our domestic laws. The future under a WTO/Hard Brexit will not restore sovereignty, and may even instead undermine it as domestic laws are driven by what opportunity it sells to our trade partners. These are the extremes of what is on offer when discussing Brexit. Neither will turn back the clock.

The Alternative Debunk: Populism, democracy and where it ends

In refusing to rule out further votes on her Brexit Deal - should it be defeated in the Commons - Prime Minister Theresa May has doubled down on a stubborn stance. Adamant that she has a Brexit mandate, May won't countenance a challenge to it.

Whether she likes it or not, that puts the Prime Minister in the same camp has the hardcore Brexiters, who argue that the first referendum was the final say - however flatly untrue that stance may be when it comes to UK constitutional conventions.

In a time when interest and participation in democracy has been slipping, when democracy has been increasingly under assault from fake news and far right populism, it is unhelpful when the Prime Minister coopts their arguments.

Populism and democracy

Populism is a word that gets thrown around in the media, being used to refer to popular movements of left as well as right. But it's not accurate to equate the two.

On the left, popular movements are increasingly horizontal, cooperative and reflective of a belief not in a single struggle, but in the commonality between different struggles to shake off inequalities that affect people based on their identities - ethnicity, sexuality, gender - and stand together in solidarity.

On the right, popular movements are emotional, exclusionary and 'competitive' - highlighting difference between groups of people and pitting them against each other, even against good sense. These are the so-called 'populist' movements. It is a populist idea that one vote is enough to settle something in a democracy.

Like he idea that the referendum ended the conversation, that the will of the people was crystalised in one popular vote - which is clearly undermined by the fact that any political party could stand at a future election on a manifesto to stop Brexit, and upon winning a majority have the right to implement it.

The populist sentiment is a trap that Theresa May fell into the moment she tried to claim the referendum mandate for her own government. It was aggravated by the fact that she hasn't been able to covert the referendum result into a Parliamentary majority - functionally necessary to delivering any change.

With the referendum vote in her pocket, Theresa May triggered a snap election and stood on a party manifesto that promised to deliver Brexit. But she failed to win a majority. And in that failure was exposed the problem with the referendum in the first place: there wasn't, and still isn't, a party of Brexit with a Parliamentry mandate to deliver it.

Lincoln and the Union

In a democracy, the ideal is that even those who lose out most in the result of a poll will be able to appreciate the importance of respecting the will of the majority - it's a key aspect of democracy. Populists have been quick to label their Remainer opponents as undemocratic sore losers.

However, with the Brexit referendum, the populist Brexiter side has exploited their temporary majority and failed to respect the fact that majoritarianism is two sided: yes, the will of the majority needs to be respected. But democracy also means that the will of the majority can change. There is no final say.

The trouble with that fact is that it doesn't quite have the emotional reasonance of 'one vote and done' - it doesn't feel as good. It doesn't feel as cathartic. Yet it's at the core of why a minority should respect the will of the majority. Some day, you may change their minds. You may be the majority.

In an old biography of Abraham Lincoln, there is a discussion of his view of the importance of the political union and disavowal of secession. He had questioned the right to secession, asking, "Must a government, of necessity, be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain itself?"

Following Lincoln's stance against secession as undermining a democratic political union, his biographer asks:

"...if by democratic government is meant the rule of the majority, may there not be occasions when the majority is tyrannical or where the division of opinion between majority and minority is so acute, that the minority is entitled to leave?"

Lincoln had argued that adhering to majority rule, properly held in restraint by constitutional checks and balances, was not only a good, but a safeguard against the severed consequences of undermining majority rule - chaos, disorder, the threat of war.

As Lincoln said, "that ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors of bullets." To Lincoln, elections and majority rule held out always the possibility that the majority might be persuaded and would change it's mind at a subsequent election.

That while a minority must adapt and integrate to the majority conditions - and could, perhaps should, be helped along to do so - it would still be able to seek to peacefully win over the majority. Laid plain, that democracy, that majority rule, was never to be seen as final.

May and the Union

Theresa May has her own Unionism. For her part, it has driven her to pursue a particularly single-minded path. One that does not really account for, especially, the divergent path upon which Scotland is travelling compared to the rest of the UK.

Theresa May has caught herself in a difficult position, of jealously holding one union while dissolving another - in opposing one secession while enacting another, a confusing circumstance of competing sovereignties.

Arguing against dissolving the British Union, while also arguing for the permanence of the referendum vote, May finds herself caught in an inconsistent position - that the Union cannot be dissolved, but it also will not allow for the changing of minds.

That position undermines the point of democratic majority rule. As Lincoln argued, the preservation of the Union is in large part achieved by acknowledging that there is no end point to a debate - that there is no definitive, inalienable vote.

Theresa May has pulled out all stops to protect her position, the mandate she claims and the policies she pursues, especially Brexit. The result has been that she has turned to the arguments populist right for justification of her actions - the Brexit was a final vote, there can be no change of position.

Legitimising the positions of the populist right is a very dangerous game to play, but as Conservative leader Theresa May inherited a legacy of taking advantage of the over loud and amplified grumbling and scapegoating of the far right.

The Conservatives have spent a long time courting the rise of the far right, feeding off the populist energy to attack Labour and the Liberals. But it's a source of energy that comes with a high cost, giving light and air to emotive scapegoating.

From the beginning, the Conservative plan for a referendum - spawned of a need to satisfy the right-wing energy it was exploiting - didn't really factor in the possibility that the Leave campaign would win the public vote.

Conservative leader David Cameron resigned, having backed Remain as the Prime Minister in a deeply pro-Remain Parliament. With no Parliamentary majority for Brexit, the country was thrown into political turmoil - which May has tried to navigate.

Her failing was to try and do so without a proper constitutional mandate, gained in the form of a Parliamentary majority from an election with an explicit Brexit manifesto commitmnt. She waited too long to pursue that, trusting instead to exluding Parliament in favour of using executive power to forge ahead.

Democracy never ends

When the question is settled, the post-Brexit Union will be defined by this period in time. Disrespect for democratic process, political division, ignoring or exploiting well-established constitutional conventions - all of these things will feed into the new shape of the British Union, whether it remains European for the long haul or ultimately pulls away.

Theresa May has allowed the far-right populist view of democracy - as a competition not a compromise, pitting ideas against each other for mastery - to infect the mainstream and take route in the public consciousness. These represent lasting damages inflicted in pursuit of short term political goals. May will have to reflect on that.

The reality is that the referendum vote could never have been binding, but the view it expressed needed to be respected. That has never really happened. Theresa May and the Conservatives didn't go to the electorate for a Brexit mandate until a long time after the fact. By then, moods had begun to shift.

Brexit was always undermined by the absense of a mandate to deliver it - a party, or parties, explicitly elected on a manifesto commitment to deliver it, awarded the power by the electorate to do so in the form of a Parliamentary majority.

Now, with the deal an unsupportable mess, public opinion is polling as even less inclined. And Parliament remains ill-disposed towards Brexit. Saying that there is no justification for further votes undemocratically protects the power of a majority that may now have become the minority.

Is a second referendum, the People's Vote, the answer?

The first referendum resolved little, as it didn't produce the political conditions within the constitutional framework to deliver on the 'Brexit mandate'. Can another referendum do anything more than simply affirm one of the positions?

Another referendum will still need the explicit mandate from an election to deliver on the public will, if it is to have the legitimate power to implement the decision. In the end, the only way out of this mess is to return to democracy.

Populism sees an end to democracy in the satisfaction of it's own will - the realisation of it's own supremacy. But democracy, to be a valid basis for political union, has no end point. There is no definitive say. Only limited mandates that expire.

The Brexit mandate is close to expiration - largely thanks to the failures of the Conservative party, who brought forward the first referendum and failed to empower it. What comes next must be instructed and empowered by the people.

May calls on MPs to get on with Brexit and move on - but it's her government's own doing that it's consumed all political space

This afternoon, Theresa May addressed the Commons to present the terms she has negotiated for Britain's exit from the European Union. As may well have been expected at this point, it did not get a warm reception. All the big hitters were queued up to get in their licks.

After yet another hostile session, the Prime Minister may very well have been feeling like the constituents she has now taken to quoting: ready to just get on with Brexit and move on. But it's the PM's own approach that has brought us to this Parliamentary impasse.

A referendum, a snap election and two years of legislative time have been poured into Brexit - along with billions from the treasury and repeated knocks taken by the economy with the instability caused by each new jarring announcement.

In that time, domestic policy has taken the backseat. That has been a disaster both in terms of scrutiny and delivery.

The government's flagship welfare 'reform' the Universal Credit has rolled from one crisis to another. Supposed to be the consolidation of a number of different welfare programmes into a more efficient and affordable system, it has faced ever mounting problems.

The minister who had been the driving force behind it quit when he was severely undercut on funding. The attached fitness assessments have been derided as cruel. Even a rapporteur for the United Nations has deeply criticised the misery inflicted upon the most vulnerable by a government pursuing ideological ends.

The government has claimed that Universal Credit has driven people into work, but this welfare system - underfunded, misadministered, and leaving vulnerable people at the mercy of growing debts - can only have motivated people in the worst way, with employment statistics covering an explosion in working poverty.

And those are just the headlines. The government has not done enough on housing. It has not done enough to meet environmental and energy targets. It has not done enough to encourage an economic system that can lift ordinary people out of poverty - on welfare or in work.

When Theresa May talks of constituents telling her to get on with Brexit, she may be reframing disgruntlement. It's May's government that has turned politics in Britain into nothing but Brexit - and in the process has managed to deeply divide the country.

With so many domestic issues in need of attention, Brexit needs to be settled. But what Parliamentarians can't do is make a hasty decision under pressure - for which the Prime Minister is pushing.

May's government has put us here and shouldn't be allowed to use it to sneak out from under their own mess.moving towards resolving the deeply important and long term domestic issues that have gone unattended under May's watch.

Budget 2018 Preview: Chancellor Philip Hammond will try to patch together competing demands to present a positive vision - which must be closely scrutinised

So, Prime Minister Theresa May announced austerity will come to an end. The Chancellor Philip Hammond told Conservative members they must not surrender the 'party of change' label. Their right-wing colleagues want a bold, positive statement with Brexit just around the corner.

Where does that leave the government ahead of the Budget?

When the Chancellor stands at the dispatch box on Monday, he will have meet a number of commitments and all of them will require him to open the public purse and spend money - something anathema to Hammond's own favoured fiscally conservative approach.

So beware of the narrative. Whatever the Tories in the Treasury have cooked up, take careful notice of how it is being framed. Hammond needs to carefully wrap up his policy announcements in a positive vision, promising a bright future that brings money to spend.

To spend 'sensibly', of course - the note of fiscal responsibility won't be going away. It's how the Conservatives like to paint themselves (despite the way the national debt has ballooned) and they have spent a decade marking it as separating them from Labour.

But something will have to change if the Conservatives are to find £20 billion for the NHS. To find the more than £8 billion a year needed to keep the various taxes and duties from rising. To at least bring a halt to cuts for long enough for it to seem like austerity has stopped - if not been reversed. Is there any room for movement to find this money?

Well there is pressure to bring the tech giants to heel with a tax - though it's not a move without complications. And the Chancellor has already set out his stall, with a brand new narrative, to increase National Insurance contributions from the self-employed - a policy that went down in flames less than a week after last year's Budget.

The other targets for more taxes are only the rich - the main constituents of the Conservatives. From Pensions to private school fees, there are reliefs and loopholes aplenty. But will the Chancellor be willing to close them?

Far more troubling for almost everyone else is that local councils fear even further cuts to their funding are on the way. That would be devastating for essential frontline services, that are already under pressure - as the government forces local communities to raise money in their own neighbourhoods, even those with few resources.

If the Chancellor decides to hold off on these further cuts, it will likely depend more upon halting or deferring various tax cuts, rather than raising taxes in a more direct or conventional sense. But even then, it trimming one advantage for ordinary workers to protect those same people for a new disadvantage. Hardly a progressive pitch.

Hammond will try to dress up these trade offs as the hard-won rewards of decades of hard times and the promise of better to come. Progressives can't let him present that narrative unchallenged, because these measures will be little more than a government that imposed austerity trying to ride the wave of discontent their policies have stirred up.

Conference round-up: What are the main takeaways from party conference season?

The time of austerity is coming to an end. Or at least that is the overaching message of party conference season. It invites the bigger question of whether the Conservatives would actually be willing and able to deliver it's end.

Last year's election showed the Tories that even a coordinated media bashing of Corbyn wasn't enough to dampen enthusiasm for the content of the Labour manifesto and their call for a step change away from the time of austerity.

The Conservatives know they have to adapt. But they will start only by changing their message, rather than reinforcing that with any particularly drastic change in funding - hence Theresa May telling Prime Ministers Questions that austerity was going to end, but not 'fiscal responsibility'.

The Chancellor Philip Hammond used his conference speech to hint at a change of message, telling party members the Conservatives couldn't afford to be a party of 'no change'. The Prime Minister followed that up by saying austerity was coming to an end.

Opposition scepticism is entirely appropriate.

The Tories will be reluctant converts to the anti-austerity cause (except, perhaps those in local government), and the move was probably forced Labour's unabashed commitments to higher taxes, more spending and a definitive end to austerity.

In fact, Paul Johnson at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) called the Labour proposals the most radical in a long time, capable of deeply affecting the UK economy, and transforming expectations and assumptions about how the economy will work.

The other main lesson of conference season was, obviously, Brexit. As it has taken over every other aspect of politics in Britain, so it has taken over party conference season.

The Tories were, as usual, mired in their three way factional splits - hard right Brexiters, moderate Remainers and Theresa May's split the difference

However, Labour took a step towards laying out in more certain terms their position - with the party more or less all onboard. The party's red lines, particularly a customs union agreement, were supplemented by a commitment to a People's Vote second referendum in the event that final deal fails to pass muster.

The party's preference remains to force an election on Brexit, but the concession Labour's Remainers, to support a People's Vote to ensure the public get a say, is a step towards bringing the party to a (mostly) united position.

Meanwhile, as would be expected, the Liberal Democrats lambasted all who would oppose a People's Vote second referendum. But beneath the business as usual, it was good to see the party's radical liberal factions put some progressive ideas on the table - such as a sovereign wealth fund and more support for cooperatives.

The Greens had the same mix of Brexit and domestic policy at their conference. On the domestic front, they pushed for wellbeing - particularly relating to free time - to get a higher place in our measurement of the UK's economic and living standards.

Finally, the SNP joined their push for a second referendum on Scottish Independence with opening the way for their MPs to support a second referendum on Brexit. While it isn't a straightforward piece of arithmetic, opposing Brexit is consistent with how people in Scotland have voted and may prepare better ground for their own ambitions.

The onrolling Brexit steamroller aside, the end of austerity was the biggest headline. It would seem that Theresa May is right, that austerity coming to an end - but in spite of them, not because of them. The Tories seem to sense the mood is shifting.

There is a big opportunity ahead for the progressive parties, to undermine the case for austerity and drag out into the light the ideological choices that enforced it and the consequences of the Conservative choice to impose it.

Election 2018? May government has backed itself into a corner again and again, only to slip away to fight another day

Will there be an election this year? That's the big question on the tongues of everyone interested in British politics right now.

Theresa May's big effort to bring together her party - to bring it into line with the 'Brexit mandate' she claimed and coopted for herself - with a plan for Brexit backfired spectacularly. There have been big profile resignations, rumour of a leadership challenge and a divisions are now as wide as they have ever been.

For their part, Labour are raring to go. They're ahead in the polls and full of the belief that their poll lead will only be the starting position for another election campaign that will gather steam and see another surge.

However. Theresa May has so far managed to steer her government through one crisis after another - into and out of one corner after another - and cling to power. Even as each time pundits say a leadership challenge is brewing, and perhaps an election is not far away.

In fact, this government has lasted far longer than expected and predicted, considering it's disastrous election campaign, it's weakness, it's divisions, it's lack of a majority. But clinging on in that state surely cannot last.

There have been other minority governments that have limped along like this. John Major's minority government, as Tory seats were whittled away in by-elections and defections, lasted just four months. With a series of pacts with other parties, the Callaghan minority government kept going for two years, but lost heavily when it finally reached an election.

Theresa May again faces divisions that seem insurmountable - her Brexit white paper having exposed, rather than resealed, the cracks. Tory Brexiters are unhappy and so are the Tory Remainers, with one wing preparing to challenge May's leadership and the other starting to call for a second referendum on the final Brexit deal.

But the May govt still has, for the moment, it's deal with the DUP intact. And she has another thing on her side. For a year, May has survived by defusing crises with dsitractions, often simply waiting it out until everyone gets bored and moves on, and with a sheer stubborn refusal to accept the reality of her government's weak position.

Yet it is that weak position itself that may very well be what helps her fend off the threat of an election. The Tories see the polls and know that Labour is so close to taking power - and the one thing the Tories can unite on is not letting Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell into No.10 and No.11 Downing Street. And their internal squabbles are making their dread outcome a realistic prospect.

What weighs in favour of the Tories is that there can be a change of Prime Minister, even of the government, without an election. It is a fact that the Tories will lean upon heavily in the coming months, if a leadership challenge emerges. They will be eager let everyone know that a new leader is to ensure continuity, rather than to change direction, to minimise claims that an election must surely follow.

The reality facing progressives is that, even as weak as the May government is, it's fate is still in the hands of the Conservatives themselves. With a defiant vote by Tory rebels to force an election unlikely, it will take a sustained swell of public pressure to force the Tories into a premature election.

Corbyn and McDonnell are victims of their own success. They have gotten Labour so close, and leading in the polls, that whatever else the government does, it knows it can't risk an election. The weakened government can do nothing but limp on.

Britain and Europe: Even after Brexit, progressives can't stop fighting for broader horizons for cooperation and solidarity

At the weekend, thousands turned out in London to show their support for Britain remaining in the European Union and determination to keep calling for a Second Vote - a deciding say on the final deal

From the government's perspective, and perhaps for some Leavers, the matter is now closed with Theresa May finally appearing to have won the legislative tennis match with the Lords over her Brexit Bill.

Is it over? We expect for Remainers it won't be over until the fat lady sings. Seeing an economic disaster coming, ushered in by a weak government, it won't be settled until Britain is firmly not a member state.

That isn't a surprise. There are plenty of reasons to still question Brexit. Like when the Prime Minister promises a new increase in NHS funding to be part paid by a 'Brexit dividend' that experts say won't happen.

But it's important that 'Remainers', and all those who see broader horizons for people in Britain, don't lose sight of the bigger picture.

The European Union is far from perfect. The EU referendum excluded many, most of all those on Left and poorer working people, in presenting a choice between two establishment, market capitalist and business-centric options.

This was at the core of what we wrote at the time of the referendum. We encouraged those on the Left, for progressives of all stripes, to vote to Remain - in a limited sense, to choose the lesser of two evils.

Leaving the European Union will for sure open the way things becoming harder for the poorest and most vulnerable. And it probably won't even provide any kind of economic boost to offset their losses.

But Europe is an idea and an ideal. The Union itself maintains a minimum level. It has protected standards. But so much is in the hands of, and dependent upon the beneficence of, bureaucrats and national governments, that even the EU is no guarantor of progress.

And it isn't the only way to build the vision of a wider and more connected world. A world of many cultures, many places of residence and work, cooperating with each other in peace.

Fearless Cities is the root of one such fresh alternative. An attempt by those involved in the municipal movement to build links of cooperation, local government to local government, that creates solidarity for democratic control of towns and cities - and brings them together to improve their chances of achieving much larger goals in an interconnected world.

It can't be the only one. We must start building, and rebuilding, these - as the establishment bureaucrats would say - bilateral relationships. Broad networks of many links, in the spirit of cooperation and solidarity to protect our rights and increase our freedom.

Last year, May let Brexit overshadow much bigger priorities - that can't continue in 2018

Theresa May's government scraped through 2017. After so very nearly sinking themselves with an unnecessary and opportunistic election, the May Ministry survived a number of crises and scandals to make it into 2018.

However, all of that minority government firefighting leaves little time for governing - and what little time the May government had was gobbled up by Brexit. In 2018, it seems likely that this pattern will continue and Brexit will deny sorely needed attention to far more pressing matters.

The government made it clear this was how things would be when they announced their unambitious Queens Speech, with their pledges now just watered down versions of their manifesto and spread thin over two years - so the government could focus on Brexit.

Even those pledges that did survive have made little progress.

The proposed Domestic Violence and Abuse Bill has yet to make it's appearance - while a few elements are cropping up in other bills, like issues affecting tenancy. The draft Tenant Fees Bill was only published in November, with the Committee of Communities and Local Government still gathering evidence.

Both of these will have to wait until 2018 is well underway before they see action and - the Tenant Fees Bill in particular - is going to be a hit with a lot of lobbying before it reaches its final form. It already largely conforms to present market standards that align far more landlords interests than tenants.

Promises on electric cars made it into the cutdown Queen's Speech, but only translated into £500m for charging points in the budget. A High Speed 2 rail pledge followed on the heels of an announcement to cut rail works plans for Wales and the North. Electrification estimates tripled in cost from £900mn to £2.8bn, so were pushed back, and are now cancelled. They were not offset by the less than £2bn in the budget to be split between the transport budgets of six city regions.

Repeated promises of action on homebuilding have born little fruit. The budget offered little but work arounds and tweaks, all attempts to nudge the housing sector rather than take action. It's unlikely anyone will be holding their breath that this will change in 2018.

Even the government's deeply prioritised Brexit made slow progress.

Negotiations were a tortuous embarrassment, with the government talking itself in circles of redlines - that could do nothing to change the fact that, despite having ruled out accepting the EU's position, they had little option other than to accept it.

And was only the preliminaries, getting the UK government to honour its word and its commitments. Concerns will be high as the UK government moves into the next phase, which includes trying to push through the Brexit Bills - domestic elements of the exit process.

Concern is rooted in the unending determination of the government to limit oversight and transparency in everything they do. May's team particularly want a free hand to negotiate future trade deals, awakening fears of shady deals with human rights abusers that undercut basic standards of workers' rights and quality of goods.

Fears have not been assuaged by the obvious lack of planning. Are there impact studies, or not? The government has gone out of their way to avoid reassuring anyone with any kind of data or fact.

One of the few part of the government's plans for post-Brexit to have been discussed was for agriculture post-Brexit - previewed over the Christmas-New Year week by Michael Gove. He made a pledge of funds to incentivise environmentally friendly land management, but concerns remain over trade deals undermining farmers.

The Tories made a huge mistake becoming embroiled in Brexit and Theresa May doubled down on it. Now, important domestic matters have been deprioritised. A second consecutive winter of the NHS in crisis should be considered an omen of what to expect in public services in the year ahead.

While the Tories have been playing at being 'statesmen', pouring their attention into Brexit - a policy that is epochal for all the wrong reasons - they have let domestic matters slide into chaos.

The NHS is cash starved and stretched beyond capacity and the best that the government was able to say was that the tens of thousands of cancelled operations 'were all part of the plan'. What kind of planning is that? Why would that be reassuring?

It is worth remembering that while Churchill led Britain through the war and the Tories held the outward-looking Great Offices of State, they lost the election held at the war's end. They were beaten by Clement Atlee and Labour, who had busied themselves on the Home Front - in the Home Affairs Ministry, with Agriculture and Fisheries, Education, Fuel, Labour, Pensions and the Board of Trade.

It is a dangerous move for any government to get caught playing statesman and forget to tend to the mundane matters of governing.

Housing, healthcare, welfare. All of these matters need determined attention in 2018 - and all of them are intricately entwined with rights, conditions and pay in the workplace. Domestically, Britain has become an anxious and precarious place under the Tories' idle supervision. How much longer can a blind eye be tolerated?

Government, Parliament and the Centralisation of Power: If stability is what you want, you must resist the Government's attempts to strip power from Parliament

Parliament is back in session this week and the neverending turmoil inside the Conservative Party continues. In doing so, it exposes one of the primary weaknesses of a presidential system - and one of the reasons why the UK doesn't have one.

Or rather, why the UK doesn't have a presidential system in theory, at least. During the Tory conference, Theresa May's disastrous speech contained an apology for running too presidential an election campaign. But the grounds for such a campaign have been long in the preparing and only exposes the dramatic shift towards the centralising of decision-making at westminster.

This is a trend stretching back decades and is one of those trends for which New Labour were particularly criticised for not reversing. Even while some powers have been devolved, the Cabinet has continued to accumulate power at the expense of Parliament.

Theresa May's Government has threatened the most drastic veer into excluding Parliament in recent times, with parts of the Brexit Bill. The bill sparked controversy for potentially allowing the Government, embodied in the Cabinet, to make major changes to the law - even to the constitution - without first submitting them to Parliament for scrutiny and vote.

There defense amounted to 'we'll be responsible with that power', but that isn't enough. This is just the latest step in a long term trend. Parliament has been getting weaker for decades and with it has come a, perhaps unintended, consequence: instability.

In the strictest terms, the constitutional and governmental powers of the United Kingdom are vested in Parliament. It is the supreme authority in state. Collectively, the power of the state is embodied by - primarily - the Members of Parliament in the House of Commons.

Theresa May promised a state that was strong and stable centred on her personal rule. So did David Cameron. And neither on them has been able to deliver. In the late twentieth century and the early part of the new millenium, there were brief periods when the winds were just right, or the two party system rigid and exclusive enough, that singular leaders could stick around for a while.

But betting on stability rooted in the personal longevity of a single person would get you long odds and for good reason. Power embodied in a single person or a single party is inherently unstable, because their power base is fundamentally just a fraction of the people of a country.

That the power of state is, in theory, vested in Parliament is above all a reflection of the futility minority rule. Theresa May can never offer stability if power is not rooted in inclusive, democratic assemblies.

As her speech showed, power hangs on a thread. A persistent cough can weaken the power of one person. And if that person must embody the state and all it's people and power, you start down a dark road that leads nowhere good.

When the Brexit Bill returns, MPs - especially Tories - must be brave enough to resist to flagrant concentration of power. If for nothing else, to put an end to a trend that has guaranteed a near permanent condition of instability that affects everyone.

General Election 2017 - SNP and Scotland: To have a wider influence at Westminster, Scottish MPs must bring soft power to bear

Thanks to devolution, Scottish MPs occupy an awkward role at Westminster - dependent upon the soft power of Westminster outside of the reserved questions of foreign policy and defence.

MPs for Scotland, thanks to the devolution of powers, have a very particular role. The few matters still reserved to Westminster are foreign policy and defence, energy and welfare - and with the extension of tax raising powers, even welfare can now be influenced from Holyrood.

So, for those who represent Scottish constituencies, Westminster has become in fact a federal parliament - focused on collective questions of Britain's relationship with the world and how it makes use of its natural resources.

Scottish National Party

Strangely though, the SNP have chosen to release a full manifesto that covers even the devolved matters. Perhaps the opportunity to put across its intentions at Holyrood or pressure to appear comprehensive has forced the party's hand.

On the devolved matters are some major pledges: centred on an £118 billion investment package in public services to counteract Tory cuts impact on Scotland - including investment in the NHS and introducing a new 50p tax rate.

But it's on reserved matters, what the party's MPs will tackle at Westminster, that attention here will focus.

The party has pledged to push for devolution of immigration powers to ensure a fairer immigration policy. The SNP argue that Scotland has different needs to those of the UK as a whole - that free movement of working age immigrants is vital to the economy of Scotland.

The party has also pledged to fight against fight cuts to welfare, treading ground on which even other progressive parties have been timid. Labour have not pledged much and while the Lib Dems pledged a little more, they have not really campaigned on those proposals.

Now, welfare policy will soon be something that can be adjusted and added to in Scotland, but baseline will be set for UK in Westminster. The SNP has promised to fight funding cuts and to raise money to make welfare more generous North of the border.

On foreign policy and defence - including Brexit - the SNP have the advantage of a clear stance. While the party supports EU cooperation, remaining in the Single Market, and ending the use of the Trident nuclear deterrent, there is a not a lot of depth on foreign policy in the area of defence and intervention.

Historically though, the SNP has taken a similar, centrist line to the Liberal Democrats - that the military should be maintained and that interventions should be led by United Nations resolutions, in accordance with international law.

The lack of depth perhaps reflects the question which muddies the waters of the SNP's voice on foreign policy and how much it influences, or should influence, wider UK opinion: if the SNP wishes for Scotland to be independent of the UK, how can it hope to play a leading role in setting the tone of Britain's relationship with the world?

SNP and their opposition

The SNP's opponents have their own stances on foreign policy that might be more clear, for better or worse.

The Tories are now resolved to pursue Brexit, are very clearly prepared to intervene militarily, and are clearly pro-Nuclear deterrent. Opposite to them stand the Liberal Democrats, who are the pro-European party. They want EU cooperation on foreign policy. On other questions though, they tread a tightrope of centrist equivocation.

Labour has also faced being indistinct on some of these big foreign policy questions - though it has been a symptom of being deeply divided internal politics rather than pragmatism.

Despite Jeremy Corbyn's own stances, however, the party has resolved in favour of NATO and in favour of retaining Trident. The party's MPs also rebelled against the party line, following a Hillary Benn speech, to support intervention in Syria.

On foreign policy the SNP are pro-UN, anti-Nuclear weapons, pragmatists, in a field of pragmatists, with independence hanging over their stances. So it is unsurprising that they are trying to distinguish themselves by way of their role at the head of the Scottish Government.

Above all, the SNP are promising to be an anti-Tory party of strong opposition. But for the SNP, as with other parties in Scotland, MPs from Scotland's constituencies will have little voting power on the broad majority of issues.

Soft Power

Defending the party's ability to act as an opposition at Westminster, Nicola Sturgeon praised Angus Robertson - the SNP's Westminster leader - for being the effective voice of opposition at PMQs and raising important issues in key debates. The SNP have also repeatedly stressed that they are prepared to work with other progressive parties at Westminster, to cooperate and collaborate in defending common values that are threatened by Tory policies.

Sturgeon stressed how the SNP had played a pivotal role at Westminster in exposing the issues hidden within Tory policies and forcing Theresa May and David Cameron, and their respective governments, into one U-turn after another.

However, devolution for Scotland has created in fact a two-tier Parliament at Westminster and taken away the hard power, the ability to vote, of Scottish MPs on many issues. With devolved matters, the SNP's accomplishments have to be achieved with soft power. With speeches, by getting press interest on an issue, and then gathering public pressure - and bringing it to bear.

Voters in Scotland should keep this in mind when casting their ballots. Who represents them on foreign policy? On defence? On Brexit? And, who can bring the soft power of public opinion and rhetoric to bear on those issues that fall on the periphery of Scottish jurisdiction?

When it comes down to it, Scottish MPs go to Westminster with a very specific mandate to address collective UK matters of foreign policy, defence and reserved broader economic questions. It is really on these issues that Scottish voters should make their choice.

France 2017: Elections will be a stern test for the French political mainstream

The relationship between France and Europe will need to change regardless of who comes out on top in the 2017 presidential and legislative elections. Photograph: France and EU-flag, somewhere in Dunkerque by Sebastian Fuss (License) (Cropped & Flipped)

This year's French elections, both presidential in April and the legislative in June, represent the next important watershed in the struggle against the Far-Right. For progressives, they represent the next big hope for pushback against the extreme political trend represented by Brexit and Trump.

In the Netherlands, the failure of Wilders' Far-Right PPV to become the biggest party was celebrated by the mainstream - even by VVD's, despite their own loss of seats which makes their position as the largest and governing party more tenuous. Progressives have to start thinking bigger.

That won't be easy in France, where the political climate is fractious - which has been a consistent factor in the Far-Right's success wherever around the world it has reared its head. The governing Parti Socialiste and its President Francois Hollande and suffered a severe decline in its popularity and the fall in its credibility seems to have weakened the entire political mainstream.

As the Far-Right - the Front National under Marine Le Pen - threaten to gobble up a fifth or more of the votes, the parties from the Right through the Centre and Left are tangled in a close multi-party fight for the rest of the votes. The Far-Right is thriving on a mainstream in turmoil.

If the social conservatism, nationalism and hostile extremism of the Far-Right is going to be defeated, progressives in France need to find a way to work together despite their fractious splits. That will likely mean crudely rallying behind a single candidate in the presidential election. But for the legislative elections, it can mean a more practical alliance between separate parties or a simple willingness to engage and work together to freeze out extremists.

Electoral System

The presidential election, the first to happen on 23rd April, is a two-round contest. The election is completed in the first round if any candidate gets an outright majority. If not, the top two candidates face one another in a second round run-off.

The legislative election is contested in 577 single member constituencies, also over two rounds of voting - said to treated as the first vote cast with the heart and then the second with the head. The first round takes place on 11th June and the run-off is on 18th June (Henley, 2017).

Socialists and the Left - Hamon and Melenchon

Photograph: Benoit Hamon painted portrait by Thierry Ehrmann (License) (Cropped)

Under the Hollande Presidency, the Socialist government has faced painfully low approval ratings (Fouquet, 2016). Prime Minister Manuel Valls tried to bring about unpopular labour reforms and it has cost himself and his President dearly in political capital (BBC, 2016).

The result of the party leadership's unpopularity is that the chances of the party retaining power, either the presidency or in parliament, are low. Last year's regional election saw them drop to just 23% and 3rd in the first round - though they recovered a little to 28% and 2nd on second preferences.

In the face of a polling decline that was discrediting the mainstream of the party, the party's primary to nominate a presidential candidate saw an upset. Benoit Hamon, a centre-left critic of Hollande and a supporter of the basic income, became their official candidate for the 2017 election (Chrisafis, 2017).

But things are rarely simple for the Centre-Left these days. The Socialist situation is made much more difficult by the surge of support for an alternative candidacy. Emmanuel Macron, a former Socialist economy minister has launched an outside run - that is avowedly pro-European, liberal and centrist - for the presidency.

Macron's campaign, hoping to be a unifying candidate for the mainstream against Le Pen, even has the support of Socialist Premier Valls (BBC, 2017) - breaking a commitment Valls made to honour the outcome of the party primary, in order to back a candidate closer to his own position.

The socialist difficulties don't end there. They also face more opposition from further to the Left, in the form of Jean-Luc Melenchon's party Unsubmissive France. Melenchon received a positive public reception for a 'convincing' performance in the debate at the start of April (Willsher, 2017), thrusting him in amongst the leaders in the polls.

The nature of problems facing the progressive centre and left in France is demonstrated well by the Parti Radical du Gauche (PRG). The backing of the Radical Party of the Left is one of the few notes of consistency for the Socialists.

They have been a long time ally of the Socialists and, even entered their own candidate, party leader Sylvia Pinel, into the Socialist Party Presidential Primary. The Socialists had some relief when Sylvia Pinel announced last month that her party would honour the commitment to back the primary winning candidate (Le Monde, 2017).

And despite despite talk of discussions between the PRG and Emmanuel Macron, she acknowledged the need to unite and fight against the threat posed by the Front National. However, the Radicals are far from united behind the official stance, and some of its parliamentarians have announced their support for the outside candidacy Macron.

As for policy, there seems to be little on display in the campaign on any side - all of the focus is the notion of who best represents France. For Benoit Hamon's part, he has presented a more fleshed out set of policies than others.

Hamon has been vocal on wanting to further democratise Europe and to subject more of its policy convergence to be subject to the scrutiny and control of a democratic assembly (Flausch, 2017) - striking a compromises between a pro-EU position and the rising demand for change in the way the EU works.

At home he has made a pitch to recover working class support with policies like a robot tax, to tax automation that takes away jobs and cutting the working week to 32 hours (Serhan, 2017). He is also an advocate of the universal basic income.

However, without even the full support his party, it's unlikely that Hamon will even be amongst the chief contenders in the first round of the presidential election. The damage to the image of the Socialists seems just too much to overcome.

The Centre - Macron and Bayrou

Photograph: LEWEB 2014 Conference - in conversation with Emmanuel Macron by LE WEB (License) (Cropped)

In light of the negative perception that is hampering the Socialists and their nomination of a candidate some way to the left of the party mainstream, the party's former economy minister Emmanuel Macron launched a hastily arranged campaign for the presidency called 'En Marche!' (Lorimer, 2017).

From being dismissed as a bubble bound to burst, Emmanuel Macron has become the favourite, leading in all of the polls for both the first and second round votes. He has held rallies that, even in Britain (DW, 2017), received the attendance of crowds in their thousands (Gendron, 2017) - numbers comparable to those who flocked to see Bernie Sanders in the US election.

Liberals and pro-Europeans from across Europe have flocked to his side and offered endorsements - including Nick Clegg and EU liberal leader Guy Verhofstadt, with others taking a close interest.

But beyond his promise to run a hard campaign against the Far-Right and to stand up for the European mainstream, his policy positions seem somewhat thin - one French commenter described his campaign as like a movie, a canvas for a beautiful image without much depth (Gendron, 2017).

That may change when En Marche! has its list of candidates up and running for the legislative election, as appears to be the plan - and it would be hard to see them running without some sort of platform.

But that isn't so critical for a Presidential race where the aim is broad unity. It is notable that he has invoked a legacy of France governed from the centre in which he includes Jacques Chirac - in 2002, Chirac was elected overwhelmingly as the mainstream candidate versus Jean-Marie Le Pen, father of Marine, and his more openly extreme version of Front National.

Like with the Socialists, Macron is not the sole candidate of the Centre. But his chances are more clear cut. In theory, the 'official' centrists candidate would come from Francois Bayrou's Democratic Movement (Mouvement Democrate, MoDem).

In fact Bayrou only ruled out running again himself when he was sure Nicolas Sarkozy would not be running. As it stood, the centre was represented only by Jean Lassalle, a former MoDem Member of the National Assembly, on a 'Résistons!' ticket.

However Bayrou, having ruled out his own candidacy, proposed support for Macron (Willsher, 2017{2}) - an unsurprising move considering Macron's centrist campaign and rapid rise in popularity. The deal for Bayrou's support came a demand for a law to clean up French politics.

The tougher question is, how will Macron's En Marche! and Bayrou's MoDem mesh when it comes time for the legislative election? With plans in any definite form, it is hard to say what logo to expect candidates from the centre to be standing under come June.

The Right and the Far Right - Fillon and Le Pen

Photograph: EPP Summit Brussels December 2016 by the European People's Party (License) (Cropped)

The Republicans (Les Républicains, LR) started this campaign looking to have the presidency all sewn up. Former presidents and prime ministers were queueing up for a shot at being the party candidate (Vinocur, 2016) - including Nicolas Sarkozy, attempting a political comeback.

Yet their hopes have sunk low since then. Nearly every candidate was plagued with some sort of controversy or historical accusations of corruption in office. From Sarkozy to Alain Juppe, to Jean-Francois Cope, the leading candidates had track records they needed to overcome.

While it seemed for a brief moment that they had settled on a nominee free from such troubles in Francois Fillon, a social traditionalist and Thatcherite free marketeer, he also quickly found himself embroiled in controversy.

Fillon has been accused of creating, in essence phony, jobs for family members and using public funds to pay them. At a time when there is dissatisfaction with the political class in every country, it is the kind of story that won't go away.

If he had steered clear of trouble, he would still have found himself undercut - in efforts to be the mainstream candidate to face the Front National - by Macron, thanks to his platform that leans deeply into the territory of the Right.

On top of wanting tough measures against trade unions and ending the 35 hour working week, with restrictions on immigration, he wants cuts to public spending and an end to the wealth tax (McKenzie & Dewan, 2016). Hardly a broad platform.

The Right's ever further drift rightwards was to try and cover off the threat of the Far Right. After their performance in the regional elections last year, Marine Le Pen's Front National was seen as being in the strongest position amongst Europe's Far Right parties to rock the establishment.

Brexit only reinforced that idea. The fearful mainstream and grinning extremists alike presaged the EU's death in her victory. The trouble is, the 'surge' for Marine Le Pen and her party was never really what it seemed.

While passing 20% in the polls was a troubling landmark, her party has not been able to advance. The key is that it hasn't been able to convince a wider audience, despite efforts to make the Front National the respectable face of Far Right nativist nationalism.

In a departure from the more outspoken racism of her father, she co-opted mainstream values of French republicanism and sought to equate them with nationalism - as that which is native and needs protection. It hasn't worked. The most ambitious projections see her reaching the second round presidential run-off, only to lose profoundly.

Under the respectable surface are disturbing movements. There are dark and extremist rumblings. The face might be respectable but it is façade covering and benefiting from the rise of a cancerous extremism (The Guardian, 2017).

Implications

One thing is clear: the fallout from the French election will come with demands for things to change in Europe. Amongst the agreements that have kept the PS and PRG together is a commitment to overhaul the economic governance of the Eurozone and a call to harmonise Corporation Tax across the continent (Le Monde, 2017).

These would be gigantic, and necessary, steps and be a positive direction for the European Union, particularly in the fight against corporate tax evasion. From Far Left to Far Right, there will be pressure for some kind of action.

The presidential race is only the first and symbolic step. The second step will be taken in the legislative election, where some sort of consensus will need to be found among the progressive parties if they are to set the agenda.

Neither the Right, nor the Far Right, yet hold the balance. So what stands in the way of a progressive next step for France is whether or not the parties of the Left and Centre can find common ground.

In 2002, voters rallied around conservative Jacques Chirac in the presidential against Le Pen's father. It seems likely that the same will to unite behind anyone to 'beat the fascists' will stymie Marine in 2017.

But the various parties - the different streams of the Parti Socialiste, the Parti Radical de Gauche, Macron's En Marche!, Bayrou's centrist MoDems, Melenchon's Left groups and others - will need to pull together to ensure a positive progressive government emerges from the legislative election.