Intimidation in Public Life: When creating new offences, care must be taken that there are no unintended consequences

On Tuesday, Theresa May used the centenary of women's suffrage to announce plans to implement a new offence named Intimidation in Public Life. The move has is based on recommendations in a report by the Committee on Standards in Public Life.

As the Prime Minister said in her speech, it is unsettling that vitriol towards public figures, particularly in politics, is overwhelmingly directed towards women. This has to be addressed. There's really no two ways about that.

But is a new offence, of intimidating a politician or candidate, the answer? Before creating new offences like 'Intimidation in Public Life', there needs to be careful consideration.

Are there laws that already cover this? What are we making illegal? Are we creating new problems?

Yes, free speech is all too often of recent used as a cover, a screen to ensure freedom from the consequences of speech.

And yet, remember that in 2016 a young female student was censured because an MP and a University didn't, wilfully or out of ignorance, understand a meme.

Ian Hislop, the editor of Private Eye, when speaking at a Leveson Inquiry hearing on the phone tapping scandal, said that:

"Statutory legislation is not required and most of the heinous crimes that came up and have made such a splash in front of this inquiry have already been illegal - contempt of court is illegal, phone tapping is illegal, policemen taking money is illegal - all of these things don't need a code, we already have laws for them."

It's something we need to remember when policy may be adopted as a reaction - such as to the incident at a Jacob Rees-Mogg talk at the University of the West of England, to which this announcement has been unsurprisingly strapped.

The Committee on Standards in Public Life have produced an in depth report. It makes for interesting reading. There are important recommendations to consider. One of them is that they report that the criminal law is basically fine.

They committee issues a bipartisan call for the major players - the big political parties, the police, the media - to show leadership and work together in cross-party solidarity.

In terms of legislation, the committee recommends a strictly electoral offence of intimidation and action to hold social media services liable for content posted on their platforms.

The recommendations of the committee are focused, strictly limited and lean towards better use of current tools - not least of which is the need for major bodies to challenge bad behaviour. Even their recommendation for a new offence they subject to the condition of consultation and comes across as a call for sterner sentencing when the target is a public figure.

Prime Minister Theresa May, however, has been criticised in the past for having a 'cavalier' attitude to civil rights and a well documented history for pursuing a path to public order through heavy-handed surveillance.

Unsurprisingly, her announcement is already being dissected by rights groups, such as Liberty, who are already expressing their concerns.

The report does not call for a heavy-hand. In her speech, May said that she would consult on the proposed new intimidation offence. Considered, tentative steps are appreciated. The way forward must be careful and measured. And, perhaps, even left a path untaken.

Progress is Possible: The facts show that the Tories can be beaten - but it's going to take huge local participation

To defeat the Tories, progressives must rise above their partisan divisions to defend the bigger ideas than bring them together.

The statistics for this summer's UK general election are a sorry sight for progressives. Values shared across the whole of the Centre and Left are being threatened by Theresa May's government, and meanwhile there is infighting, disappointment and partisan divisions to contend with.

Some have taken these as the grounds to say that winning is impossible or to double down on the one party, majoritarian rhetoric. But if the Left and Centre spends all of its time fighting itself, the doom and gloom predictions will almost certainly come true. There is a better way to go.

And, on this, the facts speak for themselves.

Take the West Yorkshire constituency of Shipley, seat of Tory arch-meninist, Philip Davies. Shipley was Conservative, with large majorities of more than ten thousand from 1970 to 1997. Then in 1997, Labour gained nearly 7,000 more votes, while the Conservatives lost around 8,000.

Labour kept the seat until 2005, when after eight years in power at Westminster, the seat slipped back to the Conservative by just a few hundred votes. Since then, the support for parties that are not the Conservatives has largely collapsed, with Labour falling back and the Liberal Democrats nearly disappearing as their vote splintered across the spectrum.

Over a ten year period, Philip Davies has built a majority of 10,000. In 2015, the collective conservative vote, Tories and UKIP, was around 30,000 while progressive votes totalled around 20,000 - on a 72% turnout. But this has occurred over time: in 2010 it was 24,000 to 25,000; in 2005 it was 20,000 to 27,000; back in 1997 it was 20,000 to 31,000.

As the by-election in Richmond Park demonstrated, a majority for any party, save for some very few 'heartlands', is far from safe. Sitting MP Zac Goldsmith was turfed out of the seat by a 30% upswing in support for the Liberal Democrats that overturned a 23,000 majority. Goldsmith himself had previously overturned a Lib Dem majority of 4,000.

To press the point further, Labour's win in 1997 would in fact have been impossible if safe seats were unbreachable. Labour won 329 seats in England alone, almost twice as many seats there as the Conservatives and even unseated a host of safe-seated Tory ministers in the process. There are two important things to take away.

One: a huge number of voters in most constituencies do not 'identify' with their vote - they do not consider themselves Tories when they vote Tory, and see no issue in switching to another party if they see a better pitch or feel they were mis-sold a previous one.

And second: no majority is safe in the face of a damned good argument. Zac Goldsmith ran a horrifying negative campaign against Sadiq Khan for London Mayor, had failed to hold his own party to account on a third Heathrow runway and - however the Tories and Goldsmith tried to distance one another - represented an austere authoritarian government overseeing unpopular policies.

An election can be won seat by seat, fight by fight. The political tide turns nationally and locally, ebbing and flowing one way or another, due to a complex set of factors. If voters are willing and support each other, they can take on the system and usher in an alternative. Even a huge slump can be recovered from in dramatic fashion.

For an unusual example, consider the general election in Canada in 2015 - and example with relevance for its use of the Westminster, first-past-the-post, system. Years of austere, conservative, ever rightward drifting government under Stephen Harper was overturned in dramatic fashion.

The centrist Liberals had become the party of government in Canada, providing most of the Prime Ministers of the twentieth centuries with brief Conservative interludes. By 2011, the party's fortunes had been in decline for a decade. Yet it was still a surprise when under Michael Ignatieff, a respected journalist and professor, the party fell to just 34 seats - the fewest in its history.

That made their victory under Justin Trudeau, who was popular despite being derided for being young and unqualified, in 2015 all the more remarkable. In the biggest swing in Canadian federal history, the Liberals went from third with 34 seats, to first and holding a majority of fourteen.

Trudeau ran an optimistic campaign, making bold policy promises and even making a surprise break from austerity, unexpected from the Centrist party. The contrast was significant to Stephen Harper's Conservatives, who took a stance that might be familiar to Theresa May: pleas to trust, "Proven Leadership", for a "Strong Economy", a "Strong Canada" and a "Safer Canada" to "Protect our Economy".

A stern government, turning harsher with terrorism reaching Canadian shores, campaigned on conservatism and strength. Their Liberal opponents pitched optimism and a way to get things moving forward. In that contest, optimism won.

The question ahead for progressives in Britain is how to beat the Tories in each seat. The contest can't be won in the way that it was in Canada. Optimism is a must, yet broadly accepted and respected leadership at the national level of a kind needed to run a national movement of hope is - to be kind - at a premium just now for the Centre and Left.

It is never simple to say that some votes are conservative and others progressive. People vote for different parties for different reasons. But we can say this: the progressive parties - Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens - share some fundamental positions, against austerity, protecting the NHS and social care, to protect the rights of minorities, and people are willing to vote for parties standing for these values. Voters have even looked for Conservatives to stand by these values.

This is a positive struggle that can gain traction, but if voters want an alternative the campaign must be taken on locally - by local activists, yes - but mostly by voters themselves in their own constituencies. The facts say, however dire the present situation, that the Conservatives and Theresa May's austere authoritarianism can be beaten. But in this election it must be achieved by individual votes in individual seats.

Progressives need to focus on the future: The first priority is guaranteeing basic rights

Night falls at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Photograph: European Court of Human Rights by Francois Schnell (License) (Cropped)

The referendum is over and Brexit has won. It might have been a flawed way to settle a dispute, with an awkward result that has split the country nearly completely in two, ensuring an outcome that will not be representative. But progressives have to push on.

The necessity now is to focus on future. Leaving the EU will leave holes in our rights protections, and the Left needs to give consideration as to how to plug the new gaps. That means getting behind a push for new rights protections above and beyond just legislation.

As the Labour Party's senior Brexiter Gisella Stuart was keen to remind us all during the referendum campaign, the UK certainly does have rights legislation of its own - gathered in a long history of campaigning and political reform (ITV News, 2016; ITV, 2016).

"It's been strong trade unions and strong Labour government which have produced that. If you look at any of the rights which we have, either started here or are better here. It is a nonsense to think that the EU protects us from ourselves."

The traditional approach of the Left, as Stuart alluded to, is to rally a movement, in this case the labour movement and unions, to build and maintain majority pressure for new rights and ensure the vigilance to watch over previous gains. That might be described as the 'democratic' approach.

What this approach is not, is a substitute for guaranteed rights - inviolable by the state, with the individual holding the legal power to challenge the state where it infringes upon their essential rights. Such protections are the 'liberal' approach.

In the referendum campaign, these two approaches - one democratic, one liberal - where presented to us as opposed to each other. The liberal guarantees where presented as unnecessarily safeguarding against ourselves, as an undesirable restraint on majority power.

Yet the point of both democratic and liberal protections is to check the abuse of power. Democracy holds individuals in positions of authority to account - as Tony Benn put it, "What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?". Liberalism complements it by holding the majority to account, protecting the individual, or minorities, from the wrath of the many.

Combined together, the democratic approach with the liberal, provides an intricate web of protections ensuring progress made, opening up liberties and removing barriers, cannot be lightly undone - or casually put aside in a moment in which they are considered an obstructive inconvenience.

With Britain's exit, the protections for the individual provided by the EU's social chapter - negotiated and enforced across all of the EU's member states in cooperation, presented - will be withdrawn. That creates a large hole in the UK's rights protections.

That hole could be widened by an ending of the UK's commitment to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) - put at risk in the UK by Brexit, thanks to leading Conservatives like Theresa May, seemingly likely candidate to run against Boris Johnson to be the successor to David Cameron as leader of the Conservatives, expressing a loathing for the ECHR and a wish to withdraw the UK from it (Asthana & Mason, 2015).

For progressives, this marks out clear territory. On the one hand there is a need to reinforce that which the EU's social chapter previously protected - particularly the rights of women and of workers - and on the other to ensure protections remain in place for essential human rights. These hands must work together.

The only current effort to provide some kind of domestic level of protections had been the Conservative promise to introduce a British Bill of Rights. Yet that effort has never fully materialises, and what information has come out of the process has been roundly criticised.

Bella Sankey, Director of Policy at Liberty UK, stressed that 'British' Bill of Rights proposals represented a fundamental diminishment of the protections of our basic rights and put the most vulnerable at risk (Sankey, 2016, Sankey, 2014)). The Conservatives bill risks creating tiered rights, that fail the universal test and hand powerful vested interests the right to decide whether an individual should be protected by human rights, in order to make a crudely naked nationalist pitch.

Sankey goes on to argue that the 1998 Human Rights Act, which set the stage for British judges in British courts to rule on human rights claims domestically, is still the far superior protection. That makes defending the UK's place upholding the ECHR essential.

As for workers' rights - in Europe covering everything from maternity leave to fair treatment for part time workers (Inman, 2016) - it has long been an aim of the Conservatives to 'repatriate' powers over employment legislation, what the Tories call the EU's bureaucratic red tape (Syal, 2013).

Apparently to help reduce costs for businesses, the Conservatives have said they want to cut back these restrictions. What they don't disclose is that most of these 'restrictions' were basic workers' rights, public health & safety standards, and legislation designed to ensure the common market could function as easily as possible by all businesses working according to the same harmonised expectations - basically helping to maximise marketability.

Outside of the EU's system of mutual guarantees, covered in legislation applying to all member states, workers fall back to trusting to the reliability of political parties and movements to be a bastion for their rights at work.

Under Britain's first-past-the-post electoral system, that has meant clinging to Labour even as the party has drifted to the right and accepted the neoliberal consensus. That simply trammels voters, restricting their freedom to choose - as splitting the vote between other parties, in pursuit of other objectives, would risk letting down the guard protecting workers, preventing voters holding parties like Labour to proper account.

The situation calls for a solution that gives people reassurance that their rights at work have protections even when absolute vigilance isn't possible. To that end, the next step for workers rights should be a charter that, either by international treaty like the ECHR or under the domestic protection of the Supreme Court, guarantees employment rights beyond simple majority influence.

Beyond the reach of the EU and European rights protections, the ability of citizens to hold governments to account is reduced to a desperate struggle - between Unions and employers, and for voters between their ideals and pragmatic necessity in their choice of political parties. The UK's time in Europe has shown a glimpse of how things might be done better, that the fear and tension that comes with the uncertainty of whether your rights will survive the next election or cabinet whim could be reduced.

The task ahead of progressives now is to think constructively about the future and build a consensus to set basic rights, in Britain, in adamant.

The Alternative Guide to the EU Referendum: 4 things you should know about Britain's influence, peace and security in the EU

In 2012, the European Union won the Nobel Peace Prize. The EU was cited for its work in uniting a continent that, until 1945, had been consumed by interminable war and for it's work advancing the cause of "peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe".

The role of the EU in that peace has been questioned in this referendum campaign by those who believe that this particular pedestal belongs rather to NATO. So it is important to consider the difference between the EU and NATO, their roles and the difference between building a peace and mounting a defence.

Here is our four things you should know about Britain's influence, peace and security beyond its borders, whether in or out of the European Union.

I: NATO is a military alliance, assembled for security not peace

NATO has roots in the Allies of the two world wars. But it was founded as the military alliance of the West - a treaty bound agreement for collective defence against an aggressor - that was sought out as a counter-balancing power to Stalin's Soviet Union, which was casting a large shadow over Western Europe at the end of the 1940s.

NATO, from its inception under American leadership, has undoubtedly been at the forefront of many of Europe's major conflicts and disputes. In the South and East of Europe, beyond its borders, NATO where heavily involved in the former Yugoslavia, intervening and providing peacekeepers after and today in Syria.

Despite far reaching influence, NATO remains a military alliance. By contrast, as the Cold War went on a third group emerged between the Communist East and the Capitalist West, whose structure was instead an economic alliance.

II: The EU began by using economics to bring lasting peace to Europe

The European Union is the result of civil, rather than military, efforts to bring the people of Europe together. From the start, its methods have been classically liberal - a pillar of free trade economics to prevent war, by materially binding countries by mutual dependence, and a pillar of human rights, that guarantees respect for all of Europe's immensely diverse people, whether as groups or as individuals.

In its time the EU has seen the reconciliation of France and Germany, making war between them unthinkable, and the introduction of democracy to Greece, Spain and Portugal - expanding the EU, and European values and standards as they have become members.

The successes of Europe speak to a different approach to security. By building a peace than brings together a group of people, resolved on a set of principles that stretches beyond nations and borders - beyond tribes and their territories - and encouraging people to recognise their commonality, accept their differences, and choose cooperation, there can be the security that rises from peace and friendship.

III: Europe is threatened by a battle of values, not by force of arms

A military alliance can only offer so much influence on these matters. It cannot address matters of domestic politics without wading in very dark waters. Those who would choose the military alliance over the economic would be literally choosing security over peace, rather than trying to develop both.
A military alliance such as NATO may offer some surety against, for example, the rising militarist authoritarianism of Vladimir Putin's Russia. But what about those countries, in Europe, admiring of his example, who have begun to emulate him at home and come under Putin's sway internationally?

From France, with its Front National, Hungary, with Jobbik, and Poland, with the Law and Justice Party, these countries are members of both the European Union and NATO. Would these parties face expulsion from NATO if they embrace the very authoritarianism that it was set up to oppose? What can NATO do, with all its military power, to influence this struggle for the soul of Europe?

Like the threat of Islamic extremism, this isn't a battle being fought by great powers - gigantic monoliths possessing overwhelming kill power. Influence in such a contest is won, not by arms on a battlefield, but through thousands of civic debates, through effective public services, through the positive opportunity for integration and in millions of small acts of tolerance, decency and welcome.

With integration over nationalism, open borders over closed, in dozens of policy areas, the EU has tried to promote a set of values that stands markedly apart from those of Putin's national authoritarianism or the fanatic totalitarian religious extremism for Islamic fundamentalism.

IV: In the EU, influence is not restricted to states

The European Union exists to bring Europe peacefully together and comes packaged with a commitment therein to human rights, and to democracy. Europe's incomplete integration ensures that how the politics of these values plays out is advertised usually in the crude terms of British, or French, or German interests, or those of two dozen other nation-state members.

Yet, as the movements offering the greatest source of hope for progressives right now show, influence can be exercised in Europe beyond that controlled by the state governments themselves.

The citizens movements of Spain, governing cities and provinces on the principles of municipalism, pushing the municipal cause have a taken a larger view, one more outward looking than might be expected from local politics. They look to help their communities by building alliances between municipalities, between cities, across the entire continent, to bring democracy closer to the people and to bring those citizens together in solidarity.

To that end, the municipal movement governments of cities in Spain have begun meeting directly with the administrations of other cities in Europe. Therein can be found the beginnings of the next great progressive movement - and it has been made possible in the present by the work of decades within the EU.

What do progressives want to influence?

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

The EU certainly isn't perfect, but exiting one continental system without another supporting progressive values to join, when so much for the Left depends on international cooperation, is reckless and wasteful. Between voting to remain and voting to exit, voting to remain is the only option that chimes the broad vision.

But for progressives, matters don't rest there. The EU is incomplete. It is under the control of a austere conservative political consensus and under threat from a set of nationalist authoritarian parties who want to regress politics by a century.

Pulling away will do nothing for the peace and security of those who cherish values like openness and tolerance, who believe in standing for solidarity, standing for common values and standing for the common good, need to stay and engage even as other hearts turn colder.

This is Part 3 of  a multi-part series, "The Alternative Guide to the EU Referendum" - click here to go to the introductory hub

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Universal suffrage, for all adult citizens, is a basic principle that should be without controversy - including votes at 16

On Wednesday, the Lords voted to defeat the government on the matter of Votes at 16 (Watt, 2015) - which would allow those of the ages 16 and 17 to vote in the EU referendum. Putting aside for the moment the odd fact that the unelected chamber has intervened once again in pursuit of a progressive purpose, the vote in the Lords has brought back to the table an important matter.

Tim Farron, leader of the Liberal Democrats, put it succinctly (Farron, 2015):

"It is hypocrisy of the worst kind to argue against votes at 16 for the EU referendum. The government accepts that at 16 you are mature enough to serve in the Armed Forces, be married and pay tax, and they should now give these same people the right to vote."

The past two centuries in Britain have seen a long, and slow, progressive march towards ending democratic discrimination. First came the ending of class and wealth discrimination that excluded the 99% who were not aristocrats or wealthy property owners. Then came, in slow and apportioned amounts, the end of gender and race discrimination at the ballot box.

None of those gains have been perfect. Lords and Bishops still sit in Parliament without election. Women are still sorely under represented in elected offices, as are representatives from minorities. Wealthy and propertied men still far exceed those from poorer backgrounds. And, age remains a barrier for those of the ages of 16 and 17 - despite their ability to actively participate in society.

It is a basic liberal democratic principle that, should you have to abide by the rules and customs of a society, you should have the right to a voice in deciding those rules and customs. A society can only be said to have true universal suffrage when all those who are adult citizens have access to same rights for compliance with the same duties.

Only through being consistent and inclusive, as well as promising representative results, can democracy invigorate and engage rather disenchant. Electoral reform is sorely needed, and an important part of those reforms will be votes at 16.

Corbyn and the Labour Party pass their first big challenge - showing solidarity against the government's trade union bill

Trade Unions led this summer's London Tube Strike over the safety concerns tied up in the extension of services to running 24 hours. Photograph: Tube Strike by Barney Moss (License) (Cropped)

Today saw the second reading of the Conservative government's trade union bill. This was the first debate on the controversial measures, aimed by the government at stopping what they have called 'endless' strike threats. Following a morning on which Jeremy Corbyn's new shadow cabinet had been announced (May, 2015), Labour was in need of an issue on which they could present a united front.

If an opposition, particularly a progressive opposition, has any role at all it is to challenge power and the way it is used. The trade union bill presented the first, very early, opportunity for the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn to do just that. The measures to be debated included an extension - up to two weeks - of the notice required before strikes can be held, allowing employers the use of agency workers to cover striker shifts, and mandatory identification to be worn by picketers with their details to be provided to police (BBC, 2015).

The reading of the bill by minister Sajid Javid met a hostile reception from the beginning, with Caroline Lucas and Dennis Skinner setting the tone. The Conservative position was that their proposed regulations were aimed at stopping a malign minority of trade unionists forcing strike action - damaging to the livelihoods of other workers -  upon the broader general public (BBC, 2015{2}).

Elements of the bill were criticised by influential Conservative backbencher David Davis (Mason, 2015; Casalicchio, 2015). Davis described measures requiring strikers to identity themselves and provide details to police as more suited to Franco's Spain than "Queen Elizabeth II's Britain". Yet during the debate itself, Davis argued that the bill, stripped of its illiberal elements, would tackle one of the side effects of public sector monopoly, that withdrawal of public sector labour means withdrawal of the service - deeply inconveniencing the lives of the wider public.

However, human rights groups have described the bill as a dangerous restriction upon the human and democratic rights of workers that, in particular, makes it 'easier for the Government to be a bad employer' (Ogilvie, 2015). The bill has also been described as a vindictive attack on civil liberties, by Liberal Democrat former business secretary Vince Cable and the General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress Frances O'Grady (Taylor, 2015; Cable & O'Grady, 2015).

Through first the Liberal Party and later the Labour Party, trade unions in the UK have sought better rights and protections for people in the workplace. In the early years that meant a mix of support of parliamentary candidates and organisation of large strikes. Yet over the years - though with some periods of resurgence - time lost to industrial action has dwindled to give way to negotiation and under the restraints of increases in trade union legislation (Bienkov, 2015).

The ability of public sector workers to strike, with an impact on the wider public, is part of the right to strike. As private sector strikes challenge the interests of their employers, in the form of their accumulation of profits from labour, public sector strikes challenge the interests of their employer, the government, in the form of their votes dependent upon public satisfaction. With employers holding an unequal power in being able to withhold employment upon which the lives of workers depend, it is not unfair that workers to also be able to withhold benefits from their employer - in fact it is recognised as a human right (Ewing, 2015).

Whatever the differences between the factions within the Labour Party that Jeremy Corbyn has been elected to lead, opposition to anti-union tactics likened to those of dictators - a poignant example of a disturbing conservative trend of attacking human rights, suspending liberties supported by legal aid or social security, and even naming opposition parties as a risk to national security (Dearden, 2015) - provides an easy point of agreement.

If the role of opposition - and the roots of what it means to be on the Left - is to challenge power, attempts to restrict liberty of peaceful protest and civic dissent should be able to unite the Labour Party. Especially since opposition to the bill has been supported across progressive parties, by Labour, Green and also Liberal Democrat MPs - whose leader Tim Farron said that the bill attacked trade unions who stood up "for workers' rights" and protected "against workplace abuse and bullying" (Farron, 2015).

There is no rule against being constructive in opposition. But a majority government has little need of aid in pursuing its agenda. Corbyn's first day has seen Labour taking a stand, showing some solidarity with the trade union movement - which alone is admittedly a small victory. And yet, it is the small victories and acts of solidarity out of which a larger labour movement is built.

Manchester Pride is a symbol of the campaign for individual liberty that is only sustainable with greater economic equality

Manchester Pride has grown to be a bright and gleeful reminder of the advances made in the struggle for the freedom of identity. The Pride parade has become a city-wide carnival celebration of the acceptance of difference (BBC, 2015).

Yet the liberty that the parade lauds is a fragile thing. It can only survive so long as the society around it is willing to support the capacity of its citizens to exercise that freedom. In the long run, that means support for more than free association. It means supporting the economic equalities and opportunities that makes the so-called 'luxury' of choice a realistic possibility.

The present political era has been described as a 'liberal age' (Payne, 2015). With the general paucity of success for liberal political parties, that might seem to be a bit of a grand statement. Yet it reflects the astounding success of social liberalism in society.

The liberties of the individual have been widely accepted - as Manchester Pride shows. When Ireland embraced equal marriage, in an emphatic plebiscite that was signed into law on Saturday (The Irish Times, 2015), it left only Italy as a hold out for the old ways in Western Europe (Kirchgaessner, 2015).

Yet, as touched upon in Nick Clegg's resignation speech, the advance of these freedoms is fragile in the face of 'fear and grievance' (Lindsay, 2015). These strong emotions follow an historical pattern, with tough times, caused by an economic crisis, leading to fraught social disputes and hearts turning inwards towards tribalism - just when a broader social solidarity is called for.

In the age of austerity, these problems are exacerbated by the inequalities that the austerian system promotes. Concentrations of wealth (Piketty, 2013; Naidu, 2014), the strains of globalised competition and the slashing of social security only reinforce these fears and tribalism (Rivera, 2014; Washington, 2013).

Few organisations epitomise this modern struggle and contradiction so fully as the European Union. It champions social liberalism, supporting the liberation of the individual from the ideological chains of the state, even as it is itself used by nationally conservative parties as a vehicle for the fiscally conservative policies of austerity.

On the one hand, in Italy there is pressure from European institutions for the country to meet the basic rights of its citizens over issues of identity and gender - against pretty stern resistance in places like Venice (The Guardian, 2015). Yet on the other hand, Greece has been struggling under heavy fiscal pressure applied by the European 'Troika' (Fazi, 2015) - largely against the democratic voice of Greek citizens (Monbiot, 2015).

The trouble for this liberal age is that it's happening side-by-side with an age of conservative economics - and all of the success won by social liberalism is under threat from it. Without strong social security safety nets, with people burdened by servitude as a way of life, they have little time to find, let alone make the most of, opportunities - and that takes away their capacity to make choices for themselves.

The Manchester Pride parade, with its lights, music and colour cheered on by the citizenry, is the symbol of a modern, progressive society - and a social solidarity stretching beyond simple tribalism. The spirit of solidarity symbolised by the Pride festival - even with it's imperfections (Amelia, 2015) - is needed now in the struggle against a conservative economic supremacy that, by taking away the social security, threatens the freedoms of all citizens.

Corbyn has brought idealism to the campaign, but needs to show how public ownership can further the pursuit of a just, inclusive and power-devolving society

Jeremy Corbyn MP speaks at anti-drones rally in 2013. Photograph: By stopwar.org.uk (license)(cropped)

Jeremy Corbyn's entry has electrified the Labour leadership contest (Eno, 2015). With people beginning to ask 'what happens if Jeremy Corbyn wins?', it might be a good time to look at what it is for which Corbyn is actually campaigning (Bush, 2015).

Jeremy Corbyn was originally ushered into the Labour leadership campaign as the alternative candidate (BBC, 2015). His job was to open up the debate Leftwards, to ensure that all voices were heard and that the 'electable' candidates had to work hard for the position.

Yet the campaign has been turned on its head by his entry. Endorsements from the trade unions and a popular anti-austerity following have put Corbyn in a strong position. It is now a very ready possibility that he could, in fact, win the leadership election.

That possibility has turned the race for the leadership into a showdown between Old Labour and New Labour, each with their own rival visions of the Left. Old Labour on the one side offering idealistic solutions, so acting as the national destination for those disenchanted with New Labour, on the other side, offering their pragmatic, 'modernising', solutions. (Jones, 2015)

The trouble is that neither side is being particularly radical. Corbyn's stances belong largely to the old Left, though hardly the hard Left (Krugman, 2015), and focus on a more structured and permanent society than the one that is unfolding at present (Harris, 2015) - that is: trade unions, nationalisation and a centralised state engaged in public spending and public ownership.

On the other side, fairly or unfairly, New Labour has been seen as a surrender to Centre-Right political thought. They are seen as a negative force that is too quick to shut down idealism (Watt, 2015; Watt, 2015{2}). They are, perhaps, too cosy with big business and too afraid of public opinion (Martin, 2015), to say anything distinct, other than to maintain a determination to make everything pass through a heavily centralised state.

But society is fragmenting. Democratic politics can seemingly no longer rely on mass support, marching under one big tent banner, that supports a singular centralised state, where power is wielded by the lofty party elite.

Historically, liberals and democrats stood, as progressives, opposed to the forces of conservatism that defended the traditional, elitist, order. Liberals stood in the name of the individual, democrats in the name of the people, or of the community.

As conservatism has, ironically perhaps, evolved in order to survive, it has taken on the cast offs from democrats and liberals as they have moved leftwards. From liberals it has embraced classical liberal laissez-faire economics. From democrats it has taken advantage of populism and nationalism.

All of these elements were once used as a means to rally people against the old elite. Themes that would as unifying rallying points, that could be used to transcend the particular concerns of particular individuals or communities.

But society has moved on once more. Rather than one community united by a singular narrative of economic class, there are dozens, hundreds, of communities with their own narratives - feminist, environmental, civil rights, trade unionist - who do not believe that their cause should be secondary.

Likewise individualism has moved forward. Individuals now support many causes, shifting between them or associated freely with several at once. There is a demand, not just for choice, but also for autonomy and the devolution and decentralisation of power.

These new, fragmented forms of democratic and liberal politics require new forms of solidarity - new ideas that the old approach of the mass party using the power of state to fend of the power of corporations and aristocrats is not set up to provide.

The big question facing Labour is how it can give a community response to a country that has seen community, in all of the traditional senses, collapse? Democracy and socialism speaks of people as fundamentally based on and in communities, based on the importance of ideas like your home town, your social class and your trade. But all of these are breaking down. Permanence is disappearing and with it the conventional anchors for these traditional communities.

How does a Labour party respond to social change that has so undone its means of rallying, organising and leading?

The starting point has be in addressing the fact that Labour's view, of the people as workers, with the state as their protector, redistributor and benefactor, seems to have broken down. That system needs to rebuilt on new themes.

That themes need to encompass Labour commitment to a democratic identity, a community focus and the pursuit of justice on these terms. But it also needs build in both the pursuit of progress and the allowance for alliances and fragmentation. Labour can be a coordinator, not just a director.

The radical new horizons on the Left for democratic socialists mean an inclusive attitudes towards the new and emerging political movements which have begun to get their days in the sun, at least in glimpses. From trade unions, to environmentalists, feminists and the civil rights advocates movement, there are numerous sectional interest groups, all pursuing their own agendas.

Yet unlike conservative sectionalism, it can't be about one group asserting its dominance over the others. Labour has to learn that progress will be, ultimately, about individuals and communities cooperating - breaking down the old powers and supporting the dispersal of it widely across society.

Jeremy Corbyn's campaign is already generating success (Milne, 2015), with Andy Burnham now openly advocating a gradual renationalisation of the railways (Perraudin, 2015). But it won't be enough to call upon the old centralising powers of party and state if they continue to alienate, suppress or exclude diverse movements.

More nuanced answers are needed to the complex issues of a contemporary society that is fragmented, becoming ever more temporary and fleeting. Calling upon the state, public ownership and trade unions to have a renewed role is not a bad thing. But people do need to know how those institutions can face the challenge of an ever more fragmented and decentralised society.

It is imperative that Corbyn's campaign addresses the matter of how he intends to turn these old Left mechanisms from yesterday into the inclusive, power-devolving, radical Left solutions of tomorrow.

Rainbow celebration needs to fuel fresh momentum in the long struggle to create societies that take consent seriously

Photograph: Rainbow American via photopin (license) (cropped)

In two terms, mired in partisan politics bitterly divided between Liberals and Conservatives, US President Barack Obama has struggled to give his administration a definitive identity. A pair of Supreme Court (SCOTUS) rulings from the past week have certainly helped make that task a little easier.

The first Supreme Court ruling ensured the continued existence of Obama's flagship healthcare reforms, for the near future at least (Roberts & Jacobs, 2015). The ruling decided that the Federal government could deliver its affordable health insurance plan in all fifty states.

The second ruling confirmed equal marriage as a constitutional right (Roberts & Siddiqui, 2015). That means that in all fifty states same-sex couples will have the right to marry, and that marriages from other states have to be recognised.

These rulings, lauded as successes by Obama (Jacobs, 2015), have been heralded as a triumph for liberalism and individual freedoms, over the conservatism of the established social order. Along with having earlier overseen the end of the ban on openly gay military service (McVeigh & Harris, 2011), these rulings have made civic equality into a major theme of the Obama administration.

Although there clearly is still resistance, some of which has been aggressively intolerant (Butterworth, 2015), people will adapt. But that doesn't mean that the work is over. Combined, these steps have established a new social plateau, which represents a renewed acknowledgement of the rights of consenting adults to live on equal terms with their peers. Yet, those who have won equal marriage will still face discrimination and legal hurdles (Roberts and Siddiqui, 2015; Buncombe, 2015).

Though by themselves these rulings are huge victories for human rights, civil rights and individual liberty, they also represent smaller parts of a broader human struggle, towards the attainment of respect for consent as a central human value.

The ideal of a representative democracy is based around consent. Government by the consent of the governed, laws created with the consent of those who have to abide by them, economics with the consent of the community, and social interactions with the consent of the participants.

Without the removal of coercion and fear, whether from economic conditions in which you cannot afford to get ill or from social conditions where you cannot openly define your own identity due to discrimination, there can be no civic participation on the basis of consent. Without liberty from coercion and fear, there can be no free choices.

To get there, the Supreme Court rulings need now to be the inspiration for the next step (Thrasher, 2015). They are breakthroughs in their own right and just cause for celebration, but that energy and solidarity needs to be poured into renewed motivation to keep moving forward.

Conservative Queen's Speech offers some relief to Human Rights campaigners, but also holds new threats to civil liberties

The State Opening of Parliament took place in Westminster today, amongst all of the usual pomp and circumstance. At centre stage of the whole event was, as usual, the Queen's Speech - aka the Speech from the Throne. Accompanied by the government's full 103-page list of bills and notes - and through the traditional though slightly odd process of having a monarch read out the government's plans, largely in their words, like a celebrity giving an advertising endorsement - the Queen announced the Cameron ministry's 26 main legislative objectives for the coming Parliamentary session (Sparrow, 2015).

Alongside some of the expected promises, like an EU Referendum and a more conservative approach to addressing immigration and extremism - along with harsher rules for trade union strike action - there is also some fairly positive news and some news that is less so for those concerned about changes to the Human Rights Act, and to our civil rights and liberties (The Guardian, 2015).

The most notable absence from the speech was a firm commitment to scrapping the Human Rights Act (Wintour & Mason, 2015). In the speech, the commitment has been watered down to bringing forward proposals - meaning that there is likely to be, at the least, a consultation period lasting some years before any legislation is produced.

If so, that would mark a huge first success for the opposition to David Cameron's government. Campaigners for the Human Right Act have been very vocal from the day that Cameron took office and it looks like the message has gotten through.

However, human rights campaigners will have a new task on their hands with the return of the snooper's charter - long resisted by the rights and liberties protecting efforts of the Liberal Democrats (Wintour, 2015). Progressives will be hoping for an extension of the campaign to protect human rights to also cover civil liberties, as the proposed Investigatory powers bill - allow the tracking of communications data - returns to the table greatly expanded (Travis, 2015).

There is hope that progressives can succeed. The pressure they have brought to bear so far, in only a short time in opposition, may well have successfully delayed attempts to tamper with the Human Rights Act for years. Now that the campaign to protect our guaranteed rights has made a significant breakthrough, the next big effort will be to protect our civil liberties.