Italian Left: Upheavals reveal progressive cross-section - struggle between pro-European current and rejection of neoliberalism. Can they be reconciled?

Matteo Renzi speaks in a university in October 2015. Photograph: Matteo Renzi a San Giobbe by the Università Ca' Foscari Venezia (License) (Cropped)

The Italian left is going through another of its upheavals, a common feature of politics in Italy over the last quarter century. There have been regular clashes and breakups over details and personalities. But this time, there may be a deeper root that can tell us something about the wider experience of progressive politics.

The Democrats as a Broad Front

Since the collapse of the centrist, statist, pentarchy - the five party system - in the 1990s, following the Mani Pulite investigation into political corruption that blew up into an engulfing scandal, the Italian left and centre has struggled to organise stable parties and coalitions.

At the centre of most efforts build a stable organisation of left and centre parties and supporters was Romano Prodi. He was a central figure in the movements La Margherita (The Daisy), L'Ulivo (The Olive Tree), and L'Unione. Prodi also played a central role in getting the broad and varied parties to agree to form the Partito Democratico.

The Democratic Party, the culmination of longstanding efforts to get the left to work together, eventually united most of those who might label themselves democrats - from democratic socialists to christian democrats, along with republicans, socialists, greens and progressive liberals.

But it seems to it wasn't to last. The present discord began with the leadership of Pier Luigi Bersani. From the old left of the movement, Bersani is a former member of the preceding Communist Party and the Democrats of the Left. When Bersani won the party leadership in 2009, it created a rift with centrist, liberal and christian democratic members of the party. They felt it confirmed the Democrats' drift leftwards and some decided to split away, to form new centrist parties.

Bersani, however, still won the primary for the Democrats' electoral coalition, 'Italia. Bene Comune' - which united both the mainstream Democrats and the green-socialist Sinistra Ecologia Liberta, 'Left Ecology Freedom'. Despite promising early polling numbers, the electoral list slipped back over the course of the campaign.

In the 2013 election, thanks to the electoral system, Bersani's Democrats took a narrow majority in the Chamber of Deputies, but the fell short in the Senate. The centre-right of Silvio Berlusconi regained ground and the anti-establishment, libertarian-right, Movimento 5 Stelle (Five Star Movement) showed surprising strength. In fact, the Democrats only achieved second-most votes among individual parties, behind Grillo's M5S

A tense period followed in which Bersani tried to find common ground with this new presence in the Italian Parliament - refusing to engage with Berlusconi and the right. However, Bersani's efforts failed. When a President failed to be elected, thanks in part to his own movement failing to agree on a candidate - with even Romano Prodi unable to gain general support - Bersani resigned his leadership.

Rise, Fall and Rise of the Renziani

Since 2013, the Democrats have been through several leaders and Prime Ministers. The resignation of Bersani had cleared the way for the centrist candidate of choice, Mayor of Florence Matteo Renzi - who had been compared to Tony Blair. Renzi's leadership, and Premiership, lasted three years.

During that time it was the turn of the left of the party to drift away, as Renzi held to the course of an unrepentant social democrat of the new style, embracing neoliberalism and adapting to it. That meant implementing measures to meet European Union and Eurozone conditions, in particular 'labour reforms' - the relaxing of employment laws to make hiring and firing easier, that have been deeply unpopular on the left, across Europe.

However, Renzi brought about his own, as it would turn out temporary, downfall with the constitutional referendum held last winter. Seeking to change the electoral system to reflect that of Germany, Renzi staked his leadership on the referendum. This was a gamble that Matteo Renzi lost.

With defeat, Renzi resigned the Premiership. He also resigned the party leadership, but announced his intention to run again. This announcement drove many on the left - socialists, democratic socialists, and even social democrats of strong feeling and other progressives who wish to reject the neoliberal system - to break away from the Democrats. That included party grandees like Bersani and Massimo D'Alema.

Renzi took back the party leadership with a resounding victory. But that has just created a new problem. While Renzi now had control of the Democrats - with a clear Renziani politics that is pro-European, liberal and centrist - he has few external allies.

The leftist groups that broke away formed a series of parties - Movimento Democratico e Progressista (MDP, social democratic), Possibile (progressive), and Campo Progressista (CP, democratic socialist) - that have refused to form an electoral alliance with the Renziani Democrats for the election next year. Instead, along with Sinistra Italiana (SI, democratic socialist), these new parties are organising a new alliance called Liberi e Uguali (LeU/LE), or 'Free and Equal', with the intention to stand against the Democrats as a left alternative option next year.

With left cooperation rejected, Renzi is pursuing the path of Emmanuel Macron, driving the Democrats in the direction of pro-European liberals and will have to pitch for new allies among centre parties - like Piu Europa (+Europa, PE), 'More Europe', that includes Emma Bonino's Italian Radicals.

Cross-section of the Left

This fragmentation, this new unwillingness, exposes a cross-section of the Left that is becoming apparent - and not just in Italy. On the one hand, there is a growing call to ditch neoliberalism. On the other, a strong pro-European sentiment - particularly among young people.

The search for unity and success for the left in Italy led to the assembly of a party out of a great many movements, with a great many ideological commitments. A way was found to find peace between social democrats, social liberals, democratic socialists, greens and even christian democrats.

That has now come apart over a split in priorities between rejecting neoliberalism and supporting the European Union.

Progressives need to wake up to the reality that these are not mutually opposed. They can be reconciled. But to do so means finding a way to reform Europe - to rebuild and renew the Social Europe, in line with democratic principles.

We need to reform Europe, to pursue a continent with a strong social chapter at it's heart. But the first step is learning to cooperate anew. Progressives of different strands in Italy found ways to work together. They, and progressives everywhere, need to do the same now.

French Legislative Elections: Macron's ascent asks a tough question of social democrats and social liberals

Macron's ascendancy consumed the parties of social democrats and social liberals, reducing them to a sliver of seats. Will they be represented in his En Marche majority? If Macron doesn't give enough thought to them, the Left opposition will look to build progressive alliances under his left-wing.

Emmanuel Macron has completed what he set out to do. He has won the Presidency and an Assembly majority riding the crest of his new movement 'La Republic En Marche'. However, the poor turnout suggests all is not yet what it appears.

Macron and En Marche won a landslide, yes. But the wave of disaffection was greater still. In the two rounds of voting, just 49% and 43% of the people voted. Macron has a majority in the Assembly, but not yet in the country. Far from it.

That disparity will only make it harder and more desperate, not easier, to win people over. The pressure is now tangible. Macron has to deliver - and not just his own programme. He has to deliver it in a way that meets with public expectation.

People are already disaffected, with turnouts low, and the call for people to rally about the Centrist candidate has not exactly been answered - regardless how it has been portrayed by those excited by a pro-European Centre revival.

Macron's Centrist success also came largely at the expense of the Centre-Left, practically wiping it out save for those who aligned with En Marche.

Leading figures in the social democratic 'Parti Socialiste' lost their seats as the the party was nearly wiped out, reduced from 280 to just 29 seats. The Left-wing Presidential candidate Benoit Hamon and Assembly leader Jean-Christophe Cambadelis were defeated - though former Premier Manuel Valls survived, standing as an independent.

Social democracy also managed to take social liberalism down with it. The 'Parti Radical de Gauche', their social liberal allies, lost all but three of their seats, though their leader Sylvia Pinel survived. It is worthy of note that three more radicals survived under the En Marche banner.

That poses an interesting question. How much of these ideologies was carried over to La Republic En Marche? Progressives will be watching closely for the answer.

In the mean time, there are questions of how to go about forming a progressive opposition. The main opposition will be the Centre-Right 'La Republicains'. They also suffered a defeat, though less damaging, and along with their allies dropped to 131 seats.

In opposition on the Left, Social democrats and social liberals are now present only in small numbers - in terms of their traditional, recognisable forms. Their supporters may be forced to look to En Marche and their MoDem allies in government for representation.

There is now, though, the possibility of a clear democratic socialist caucus in opposition. If the Socialists stick to the agenda that Benoit Hamon presented for the Presidential election, there is a possibility of forming a largely coherent DemocSoc group.

While the Socialists hold more seats, the leading voice of that group would be Jean-Luc Melenchon - who performed well at the Presidential election from the Left as the outsider candidate.

His movement 'France Insoumise' gained seats, and with what remains of the PS, along with the support of the PCF (Communists), there is a core of fifty seats with which to build an opposition group. That is enough, perhaps, to put pressure on Macron - and maybe enough to act as the beginning of a new Left alignment.

Macron's new movement - his new party of government, created just for that purpose out of the ashes of social democracy and social liberalism - has work to do.

That work has been described as Nordic in style, mixing controls on spending and cuts to regulation, with public investment and a strong social safety net - shifting the public role from keeping people in work to supporting them when they're not.

But to do that, he must first pull down the intensive labour institutions and the DemocSoc Left will not take that lightly. Expect protests on the streets and, if they can organise, a Left bloc voting against him. They will also resist plans aiming to cut taxes for the wealthy and corporations.

Caught in the midst of these struggles will be the social democrats and social liberals - both those within Macron's caucus and those in small numbers outside. They will have a difficult choice over their relationship to the Presidential majority.

Macron will likely have some of his greatest difficulties dealing with the threat of social democrats and social liberals pulling to the Left, if he tacks too far to the Republican Right, and threatening to vote with an organised DemocSoc bloc - perhaps giving both groups more influence than their initial numbers might suggest.

However, right now, Macron has the numbers. If he and his Premier move with energy, the most controversial elements of his approach might be completed early enough that En Marche can ride the wave. But the longer he waits, the harder change will get.

One last note. As a reminder that the far-right is far from beaten, Marine Le Pen was among a handful of Front National deputies elected to the National Assembly.

As Macron and his Centre-Right Premier Edouard Philippe lead the Assembly, they should keep Le Pen's deputies in sight. They represent the cost, for France, of failure to deliver on public perception. En Marche must deliver to France a tangible fresh start.

Pluralism is more than choices - it is how we re-engage and build a real civic consensus

Corbyn, seen here speaking at at CWU event in Manchester, rejected the idea of a multi-party progressive alliance at the final Labour Leadership hustings in Glasgow.

The stalemate in Spanish politics, unbroken now by two elections and very much looking like leading to a third election in the space of a year (Jones, 2016), is the most obvious symptom of a divided society. But Spain is hardly alone in that.

Recent elections in the UK have shown British politics heading the same direction. The two traditional big tents are losing their grip and people are looking for other options. As a result, the broad social cross-sections needed to hold majority power - even under a majoritarian two-party system like first-past-the-post - are becoming harder to build and control.

The questions is, what can be done to avoid such an impasse?

Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the surest path to stability is pluralism. But getting there requires rethinking what is meant by pluralism, away from the simplistic image of a fractured multi-party politics.

The tendency in the UK has been to portray plural systems, with their coalitions between multiple parties, as a system of never ending deal making - in contrast with the direct and little-trammelled power afforded to majority governments by the two-party system.

But that deeply simplistic picture ignores both the necessity for representation and the true building of consensus. Under the two-party system, politics is squeezed and distilled into narrow establishment and opposition positions - politics simplified into two parties locked into adversarial stances that drive a wedge through society.

That reduces politics to a polarised dynamic, with no space for nuance. Worse still, policy has become a professional art, the preserve of a narrow group of think tanks and party policy officers, that usually offers watered down versions of public campaigns - ostensibly to make them broadly palatable.

But trying to stretch a big tent over a broad membership, and expecting them to fall in line behind a professionally crafted policy platform, just alienates people from the responsibility to try to find consensus and imagine grounds for agreement.

It is politics made more efficient, but robbed of its essential character: as a public forum for critical debate on how to shape our common space, where representation and inclusion are the priority not minority voices competing to 'win' the right to direct everyone else from their own narrow perspective.

It is one of the more disappointing elements about the Labour Party that it has consistently failed to grasp this idea - even under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn talks of re-engaging social movements, but fails to engage with pluralism, with multiplicity, rejecting particularly the prospect of a Progressive Alliance.

Even under democratic socialist leadership, the party is still presenting itself as the self-styled only option, where the ideas of the Left - even when including trade unions and social movements of various and diverse kinds - must still ultimately be filtered through one single political party, pitching for broad public consumption, to achieve political expression.

What a contrast that is to how Barcelona's radical democrats view their task. Barcelona En Comu, not so much a party as a civic alliance, also talk of rebuilding the civic representation aspect of politics, but they are demonstrating it in practice.

Their municipal government is built around an alliance of various movements and parties. They understand their task in the civic space, in the movements and in the squares, is to involve both their opponents and fellow travellers of different parties alongside their own supporters, if they are really going to build a system of political pluralism - representative and inclusive

If Catalunya, the wider Spain and Britain keep down the road of adversarial politics the only result there can ever be is a society where the majority feel disconnected and uninvolved with their own physical and social spaces.

Politics isn't about winning. Its about representation. A plural politics takes as its starting point ensuring that people are able to see their views represented - whether directly through assemblies or a little more indirectly through multiple parties.

The next step is to rethink how these groups then interact. Rather than adversaries, these groups then hold a responsibility to craft, through debate, discussion and, yes, compromise, their various policy themes into a coherent shape that reflects the particular, distinct and plural society from which they have sprung.

Only then can people begin to reconnect, both with politics and with their civic spaces. Consensus is key. Representation is key. Pluralism is not the beginning of division and instability, but the only path to a real and lasting stability.

Road to Super Tuesday: The US Presidential Primaries have so far been a tale of outsiders rocking the establishment

Texas, with the most delegates, will be the key battleground come Super Tuesday. Photograph: Texas State Capitol in Austin from Pixabay (License) (Cropped)

Tuesday 1st of March marks a key moment in the long and winding US Presidential election. So-called Super Tuesday will see more than ten states, including key state Texas, declare their choices for Democratic and Republican candidates for the Presidency (Weiland, 2016).

Going into Super Tuesday, the primaries for both parties are much closer than previously predicted. The tight races are largely thanks to their being contested by the outsider candidates Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, who are upsetting prior expectations and putting the old two-party system to the sword.

The 2016 US Presidential race was supposed to be a straight race between two clear favourites - one from each party. From amongst the Democrats there was Hillary Clinton, while from the Republicans there was Jeb Bush.

Hillary was a former First Lady, as wife of Bill, and in her own right Secretary of State and a long time Senator. Jeb is the son of one President and the Brother of another, with executive experience as Governor of Florida. The rest appeared to be a formality.

Contrary to first impressions, however, the supporters of neither party where in the mood for a coronation. There were, from the first, insurgent candidacies, but they were paid little heed and given long odds.

Commentary watching the Republican nomination race, in particular, found something between fascination and amusement in how long the list of candidates for the GOP nomination was becoming (Gabbatt, 2015). Where analysis fell on the respective lists in depth, some where given more credibility than others.

Early runner Scott Walker was one such candidate. The Governor of Wisconsin has a controversial record that has proven popular with fiscal conservatives in the GOP (Pilkington & Sullivan, 2015) - including spending cuts and confrontations with unions.

Walker's run for the Republican Party nomination certainly made a lot of sense. As one part of a Wisconsin trio, along with GOP House Speaker Paul Ryan and GOP Party Chairman Reince Priebus, that are trying to set the agenda for the modern Republican Party (Balz, 2011; Healy & Martin; 2015).

The Democrat's version was Martin O'Malley - who was famously the inspiration for the Baltimore-based TV show The Wire. O'Malley entered as the third runner alongside, and 'moderate' alternative to, democratic socialist Sanders and the scandal mired Clinton, clearly hoping to be seen as someone more acceptable to a broader middle ground of voters (Tabor, 2015).

However, all bets were upset by Trump and Sanders.

There is little to be said about Donald Trump from a progressive view, other than to note the apparent popularity of his brand of being offensive to people from almost every demographic group.

Bernie Sanders started the Democratic race with isolated support in only a few Northeastern states and lay nearly 60 points behind Clinton (Daily Kos, 2015). Yet by the Nevada caucus the Vermont Senator was just 5 points adrift (Lewis et al, 2016).

Yet both outside runners still face barriers beyond the Democratic-Republican establishment itself.

Trump's divisive message has kept him stuck in the mid 30s in the percentage polls - although in Nevada on Saturday he did break the 40% barrier (The Guardian, 2016). Meanwhile the more 'mainstream' candidates have together pulled in over 50% over numerous polls.

Coming from almost the opposite direction, Sanders has struggled to get his message out beyond his core of young and working class voters. South Carolina showed this with abundant clarity as Hillary Clinton won 74% of the vote and overwhelmingly with voters who were not white (Walsh, 2016). Clinton, backed overwhelming by the party elite, has campaigned smartly and is so far holding back the rising popular tide.

Regardless of the barriers in their way, the outsiders have none-the-less shaken up the establishment.

This is demonstrated most clearly in the Republican race where mainstream favourite Jeb Bush's campaign ended in complete failure in South Carolina (BBC, 2016), when he dropped out with little to show for millions in fundraising. Marco Rubio, the next to be annointed by the GOP mainstream, inherits a deficit to Trump that it will take huge momentum to overhaul (Stokols & Palmer, 2016).

Super Tuesday will give the first major indications of whether the insurgent candidacies will have the momentum to topple their respective party establishments. Even if the party elite see off the challengers, there doesn't seem to be a positive outcome likely for them.

At best for the Democratic-Republican establishment, it will likely see off a strong opposition run only to be fatally undermined. As seen elsewhere, like in France, the mainstream will limp on hounded by outside forces that sense weakness and opportunity. At worst, the two-party system that has governed the US will not have been broken apart, but rather hacked and hijacked.

Labour need to start winning battles on the airwaves if their anti-austerity policies are going to win on the ground

At some point John McDonnell has to turn his academic focussed New Economics tour into well publicised campaign events, for audiences both live in the flesh and live online, if his counter-narrative is going to take hold. Photograph: John McDonnell MP with Grow Heathrow in London in 2012, by Jonathan Goldberg/Transition Heathrow (License) (Cropped)

Yesterday evening, Labour Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell made the latest stop on his New Economics tour at the London School of Economics (Kirton, 2016). As with previous events, the audience was packed out to hear his arguments, not just against austerity but for an alternative.

The first New Economics tour stop saw Mariana Mazzucato argue, at the Royal Society, for a smarter state (Mazzucato, 2016) - defending the state as an often abused innovator that takes the risks that the private sector won't, but which shares little of the rewards. The second saw several speakers tackle how technology will affect work in the future (Srnicek et al, 2016).

At the LSE event, McDonnell spoke directly against austerity as an ideologically motivated policy - as a choice made by Conservative politicians in pursuit of a their own political goals (Kirton, 2016). The Labour Shadow Chancellor said that his priorities were to put democracy and decentralisation at the heart of his economic approach (Sheffield, 2016) - and positive statements that Labour were giving serious consideration to backing a basic income (Sheffield, 2016{2}).

What has been missing, however, is promotion. Beyond those in the loop or paying close attention, there has been little pomp and ceremony to draw attention to the Shadow Chancellor's efforts. In the face of apparent media hostility to the Corbyn-McDonnell project, the low key approach might well be understandable.

The trouble is that these are precisely the battles that Ed Miliband lost as Labour leader. Labour lost control of their own message, of their own identity, and left it to others to define them.

Economics has been the outstanding issue. The key to getting Labour back in power, according to many commentators both internal and external over the last six years (Umunna, 2015; Eaton, 2015), is to rebuild Labour's reputation as an effective and reliable manager of the economy - to regain their economic credibility. The Shadow Chancellor himself has acknowledged that reality (The Herald Scotland, 2016).

John McDonnell's idea of bringing on the world's most famous, rockstar, anti-austerity economists as advisors was a bold move. Taking them on tour to make their arguments, to build a counter-narrative in opposition to austerity, was bolder still. But the low key, low profile, approach can only reach so far.

Right now, the Corbyn-McDonnell team is fighting battles within small circles of onlookers. Scrapping for party policy positions, introducing an alternative narrative by increments to interested and sympathetic audiences at cosy events. Yet, sooner or later, the boots of campaigners will have to hit the ground and bring them face to face with the voters who live far outside of those circles.

The Corbyn-McDonnell team have shown that, within their own party, they have a pitch that appeals to a broad cross-section of society - from young to old, from poor to wealthy (Sayers, 2016). As with Bernie Sanders in the United States, there is the potential for a winning coalition. But that won't automatically translate into public sympathy.

To reach those people, New Economics will have to start winning battles on the airwaves. Promotional ideas like the New Economics tour will have to be prepared to put a spotlight on its rockstars, promote them and get them playing to bigger crowds - crowds that are maybe more sceptical and who need the grand ideas distilled and condensed.

John McDonnell and his advisors are presenting a compelling vision of a very different, more humane, economy and society - not least in their acknowledgement of the basic income. The next step is to turn up the volume and stop conceding control over the airwaves.

Jeremy Corbyn wins the Labour leadership election in a revolution of party members overthrowing the party establishment

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

Jeremy Corbyn has been elected leader of the Labour Party with 59.5% of the vote in the first round of voting. In a contest where over four hundred thousand people voted, no other candidate achieved over 20% of the vote and Corbyn won in every party category, including 49% of established party members and 57% of trade union members.

In the build-up, Tom Watson was also announced as the winner of the deputy leadership contest. The MP, who led the campaign to hold the media to account after accusations arose of  illegalities, promised in his acceptance speech to back the new leader and help them to unite the party.

Whether or not the new leadership can unite the party is the big question that will come out of this contest. The remarkable rise of Jeremy Corbyn exposed a rift between the Labour Parliamentary Party and the party's wider membership and supporters.

The contest had been initially dominated by the more right-leaning Blairites and and centrist Brownites, in the form of younger generation candidates like Chuka Umunna, Tristram Hunt and Liz Kendall and older generation members like Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper.

Yet there was a sense that the party's Left needed to be represented in order to have a substantial debate. That was only accomplished with the assistance of MPs 'lending' Corbyn their nominations. And yet those 'lent' nominations opened a floodgate. The popular appeal of Corbyn seemingly gave the Labour Left the confidence to come out in numbers and chance a return to the mainstream.

The future of the Labour Party from here may well have a lot to do with how it organises going forward.

In the run up to today's announcement, with the defeat of the followers of Brown and Blair seemingly imminent, there began to be suggestions that the two groups should unite themselves into a strong 'moderate' faction. United and organised, they would represent a formidable pressure group, pushing Corbyn to adopt pragmatic policies - and there are already signs of ranks closing with members of the shadow cabinet resigning.

The Left-wing faction, over which Jeremy Corbyn has effectively become leader in the last few months, has shown that it is strong in the party, but it remains firmly a parliamentary outsider. Its numbers are spread out across the country, in trade unions and constituency parties.

Against the strength of the self-appointed 'moderates', who will still have great strength in parliamentary numbers, the Left will need new methods to support its approach. Following its supporters, that will likely mean shifting the power of policy-making away from MPs and out to activists in the community.

One very notable and troubling issue is the absence of a successful female nominee for either leadership position, with Yvette Cooper coming third in the leadership contest and Stella Creasy coming second in the deputy leadership race. That will need to be addressed. One option would be to appoint a female chancellor. But that will be something to delve into deeper as Corbyn announces his shadow cabinet in the coming days.

Today though, the story is that the mainstream pragmatists have lost control of the party to Corbyn and his more idealistic, popular, Left-wing supporters amongst the party membership. In his acceptance speech as the new Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn spoke of wanting to build a better society. For all progressives, it can only be positive and exciting to hear a leader, elected on a huge mandate, championing a challenge to inequality and poverty.