Labour's crisis could be the opportunity to create a Progressive Alliance to unite against the Conservatives

Unless Boris Johnson has his way, the next general election is likely to come much sooner than planned (Walker et al, 2016). Upon resigning, Prime Minister David Cameron called for a new Conservative leader to be elected in time for the party conference in October.

That would put a new election in November, at the earliest. Yet that timetable has been pushed up - maybe due to pressure from other EU members who want the British exit resolved soon. The new aim for electing a Conservative leader now seems to be September, which could put an election as soon as October.

With the Tories split, with the country split, and with some clear rallying points appearing - not least a sudden sparking of pro-European sentiment and campaigns pushing back at intolerance and ethnically-charged abuse - it would seem to be a golden opportunity for Labour and for progressive parties in general.

A progressive alliance - a pact focussing the electoral efforts of progressive parties from Labour to the Greens to the Liberal Democrats against the Conservatives and UKIP, rather than each other - is surely more likely now than it ever has been. The situation is critical and need for solidarity is great.

Yet at precisely this point, Labour's Right-wing decided it had tolerated Jeremy Corbyn's leadership quite long enough (MacAskill et al, 2016). In a matter of hours, Labour had fallen into so deep and disreputable a mess that party supporters of even the most deep convictions where sleepless with anxiety that the party's complete ruin was imminent (Jones, 2016).

So divided is Labour, it seems now that the two sides are reduced to squabbling over who gets to keep the name and history - even as the party itself appears to be little more than a hollow and decaying husk.

If the MPs successfully topple the leadership, with Angela Eagle appearing to be the challenger (BBC, 2016), it would alienate the membership and almost certainly trigger an exodus. The Left of the party waited too long to put its candidate forward and is unlikely to want to wait around through another Blairite New Labour experiment (Hinsliff, 2016).

However, despite the doom and gloom, it could be that a Labour split could be exactly the catalyst that is needed for the Left. For a long, long time the Labour Party has dominated the progressive wing of politics, squeezing out any alternatives and campaigning forcefully for themselves as the only progressive alternative - a power obsessed position that make an pact with other parties unlikely.

Yet Labour has now learned some stark lessons. Its connection with its old heartlands has been shattered, possibly irreparably. It chance of winning a majority has been drastically cut by its loss of support in Scotland. And the trust between the party's wings seems to have been broken. In such realisations lie the fire and motivations to finally push on and make positive changes, if it can be seized.

If the Left and Right-wings split, these lessons must surely lead to an electoral pact between them to avoid immediate competition that would only inflict further damage by splitting support in the constituencies (Jones, 2016{2}). Such a pact could form the ideal base for a broader progressive alliance.

With the Momentum movement, Corbyn and whatever MPs remain his allies, and the trade unions rallying around, for instance, Left Unity - a party almost ready made for such a Left Labour breakaway - and the Labour Right as something along the lines of  the Democratic Party in Italy or America, or New Democrats as in Canada, the argument for getting the main progressive parties cooperating would be impossible to ignore.

It would be much easier to imagine Left Unity and the Democrats being convinced to work alongside the Liberal Democrats and the Greens towards the common goal of defeating the Conservatives in England than would convincing Labour to put aside its majority ambitions - it might even be convinced to work with Plaid Cymru in Wales and the SNP in Scotland.

The Liberal Democrats and the Greens both campaigned strongly for the Remain side in the referendum, with the Lib Dems in particular seeing a boost in support, identifying themselves closely with the post-referendum pro-Europe outpourings (Chandler, 2016) - with its Lib Dem Fightback now seeing membership rise to 70,000, higher even than in 2010 (BBC, 2016{2}).

Both parties have shown themselves willing and able to work with other parties on the Left. In Wales, the Lib Dems are currently in coalition with Labour and the Greens have been arguing since the 2015 election for the building of a progressive alliance to end the damaging splitting of the progressive vote that helps Conservatives win (Lucas, 2015).

In the aftermath of a disastrous 2015 election and a country-dividing referendum, progressives need a positive mindset more than ever. While the breaking of the Labour Party would be as painful for many as the referendum result, there is a need to look even at a split in such a historically consequential party in a positive light.

The division of one creaking edifice of a party could be the spark that ignites a much broader progressive unity. If it leads to better relations on the Left, to more cooperation and on better terms, to a pact and an alliance that brings progressives together to advance, and to defend, the most important of causes, then even a party as significant as Labour is just a party, a means to and end, not an end in itself, whose interests should not be put above those aims for which it was formed to achieve.

Local Elections: An alternative look Labour's election result, where it leaves them and where progressives go from here

The progressive pitch of the three parties, Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green, who may have in places tripped each other more than the Conservatives in the 2015 UK general election.

"It's a disaster", run the stories. The worst performance in half a century (Rawnsley, 2016). A disaster that, conveniently, demands that Labour change direction away from Corbynism and back toward Blairism.

The trouble with that assessment is that the context is all wrong, and so the conclusion that follows is flawed. The reality is that there are few recent historical comparisons that can be made for the present situation.

Up against an almost unbelievable barrage of negative press and critics of every stripe briefing against him, from almost every direction, the results from the local and assembly elections were, all things considered, pretty impressive for Jeremy Corbyn's Labour.

Labour are leading the executive in Wales, London and Bristol - all of which, if publicised well, could be beacons for re-legitimising the idea of Labour in government. The party also topped the national polls on 31%, ahead of the Conservatives on 30% and the Liberal Democrats, recovering to 15%.

Labour in Scotland

The only major 'blemish' in Corbyn's first major election test were the party's struggles in Scotland. But presenting the results in Scotland as part of a 'Corbyn disaster' narrative is misleading.

In Scotland - where Labour have been outflanked on the Left by the SNP, whose blend of Social Democracy and separatism has rendered Labour nearly unnecessary - Corbyn's Left-wing stance is winning, just not really to the benefit of the Labour Party itself.

They have also been outflanked on the Right by the Conservatives, who have unsurprisingly become the banner-bearers for Unionism (it did used to be literally in their name, after all). In fact, Ruth Davidson's Conservatives, who suffer for connections to the Westminster party, are now the Scottish Unionist Party in all but name.

Essentially, the debate in Scotland has moved beyond the traditional UK divisions. For a useful historical comparison you have to reach a long way back, to the separation of British and Irish politics.

The emergence of the Irish Parliamentary Party, out of what had previously been a Liberal Party stronghold, substantially weakened the party in Britain. As it grew, it limited the abililty of the Liberals to win majorities. That led to a period during which Liberals and their Irish allies, and the Conservatives and their Unionist allies, spent two decades trading turns in propped up minority governments.

While in 1906 the Liberals won a landslide majority of nearly 400 seats on nearly 50% of the vote, the emergence of the Labour Party in England squeezed them. The scales tipped decisively when the Liberals became divided, infighting, and protracted war led to a period of National governments that simply coalesced into a new Conservative majority, with Ramsay MacDonald's Labour as a weak and still growing opposition.

Labour has lost its substantial position in Scotland to the SNP, as the Liberals lost theirs in Ireland. But the lesson seems to be that infighting and splits will do far more damage than adapting to the new reality over the border.

Labour in England

The real crux of the Labour-Conservative battle is in England, where Corbyn's party topped the polls. Response to this thin victory, 31% to 30%, hasn't been especially positive. But when it comes to a general election, how do the numbers compare?

In the 2015 UK general election, in England alone, the Conservatives won 41% of the vote to Labour's 32%, for 319 and 206 seats, respectively. In 2010, Conservatives won 40% to Labour's 28%, for 298 and 191 seats. Further back, in 2005 when Labour won an outright UK majority of 403 seats, the Conservatives won 36%, matched by Labour at 36%, for 206 and 278 seats, again respectively.

Corbyn's support in England falls somewhere between the two, between triumph and disaster (Williams, 2016), between a Labour majority and a hung parliament scramble. In 2015, Liberal Democrat support collapsed and both of the two main parties benefited, though the Conservatives more so. However much Labour might have eaten into Conservative support, the Conservatives simply consumed the Lib Dems to keep themselves afloat.

For the Conservatives, everything depends upon their strength in England, particularly in the South. So when a, supposedly, weakly-led Labour wins victories in London, Bristol, and holds Southern councils like Southampton and Hastings, Conservatives should be worried, because when push comes to shove, they have no where else to turn.

It could certainly be said that Tony Blair pressed the Conservatives hardest on this weakness. Blair managed to match the Conservatives for votes in England, while Brown and Miliband did not. And Blair beat them in a general election, while Brown and Miliband did not. However, Blair also had the advantage of facing a weak and disorganised Conservative Party, that Brown and Miliband never did.

In its brightest days, and also the Conservatives darkest, Blair's Labour won 44% of the vote in England to the Conservatives 34%, taking 329 seats to 165 - against weak and disorganised opponents, struggling everywhere except their South and East heartland, and versus weak third party opposition.

Labour's 400+ seat majority under Blair included some 80 seats in Scotland and Wales. A boundary review in Scotland reduced the number of seats, mostly Labour, in Scotland by thirteen. Heading into 2005, the heights of 419 and 413 seats were reduced to 403. 56 seats in Scotland was now approximately 46. And in Wales, where Labour won 34 seats in 1997, support has reduced over time to 30, to 26, to 25.

For all praise for his achievement of eating into Conservative support in England, by even 2005, if Blair's Labour had not been able to rely on Scotland, its majority would have evaporated. The party, even under Blair, would have been reduced to 315 seats - even including 30 seats in Wales - and the party would have had to turn to around 50 Lib Dems in order to govern.

For two elections, 1997 and 2001, Labour were able to win majorities in England, but they almost immediately fell back into large minorities of support as their primary opponents recovered and stronger third parties began to challenge. Labour's brief four years of winning majorities in England came against weak opponents in London, the West and East Midlands, in the North, Yorkshire and Humberside, and by encroaching on the Conservative heartlands where they could.

And in that fact, the Conservatives can usually take comfort in Labour's own weakness in England by comparison. Numbers past past and present make clear that there is a well of potential Conservative support in England, in most parts of the country, that can put the party over the top - even in supposed Labour territory.

Almost decisive since 1997 has been the Conservatives incursion into Labour territory. Between 1997 and 2010 there have been 15 seats in the North West, 10 in Yorkshire, 20 in London, 15 seats and 20 seats in the East and West Midlands respectively which saw a complete reversal of positions - 80 of the 329 won in England in 1997.

Before talking of taking seats from the Conservatives in the South East, in a New Labour master stroke, figuring out how Labour might win its own backyard seems like more of a priority. Ed Miliband won maybe 10 of these seats in 2015, only to lose several others from the same regions back to the Conservatives - with numbers propped up by the Lib Dem collapse.

Reality Check

Harold Wilson, at his peak, only won 285 seats in England to 216 for the Conservatives. Without Scotland, even the headline victory of Wilson's Labour would have been reduced to a majority of just 2 seats. Against the historical background, Blair's approximate, and astonishing, 140 gains in England in 1997 - lifting Labour from around 190 to 330 - looks more the result of extraordinary circumstances than the profits of a particular campaign.

Labour's support has, since it broke out from being the trade unionist representative ally of the Liberals, always been a coalition of fellow travellers - from moderate reformers who might have been liberals in other times, through trade unionists and the industrial working classes the party claimed to represent. In 1997, Blair tried to expand that alliance into the affluent South and East with a pitch to swing voters that did not produce lasting gains and alienated the party's core in the process (Mason, 2015; Mason 2016).

At the moment, Corbyn is maybe only on par with Brown or Miliband in terms of support across England and seems intent on making gains back mainly in areas Labour has lost ground. Without some new political earthquake discrediting the Conservative Party and creating an opportunity to delve into the South East and pitch social justice - smotheringly Conservative in its representation as the South East is, with the second place party now usually UKIP, who are even more conservative -  the best case scenario for the Labour Party in England would seem to be 250 to 280 seats, supported by maybe 25 in Wales.

With a Britain-wide best case for Labour, for now, of 275 to 305 seats - short of finding a way of forcing Britain's provinces to readopt the old two-party politics - the Left, and Labour in particular, has to start taking the prospect of electoral alliances seriously. Even a convenient Blairite rebrand isn't likely to break through the Southern attachment to conservatism without losing ground of its own elsewhere.

There are, however, more than 30 seats - largely in the South - where the Liberal Democrats remain the main opposition to the Conservatives. And the Green Party took 4 second places and around 20 third places in 2015. And in these and many other places, the parties will have tripped each other up to the benefit of the Conservatives.

Where Labour has less chance of winning, they should be actively interested in ensuring that the Conservatives have a difficult time of it too. This means accepting that Green environmentalism and Lib Dem civil liberties pitches will cut deeper amongst some current Conservative voters than what Labour might pitch - all the while building the possibility of forming a working, progressive government later.

Despite the barrage of negative press, Jeremy Corbyn's Labour has shown it can win and has secured control of executive positions that will legitimise it as a party of government. But when 2020 rolls around, for reasons far beyond Corbyn's fault or control, that may not be enough. If an alliance with the SNP remains taboo in England, a progressive majority might still be possible without them. But it will probably require progressives of different stripes working together to get there.

Local Elections: Conservatism is far from dominant in a divided Britain, but people still await an alternative

Yesterday saw local council elections across England and assembly elections in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, that emphasised how varied the politics of Britain's provinces is becoming.

With so many pressures, on so many parties, from so many directions, the local and assembly elections were always going to be a fraught and complicated affair. As it happens, the changes forced were in small increments and, in broad context, left matters largely as they were (Kuenssberg, 2016).

But the biggest story of the night is really the way in which politics has taken on different shapes in different parts of Britain. In its different provinces, politics is being reshaped to fit provincial rather than British themes (Mason, 2016; Mason, 2015). Old divisions are being broken down, new ones are springing up and some groups are adapting while others are not.

The broad picture showed the Labour Party largely hanging on, with inconvenient losses matched by surprising gains and holds. However Corbyn still finds himself wrestling with the internal contradictions left to him by previous leaders, who failed to solve the fundamental disconnect between the party and its supporters. The Conservatives too managed to broadly hang on and even made the publicity friendly gain of becoming the official opposition to the SNP in the Scottish Parliament.

The Liberal Democrat slump also seemed to have hit bottom, with the party's vote mostly stabilising at about 8%. Yet there were also signs of life, with some gains won on the back of astounding swings of around 10-15% - an increase in supporters in the thousands - that will provide some useful fuel for their #LibDemFightback narrative.

UKIP's night was largely devoted to establishing themselves, securing their bridgeheads rather than breaking new ground. Their results matched 2015 and followed suit by again paying off in second places, and this time with both council seats and seats in Wales' Senedd.

Yet this broad, federal, party picture hides a much more complicated set of movements beneath the surface.

The results in Scotland redrew political lines to reflect the new reality of debate in the country. The SNP, now without a majority but still in position for a strong minority government, have set out Scottish separatism as the movement with the momentum. The Conservatives are the opposition, and Unionism is their opposing force.

In that debate, other issues are being sidelined and with them the other parties. Labour, who are really struggling to distinguish themselves in the separatism-unionism debate, look the most lost. The social democratic Centre-Left have seemingly rallied around the SNP, while the those following the Unionist cause have unsurprisingly gathered about the Conservatives. The principled opposition to the SNP approach to governing, on issues of civil liberties and the environment, has gathered around the Greens and the Lib Dems. That doesn't leave much room for the Labour Party.

The Liberal Democrats night in Scotland lays out their own particularly strange journey. While across Scotland their support seemed to settle to the national average of around 8%, in particular constituencies they won huge victories, even against the SNP, with 15% wings bringing thousands of voters. That was enough to give Will Rennie a constituency seat with a 3500 vote majority in North East Fife, along with gaining Edinburgh Western.

By contrast with Scotland, the election in Wales almost felt like a delayed continuation from the 2015 general election. The Lib Dem vote levelled out at around the 8% margin seen elsewhere, and in Wales, last year, but in this situation that meant Lib Dem seat losses suited to the 2015 slaughter. And yet, party leader Kirsty Williams won her constituency with a 10% swing to increase her majority by thousands of votes.

Meanwhile UKIP gained representation in Wales through the regional list vote, taking seats at the expense of the Conservatives and the Lib Dems, thanks to 13% of the vote gained mostly at the expense of Labour. That number reflected their Britain-wide 2015 performance, and seemed to confirm the Senedd election as almost a rebalancing - representation adjusting to match their performance.

In the local council elections in England, Labour lost seats but - again - largely held their ground. The Lib Dems showed more surprising resilience, taking a projected 15% of the national vote share and even an overall gain of more than forty council seats and control of a council. As in Wales, UKIP appear to be rebalancing, losing votes but claiming some council seats, in seeming redress from a year ago. The Conservatives lost almost fifty seats and control of a council, but for a sitting government the results are as undramatic as could be hoped.

That stands in contrast to London. After eight years of Boris Johnson, with Labour struggling, the Conservatives must have thought that this was a clear cut opportunity. Yet it was Sadiq Khan's campaign that has had all the momentum, despite the dirty tricks and negative campaigning of the Conservatives - run not only by Khan's opponent Zac Goldsmith, but endorsed from on high by Conservative leadership (Hattenstone, 2016).

As the dust settled, Sadiq Khan had become the new Mayor of London and Labour hold a commanding position in the London Assembly. Presented as the candidate representing a diverse and inclusive London, his election confirms the stark contrast between the politics of London and the Conservative majority in Southern England won in May 2015.

The sum of these results is to say that Conservatism is far from dominant in the UK because Britain is, beyond the simplistic divisions of Westminster majorities, composed of a number of different provinces over which Conservatives do not hold sway. London is a progressive beacon in the conservative South. Scotland is dominated by a fundamental question of its identity, while Wales seems to be struggling to find its own in a post-industrial world. Across the North, Labour's former heartlands, that post-industrial world has left Labour increasingly locked in a struggle with UKIP for its soul.

The results show conservatism to be an ideology ruling others from outside, at arms reach. But they also suggest that people are still waiting for a real and clear alternative to be put forward - and for someone to stand behind it. At the moment, progressives do not have a clear alternative pitch to offer and they are too divided into factions, and parties seemingly incapable of cooperating.

There are sparks here and there that show a pitch might be formulated in time for the 2020 general election. Support for Proportional representation is widening. There is growing acknowledgement of the need to tackle the housing crisis, including the rental sector. Welfare, inequality, austerity, basic income - these are all showing up on the public radar.

The future of these ideas, of turning them into policies, will require progressives to recognise the necessity for an alliance backing a clear positive alternative. An alliance internally within Labour, an alliance between Labour and other parties, an alliance between different parties in different provinces. Britain is divided, but progressives can do what conservatives can't and unite it behind a common cause.