Labour and the Basic Income: To make automation work for people, first the relationships between people and society, work and welfare, must be reframed

To tackle the problems of the future, first we need to rethink our approach to work and welfare. Photograph: Job Centre Plus by Andrew Writer (License) (Cropped)

In the passed few weeks, the Labour Party has been talking up it's determination to make technological advances work for ordinary people, rather than disenfranchise them.

For the party leader Jeremy Corbyn, the focus has been on the workplace. Corbyn has raised the question of how to use cooperative collective ownership of businesses by workers to put automation in the hands of people - rather than let automation be their replacement in the hands of their bosses.

Meanwhile, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has focused on the state role. McDonnell, talking at a Manchester anti-austerity event, spoke of a renewed drive for public investment as the first step to anchoring technology to people and their interests.

It was left to the Labour National Youth Conference to contribute the third integral component, with the future of the Labour Party backing a motion in support of the universal basic income.

The motion acknowledged both the problems with Britain's welfare system and the concerns for the future being raised by the rise of automation. To answer these, the LNYC motion presented the basic income.

The basic income is a universal form of welfare, a payment received - with very little bureaucracy - by all citizens. It is designed to cover the basic essentials of life, so as to end poverty and it's coercive power over how people choose to live.

Labour usually falls in with the same basic conceit, shared by most right wing liberal groups, social democrats and worker's parties: that life begins and ends with work - or rather, with wage labour. That work of this sort is a fundamental component and an axiom in the building of any social model.

Work, to 'earn' the right to live in exchange, is treated as a value. As a moral component essential to any social contract. But for progressives, this cannot be the last word.

If we are to have true social progress, we must start first with a base of no poverty and no homelessness. We must begin with the right to live. If we care about choice, about liberty and justice, we must not let coercion remain the starting point for engaging with society.

For the Labour Party in particular, embrace of that wage labour conceit verges on hypocrisy - the party of workers buying into the 'moral value' of 'working for a living'.

There has not been nearly enough scepticism of it, or recognition that it is a value of limited scope. Restricted to the specific benefits it delivers within a specific social system. A system in which even certain forms of work are prioritised above others, and were these forms of work are made nearly mandatory.

Right now there is a crisis in welfare - but not the way the Conservatives think. The crisis in welfare is one of dignity. Conservative cuts have strangled Britain's social security safety net.

That has left vulnerable people at the hands of an exploitative market and put through probing, demoralising, assessments by organisations with weak ethical codes and goals that run counter to the wellbeing of people who desperately need support.

If Labour are really going to reform this country, to tackle these kinds of injustice, they first need to get the foundations right. By no means is basic income a panacea. But it is a fairer and less coercive starting point for a society.

As more and more work becomes automated, as paid work becomes more scarce, we need that fairer starting point as a basis upon which to build a new kind of relationship between people and society - one that acknowledges, from the start, their basic right to live.

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.

Election 2017: Is this the Progressive Alliance moment? It's up to you

Out of the blue, Theresa May turned tail yesterday and called an election. Perhaps the numbers were just too enticing to refuse? Whatever her motivation, the Prime Minister made her rather chilling call for support to defeat 'jeopardising', 'weakening' and game-playing opposition.

The next step was a formality. Parliament, required to vote in a two-thirds super majority to dissolve Parliament and call a new election, did so with a minimum of fuss and an overwhelming majority of over five hundred. The next step for progressives is to figure out how to fight the campaign ahead.

It might seem like a harsh assessment, but this is an era of disappointing leaders. May, Corbyn and Farron are all flawed, and all present contradictions and difficulties for their parties and followers. Progressives are feeling the impact of this more deeply in this time of conservative ascendency.

Fortunately for progressives, it isn't necessary for high level party establishments to lead the way. Local parties and voters themselves can take the lead. Now more than ever there is a need for people to take the reins and face an election one constituency at a time.

In any given constituency that produces a simpler question: who is the progressive who can defeat the conservative opponent?

That is what lies at the root of a progressive alliance. Not a party-led, top-down, electoral alliance, but a community-led campaign to support the best candidate standing for, in hope and in defence, progressive principles. For social justice, individual liberty and a sustainable, democratic future.

The parties themselves will fight how they see best for them as organisations, with their own self-interest at heart. But established organisations and their leaders are rarely bold in plotting their course, sticking to safe lines far from the radical frontiers.

The first step is organising in your own community, rallying members, activists and supporters of each progressive party around a single progressive candidate. The next will be to figure out who has, historically and currently, the strongest support and where - so the candidates with the best chance to beat conservatives can be chosen.

This isn't ideal, but the political system is designed to punish anyone who doesn't conform with exclusionary majoritarian thinking. That makes it all the more important to get a progressive government, because the Conservatives have never and are unlikely to ever, support proportional representation - first past the post reflects and protects conservatism and its creed of minority rule.

But that is just one of the values that progressives share, though it's sometimes hard to cut through the partisan divisions to see the commonalities. On equality, liberty, justice, progress - liberals, social democrats, democratic socialists, socialists, trade unionists, feminists, municipalists and environmentalists, and many others, share so many values that enable them to work together.

For a progressive alliance to happen, it's not necessary to wait on the approval of leaders to discover the will to be bold. The people can make it happen. They can set the pace and the tone and let the leaders be led, to catch up with the new reality in their own time.

What to expect from President Trump? To see how an opportunist backed by the far right will fare in government, look no further than Italy's Silvio Berlusconi

Silvio Berlusconi, through controversies and legal battles, held the position of Prime Minister in Italy for nine years out of seventeen on the political frontline. Photograph: Silvio Berlusconi by paz.ca (License) (Cropped)

If progressives are going to start building a meaningful opposition to the global rise of far right populism, seen most recently in the Trump Presidential Campaign, they first need to understand what they will be standing against. What will the representatives of the far right pursue when actually in office?

When considering what to expect, its important to look to history. For Trump in particular, there are obvious comparisons to Ronald Reagan (Rich, 2016) - though, it seems, except for those who really buy into the Myth of Reagan but don't like Trump, and so want to distance the two as much as possible.

But perhaps a better guide for expectations, both for Trump and beyond, might be the rise of Silvio Berlusconi in Italy in the early 1990s, out of the wreckage of the Italian political system that imploded with the exposure of  huge corruption under the Mani Pulite investigation.

Amidst massive political disillusionment and a global downturn, a seeming outsider, with business credentials, and in alliance with parties of the far right, put themselves forward as the champion of the populist opposition to the corrupt old establishment - despite plenty of their own legal battles, to which their support seems immune.

Sound familiar? Trump's rise mirrors Berlusconi's own route to power. The media chief, and chairman of football club AC Milan, began his long relationship with political power in Italy at the head of his party Forza Italia - named for a popular football chant.

If that does not say enough, as a measure of the man consider that Berlusconi once claimed, with extravagant outrage, that one of his longest running political opponents, Romano Prodi, called him a drunk during a 2006 election debate - and offered him a "no, you are" in return (Popham, 2006). What Prodi had actually said was:

"He uses statistics like a drunk uses lamp-posts, more for support than illumination."

For those who want decency and reason in the political arena, this level of obfuscating outrage is infuriating. When a political candidate is willing to twist anything, to play whatever role happens to be convenient to the relevant situation, coherency be damned, it makes it impossible to get to grips with what that candidate actually believes - and so to have a meaningful political exchange.

But whether that was what he actually believes is besides the point. What that exchange presented was an opportunity. And the seizing of such opportunities defined Berlusconi's career - as it does Trump's as well.

Silvio Berlusconi rose to power on the back of a career as a media personality, a celebrity, just as much as he did on his career in business. His media company took on the establishment and broke through the state owned monopoly on broadcasting - though in part thanks to his connections in that very same government establishment.

And when that - again, very same - government establishment collapsed amidst one of the biggest political corruption scandals ever seen, Berlusconi took to the political field - despite his own connections and the spreading of investigations into his own businesses (The Economist, 2001).

Berlusconi promised to keep Italy pro-Western and pro-Market, create a million new jobs and protect the country from the communists - the Italian Communist Party successor, the Democrats of the Left, were virtually the last party standing in the Italian political system after the corruption scandal.

The coalition he put together to achieve those promises - with the separatist Lega Nord in the North and the post-fascist Alleanza Nazionale in the South - backed by a massive publicity campaign on his own TV channels, received the most votes and seats in the 1994 Italian general election.

His first government collapsed after only nine months, torn apart by its own internal contradictions. Yet, though often with only a tenuous grip, Berlusconi returned to power time after time, with rebuilt coalitions that pushed the same mix of social conservatism and economic neoliberalism.

And he was never far from controversy. Berlusconi was accused of being sexism in Italy's most powerful apologist, as his personal life often spilling over into the political and even sparking protests (Marshall, 2016). His legal troubles also followed him constantly.

The same kinds of fate are now being predicted for Trump's Administration, as he tries to marry his misogynist and nativist support with the Republican mainstream - itself a contradictory collections of libertarians and nativist Christian nationalists.

Just as legal scandals chased Berlusconi throughout his career, they're likely also to follow Trump. With numerous cases still outstanding against him, some commentators are even predicting that Trump may ultimately end up being impeached by the Republican-controlled Congress (Oppenheim, 2016).

The election of Trump answered one question to which the answer was already known: that negative campaigning is used because it works - even, it seems, in its most extreme forms. It also drew parallels between Trump and Berlusconi, that suggest that far right populism is unlikely to hurt the Reagan-esque tax-cutting, laissez-faire, pro-business establishment.

But what about about in Europe, where far right parties have pushed their way into the mainstream with fewer compromises and mainstream alliances? As with Trump, promises of social conservatism, anti-immigration and harsh law and order policies have abounded. Yet on economic policy, the stances of far right movements have been inconsistent.

Trump's one elaborated economic policy was for a massive tax cut. That matches up with UKIP's policies, which have historically leaned toward less compromising version of Conservative manifestos, with tax cuts, especially for those at the top and large amounts of deregulation.

Yet while Trump has hinted at protectionism, it has been more strongly pushed in Europe. For instance, Front National have travelled over time from aggressively, anti-welfare, 'parasite' opposing, Reagan neoliberals, to ardent advocates of state control and protectionism (Shields, 2007).

Other far right parties in Europe, such as the Freedom Party of Austria and the Party for Freedom of the Netherlands, or elements of the Five Star Movement in Italy, have expressed a kind of national liberalism, to which the French Front National seems aligned.

The parties are standing, ostensibly, to 'protect' their 'national values', which have over time extended to include liberal tolerance, particularly of native homosexual and Jewish communities; and attempted to reconcile what amounts to 'national welfare', claiming to expel outsiders from the system, with the neoliberal capitalist system.

These positions express profound contradictions: between the rousing of intolerance and promises of social protection, and between deep connections to the low tax, low regulation and big business neoliberal order and promises of economic protection.

Berlusconi showed that these contradictions can be maintained, though not without difficulty and obvious fragility, over a long political career. So whichever way these parties break, caught between intolerant, nationalist and statist demands and their neoliberal connections, progressives need to have a strong argument that counters the flaws of both. And that argument needs to bring together radicals and moderates, democrats and liberals.

Justice, Liberty and Progress; equality, cooperation and sustainability; these values drive progressives. The far right stands opposed to them, picking and choosing between them as it suits their cause. Progressives need to unite around them - whether against neoliberalism or nationalism, as both are disastrous.

Petty squabbles are the opportunities that the Berlusconis and Trumps exploit. They disillusion the public and open the doors to opportunists and extremists. That pattern needs to end, in the name supporting those made most vulnerable by the rise of such forces: women, minorities, refugees, immigrants and the impoverished.

The Alternative Guide to the EU Referendum

Over the next month, The Alternative is going to delve into the key aspects of the EU referendum and take a look at what it holds in store for progressives. To that end, this article will serve as the hub, gathering each of the parts together for easy access.

Pt.1   4 basic things you should know about Britain's EU referendum

Pt.2   4 things you should know about TTIP, free trade and the European Union
Pt.3   4 things you should know about influence, peace and security in the EU
Pt.4   4 reasons Progressives should reject Nationalism and choose Remain

Introduction: The Referendum for Progressives

In short, this isn't one. What stands out most of all about the referendum is that there is no truly progressive option. The ballot will offer people a choice between a bureaucratic mainstream status quo and a Right-wing nationalist reaction that proposes returning to the past (or a heavily revised version of it, at least).

The question posed to progressives is how to respond to these imperfect choices. When deciding between them, there are some basic values that they need to consider: Internationalism - Cooperation - Equality - Justice - Liberty.

Internationalism is a broader vision of people, one that does not distinguish between the value and importance of people in one country from another and believes in the possibility of cooperation between them.

That spirit of cooperation is key to enabling those people to then work together for mutual benefit and, in so doing, pursue equality. As for justice and liberty, they are the structures and principles, the terms, on which those people organise.

The roots of progressive thinking are trying to bring together all of these ideas in one society, that embodies them all: the equality of the left over the hierarchy of the right, the justice of democrats and the liberty of liberals, bound together with a broad humanism and mutual endeavour.

Achieving this things means thinking about, and working towards, the future. It means making and encouraging progress, and encouraging others to think about the future as well - and that is a difficult task, because the future is undeniably terrifying.

The future is where we find change, uncertainty and a lack of guarantees - a spark for anxiety is there ever was one. All the while, the past is favoured as a place of guarantees, of certainty, of familiar structures and reassuring traditions.

"The past is comparatively safe, next to the present, because we know how at least one of them turns out."

The European Union represents an attempt to build towards the future and that makes it terrifying. But it has also been ensnared by the times, to become, in many ways, an organisation of the status quo. As a result that project is unfinished. There is progress still to be made.

The question that progressives must answer is which of two imperfect choice presents the best next step in the path to achieving its goals. This series will aim to offer the facts needed to decide between the options and take that next step towards the future.

Basic Income is the first step to a more fair, just and free society, where all can enjoy the benefits of technological progress without the fear of dispossession and poverty

Thousands of protesters march the streets surrounding the Conservative Party Conference in support of trade unionists, and against austerity, in Manchester, 4 October 2015.

The basic income took a huge step towards being a reality in the UK last Tuesday night when John McDonnell mentioned that the Labour Party where considering a basic income policy (Sheffield, 2016). During a speech, at the latest stop on his New Economics tour (Sheffield, 2016{2}), in which McDonnell spoke of Labour's commitment to a more decentralised and democratic economy, the Shadow Chancellor acknowledged the interest Labour had taken in the policy - heretofore, only advocated for by the Greens (Wintour, 2015).

The basic income will be one step towards making society more fair, the economy more just, and giving individuals more liberty. Right now, with the European business community readjusting to technology, as well as competition from businesses employing workers for virtually no pay in other parts of the world, a defined shift towards fairness, justice and liberty is needed.

Certain principles, like the value of work in exchange for the means to live, continue to be imposed despite the possibility of a secure job, that pays a fair wage for a fair day's work, threatening to disappear (Foster, 2016). Zero-hours contracts are taking security away from the most vulnerable, eating into their lives in ways that leave them filled with stress and anxiety (Fleming, 2016).

Right now the advances in technology are very much in the favour of business and those in positions of established wealth, enriching some few while most see their livelihoods taken away and their lives made more precarious. There seems to be a coalition, one part fearing for workers and the other an elite fearing a form of socialism that eat into their status, that takes the rather unflattering opinion that this third industrial revolution should be avoided for fear of "mass unemployment and psychological aimlessness" (Mason, 2016).

Discussing the earlier and more famous industrial revolution, which saw the rise of the machines in Europe, Oscar Wilde argued that it was not a matter of the emergence of the technology itself that was the problem, but rather the way it was being controlled (Wilde, 1891).

"Up to the present, man has been, to a certain extent, the slave of machinery, and there is something tragic in the fact that as soon as man had invented a machine to do his work he began to starve. This, however, is, of course, the result of our property system and our system of competition. One man owns a machine which does the work of five hundred men. Five hundred men are, in consequence, thrown out of employment, and, having no work to do, become hungry and take to thieving. The one man secures the produce of the machine and keeps it, and has five hundred times as much as he should have, and probably, which is of much more importance, a great deal more than he really wants. Were that machine the property of all, every one would benefit by it. It would be an immense advantage to the community."

To avoid this kind of dispossession, may mean accepting that it is time to reconsider social values relating to work (Srnicek et al, 2016), and to contemplate the possibility of a post-work society - where all could benefit from the technological automation of our age (Mason, 2016). That shift would begin with reductions in the length of the working day, embracing job sharing and introducing the basic income. In all, loosening the connections between work and the right to life.

British Liberals in the 1920s argued (Yellow Book, 1928), under the strong influence of David Lloyd George and John Maynard Keynes, that the aim of "political and economic action", wasn't to perfect or perpetuate machines and social orders, but so that individuals "may have life, and that they might have it more abundantly". Their methods were popular share-ownership and progressive taxation - in essence, cooperation.

Rising public interest in the Basic Income presents a chance to pursue those aims in earnest. Along with more economic cooperation and a better work-life balance, it is possible to use these ideas to build a more humane economy. An economy that is fair and just, that protects and promotes liberty, within which progress will be wired in to the general benefit.

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.

Labour's woes continue as the party splits over welfare cuts - where is their unifying idea?

The Labour Party is in the midst of an identity crisis. Two election defeats seem to have completely sapped the party of self-belief and bold ideas and now the party is divided over the merits of the Tory Chancellor's cuts (Perraudin, 2015).

Labour are struggling to come up with a convincing alternative narrative to the one George Osborne is using to bulldoze his way through the public sector. That struggle is pulling the party apart into distinct factions.

Yet a big internal squabble might actually be, in the end, rejuvenating.

The factions in that fight a pretty familiar. There is the New Labour mainstream - a majority of which seem to be more Brownite than Blairite, following the school of Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling, Ed Balls and Ed Miliband. These are the moderates and modernisers, represented by Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper in the leadership race.

To the Right of the mainstream modernisers there is a faction that has gone under several names, Blue Labour and One Nation Labour in particular. This is the wing of the party, represented by Liz Kendall in the leadership race, that wants Labour to embrace working class conservatism, along with the Far-Right themes of anti-immigration and clampdowns on welfare.

It is also clear that there is a small but significant number of Labour MPs, at the moment with Jeremy Corbyn as their ringleader, who are significantly to the Left of the Labour mainstream. They have stood here against welfare cuts here and Corbyn's leadership campaign has firmly embraced the broader anti-austerity movement.

How this division is healed will depend upon a lot of factors, internal and external to the party. But it is a state of affairs that must ultimately be settled. Labour's determination to be a big tent has largely suppressed or alienated voters on the Left, driving many of them away - particularly in Scotland.

If the moderate or Right-wing faction wins out, how much longer will its Left-wing remain bottled? If the Left-wing wins out, will the mainstream fall in line?

In the face of these issues, there are predictions that Labour faces an extended stay in the wilderness (Moss, 2015). One of the few ways back would encompass a major change of direction: embracing the proposed progressive pact in England and embracing electoral reform that can ensure representative government, showing that Labour is finally working to work co-operatively with others on the Left.

Yet for many progressives, who would have been taking hope from Caroline Lucas' progressive alliance proposal (Lucas, 2015), there will have been an ironically collective sigh of despair when Labour's tendency to give in to populism struck again - this time in the form of Harriet Harman (Wintour, 2015):

"We cannot simply say to the public: you were wrong..."

Why not? What exactly is the point of an opposition party, many on the Left will be asking, is if it isn't going to oppose?

If the party are just going to argue for the same policies as the Tories, differing only on who is better equipped to administer them, then are Labour and the Conservatives anything more than two squabbling factions of essentially the same party?

And if the party is just going to be a reflection of popular opinion, then does it even stand for anything? Where is the belief, the ideology, the theory?

That only produces an image of a Labour Party more interested in power than standing for something. It wants to build trust through sycophancy, not through ideas, theory, facts and reason.

While in the US, Bernie Sanders is proposing a push of support for trade unions, worker-owned co-operatives and the living wage (O'Hara, 2015), Labour are getting themselves in a political twist over whether or not to support Conservative cuts to welfare set to have a disastrous effect on the poorest (White, 2015).

Labour's next leader has to find a way to navigate these splits, these contradictions and the party's overall idealistic emptiness (Hawkins, 2015). There are internal rifts to heal and the Centre-Left of the political spectrum filled with alternatives to navigate. The leadership race itself, with its warts and all exposure of the party's factions is a helpful start in the process of reconciliation.

For the external matters, co-operation is surely Labour and the Left's best hope of opposing the Conservatives on big progressive issues like human rights and electoral reform. For the party's internal struggle, the answer can only be found by digging deep. By looking for the roots of what unites Labour supporters of all stripes and all those allied to the socialist and democratic movement.

To, humbly, get the ball rolling, here one word that offers a place to start: Justice.

Liberals have liberty. Greens have sustainability. With these words, and the ideas they represent, they can construct coherent tests for any policy. Labour seem to lost their connection to a simple and fundamental idea that would underwrite social democratic and democratic socialist analysis, and so their ability to construct a meaningful and consistent narrative.

The new leader of the Labour Party, to be announced in September, has to reclaim a unifying idea - like Justice - if they are to lead the party back out of the fractious wilderness.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Scrapping the Human Rights Act removes the safeguards that protect individuals from the arbitrary power of the state

The very same week in which David Cameron has been confirmed to a second term as Prime Minister offering stability, with Parliament barely having had the chance to reassemble, the new Conservative government has already lit the fires of controversy. Cameron has promised a unified Britain, yet one of his first announcements is the intention to scrap the Human Rights Act 1998 (Watt, 2015), which is likely to be the first of several big and divisive threats to the Union during this Parliament.

The Human Rights Act is woven deeply into the British social fabric. The Welsh Labour government is resistant to changes, SNP-led Scotland already has one foot out of the door and even the Good Friday Agreement for peace in Northern Ireland would have to be tampered with (McDonald, 2015) - and all of the devolved institutions possess the power to deny consent to alter this matter within their jurisdictions (Brooks, 2015; Scott, 2015).

Tensions are already high between Westminster and Scotland over the UK's continued membership of the EU - with Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon demanding that a majority be secured in each of the UK's nations for secession from the EU to go ahead (Sturgeon, 2015), and Wales is divided on the issue (ITV, 2013). This attempt to undermine British commitment to Human Rights is only going to ensure that the fault lines are riven deep between the nations of the UK, almost entirely by the hands of the Westminster Conservatives.

Under the stewardship of Justice Minister Michael Gove, formerly in charge of much criticised education reform (Garner, 2013), the Conservative plan is to end the influence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) over the UK Supreme Court - although it would leave in place the right of British citizens to appeal to the ECHR themselves (Watt, 2015{2}).

But the Human Rights Act is so much more. It allows British citizens to contest abuses of their European human rights in British courts and requires public institutions to abide by those rights (Stone, 2015). Those rights, contained within the European Convention on Human Rights - in the drafting of which Britain played a large part - protect things like the right to life, privacy and a fair trial; the freedom from torture, servitude or slavery; and the freedoms of conscience, expression and association.

While the UK has largely kept pace with the rights contained within the Convention, its removal takes away certain fundamental guarantees. A particularly important guarantee that will be to remove executive action from accountability to citizen's human rights (Starmer, 2015).

The Convention, and the Human Rights Act, are also nothing to do with the EU. They were implemented rather by the regional international organisation the Council of Europe and is enforced by the European Court of Human Rights - to which 47 states are signed up as members, a much wider membership that the EU, which include Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, Norway, Switzerland and others, all in addition to the 28 members states of the EU.

As much as it is guarantee of the human rights of British citizens, the Human Rights Act 1998 is also an international commitment to upholding the principle of human rights, which requires signatory states and their lawmakers to avoid infringing, or treating arbitrarily, the rights of its citizens contained within the ECHR.

When the convention was signed up to by Churchill, all of the rights were covered by the UK's laws already (Johnston, 2015). But over time they have been applied in ways, and legal challenges have been made through the European Court, that have led to new rulings that have proved a difficulty for the UK - legal representation of migrants, arbitrary removal of the voting rights of prisoners (Ziegler, 2012).

There have been claims this means Europe is making laws for Britain, but this is simply an evolving legal system, responding to a changing environment, in the same way as the British system has evolved. But it also stands as a safeguard, aimed at ensuring that people all across Europe have access to same basic rights, and have a place where they can appeal against arbitrary treatment at the hands of their government. With regards to the prisoner voting 'scandal', Aidan O'Neill QC (2011) said that:

'What is important... is the example one gives. One of the big issues facing the European Court of Human Rights is teaching newly democratic States about democracy. One of its biggest client cases is Russia. Another one in terms of democracy is Turkey. It is a problem with the Council of Europe mechanisms that some States simply do not fix their systems as they should do and it would be a great pity if a long-established State — the United Kingdom, which was there at the founding and there at the drafting — were to set an example to other States in the Council of Europe that they do not have to abide by the law. This is where politics and international relations come in. It is incredibly important that the rule of law be respected at an international level because if we have law/law then we do not have war/war.'

There are concerns, even amongst some potential Conservative rebels, such Kenneth Clarke and the former attorney general Dominic Grieve who disagree with the move (Watt, 2015{2}), that repealing and replacing the act constitutes a step towards rejecting government under the rule of law.

Concerns have risen again about the kinds of laws the UK government is seeking to pass to which European human rights challenges would have posed a strident difficulty. Amongst them, the Snooper's charter remains the one to provoke the most controversy (Carr, 2015). The so called 'communications data bill - for which previous attempts to pass such a bill had been blocked by the Liberal Democrats (Rawlinson, 2015) - forms part of the scramble by Conservatives to give security services more access to our personal data as a way to see attacks before they can happen (Johnston, 2015), to which Boris Johnson said that:

'I'm not particularly interested in all this civil liberties stuff when it comes to these people's emails and mobile phone conversations. If they're a threat to our society then I want them properly listened to.'

These attempts have been criticised for attempting to take away important liberties for very little gain in terms of safety. One particular observation being that regular investigative methods have proven far more effective, based on specific, targeted and legally accountable procedures (Carr, 2015).

The SNP is already looking to rally Conservative backbench rebels against the party's aim to scrap the Human Rights Act (Brooks, 2015). With the devolution legislation, that brought into being both the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, there comes the demand of compliance with the Convention and the 1998 Act by the decision-makers of those jurisdictions.

It is possible and likely that Holyrood will refuse to give consent to Westminster, and the Welsh Labour government has derided the attempted repeal as making Britain 'look like a Banana republic' (BBC, 2015). Even the Good Friday Agreement, essentially an International Treaty - that made it possible, in partnership with the Irish Republic, to establish a peaceful Northern Ireland - guarantees that the European Convention on Human Rights is completely incorporated into the law of Northern Ireland (McDonald, 2015).

Recently, these rights have become a political football, bound up with sovereigntist, anti-foreign narratives that have gained traction in the UK. But underneath that is a struggle between competing visions of conservative and liberal societies.

Human rights are, by their nature, fundamentally liberal. They are the defences of the individual against the many, or against the abuses of the state. They represent a guarantee, whatever the circumstances, that people are always afforded an essential respect. In that sense, they undermine many of the institutions and social orders inherent to old conservatism, from churches to the state, where a premium is placed upon hierarchy and adherence. Over the years, the more modern versions of conservatism has taken on elements of these liberal values - but only so long as those liberal values remained 'safely' contained within conservative frameworks and limits (Willetts, 2013).

By standing outside of the British state - outside of any state - the rule of human rights law instead forces conservatism to work within a liberal framework. That is what keeps the rights of individuals safe from arbitrary treatment at the hands of ideologically motivated political decisions, and ensures that we can get justice when those rights are infringed. Trying to undo that framework would represent a step backwards, favouring the power of the state over the individual.

Italy shows the UK the dangers and difficulties involved in fixing a broken political system

The UK has once again been forced to let out a rather despairing sigh of exasperation as yet another politician is caught with a hand in the cookie jar (Toynbee, 2015). It is the third such scandal in only a matter of weeks that has called political funding into question. There is an obvious need for wholesale changes in Britain's political process.

The trouble is, changing a political system is a delicate task that is never straightforward. Italy has been caught in this particular trap for decades, and the UK can learn some important lessons from that country's struggle. In short, this kind of cash-for-influence exposé is at its worst only the tip of the iceberg, and at it's best the top of a very slippery slope.

Back in 1994, virtually the entire Italian political party system collapsed around a similar, though ultimately broader, cash-for-influence scandal, known as Tangentopoli (Carroll, 2000). The arrest of Mario Chiesa of the Partito Socialista Italiano in 1992, on charges of Bribery, triggered the tumbling of a whole house of cards. When the party distanced itself from Chiesa with accusations of his being simply a bad seed, he began to provide damning information to investigators regarding the activities of fellow politicians.

Over the next two years, as the Mani pulite ('clean hands') Judicial investigation spread across Italy, more and more politicans were implicated. To try and stem the crisis, the Socialist Prime Minister Giuliano Amato attempted to use the power of decree to alter certain criminal charges for bribery, only for it to be seen as an attempt to extend an amnesty to corrupt politicians (Moseley, 1993).

In the 1994 elections that followed, the four largest pre-scandal parties collapsed and all but disappeared. That year also saw the rise of Silvio Berlusconi and his Forza Italia party. Out of the ashes of the old discredited order rose the populist power that has since dominated the last 20 years of politics in Italy - with more than its own fair scandals.

As Silvio Berlusconi and Forza Italia were symptomatic of Italy's political sickness, so Nigel Farage and UKIP are a symptom the UK's, and Marine Le Pen and Front National are a symptom of France's (Peston, 2015). These kinds of scandals embed themselves within political systems and eat away at its legitimacy. When the cracks show through, and the rotten core is exposed, it leaves access open to an exploitable opportunity. These populist groups - with their simplistic message and solutions, and often scapegoats - seize the initiative.

Since the scandal, in response to the general public outcry, Italy has attempted to redraw its political system several times (Pastorella, 2014).

The first major reform attempted to make individual politicians more accountable, and to introduce more stability to Italy's fractious parties and coalitions, by scrapping proportional representation in favour of first-past-the-post. The second was to give the largest party, in terms of the popular vote, a prize of 55% of seats regardless of the actual size of the majority they had won (Garovoglia, 2013). The first system, led to party fragmentation and frequently collapsing coalitions. The second was ruled unconstitutional in 2013 - essentially for misrepresenting voters by handing out a large electoral prize to the biggest party, or electoral coalition, even when it had won far less than a majority.

A third major attempt is currently under way, but that has already faced criticism across the Left - including from former Partito Democratico leader, and former Prime Minister, Pier Luigi Bersani (La Repubblica; 2015). It proposes to reduce the majority prize, but also to reduce the power of the Italian Senate - a move designed once more to address the fractious nature of Italian politics - and groups on the Left are objecting to this centralising of power and diminishment of oversight.

Despite these attempted reforms, despite the investigations and the political transformations, Italy is still mired as before in the same kind of corruption allegations (Barber, 2013). There are similar concerns about connections between private business interests and political parties, and with the government through the state held ownership stakes. There are even concerns surrounding some of the same figures who were connected to Tangentopoli in the 1990s.

Italy's struggle to reform, against the influence of a tight network of vested interests, is an important lesson for the UK. Failure to reform means feeding a rising populist anti-establishment feeling, that can and may be exploited in ways that threaten both justice and liberty. Attempting reform means taking on wealthy and powerful people, embedded vested interests who have a lot to lose from changes.

The first steps to reform are clear though, even if how to achieve is not necessarily as obvious. A realistic alternative needs to be found for party funding, and outside business interests for elected representatives has to come to an end. The example of Italy shows clearly: if the UK fails to pursue - as a first step - these ideals of political independence, with greater reform to follow, it could leave the country mired in populism and scandal for decades to come:

'The danger in all of this is that if sufficient people conclude that there is nothing in the conventional political process for them then they may opt for more simplistic and extreme options on offer. I remain an optimist. But across the mainstream political spectrum there is a candid recognition of the danger.'
(Mr Charles Kennedy, 2006)

Gender Inequality, Laissez-faire and Positive Action

Last week, in the run-up to International Women's Day, there were efforts made in Germany to tackle inequality between the genders in the workplace. While a new law was passed for gender quotas to be introduced to the boardrooms of large companies (The Guardian, 2015), there was still ongoing resistance to legislation aimed at exposing, and ultimately undoing, gender inequalities in pay (Osborne, 2015).

The fact that these moves are necessary in a wealthy and developed country like Germany - or in the UK where the Liberal Democrats have been pushing for similar moves for some time, particularly in the face of a failure of the Conservative 'voluntary' reporting system (Wintour, 2015) - highlights the scale of the problem. Quotas, in turn, represent the practical response to the continuing inequality (Saul, 2015).

And yet, resistance remains to levelling the playing field. There is an insistence in the Western world upon trusting in laissez-faire - removing the obvious formal institutional obstacles and letting the world right itself. That attitude is not helped much by gender quotas being considered an imperfect solution (White, 2015).

However, the world is uncomfortably unequal. In the face of plain unfairness, the simplistic, and false, answer to the struggles of others is victim-blaming (Burkeman, 2015). There is a determination, witnessed in the wider struggle against inequality, to shift the responsibility for unfairness from the established order and those who benefit, and to turn it into blame to be placed on those who aren't succeeding (Seabrook, 2014).

The facts are pretty clear: matters can't just be left to right themselves (Topping, 2015). It was true for the poverty and desperation in Victorian England that led to the collapse of the old Laissez-faire economics, and made way for the gradual rise of social insurance, pensions, welfare and the public healthcare. It is true now tackling gender inequality. The world needs a helping hand to combat problematic institutional biases (Dudman, 2015).

The feminist rallying-calls of public figures like Emma Watson is a reminder of how to tackle these great challenges (HeForShe, 2015): positive thought and positive action, in the pursuit of progress.

In the pursuit of social progress, the old ways of thinking have to change. The 'let alone' attitude is not good enough, particularly when the solutions of negative liberty - simply keeping people free from outside interference - don't, and can't, bring meaningful equality of opportunity, or offer the people the path to the better, and more fair, lives they want.

There is a pressing need to demand a more positive liberty. Affirmative action, in this sense, is about acting to make the principals of fairness in a free society a fact. That burning heart of feminism, is the same one that beats in the breast of all struggles for equality and fairness. Quotas may not be a perfect solution, but they are a positive and practical solution in a world that is imperfect and unfair.