A deficit of leadership in Britain, where compromise is a dirty word

May and Corbyn, two leaders trapped by their unwillingness to compromise.

Parliament returns to sitting this week after the Summer Recess. Barely is the week underway and the sheer lack of effective political leadership is again on display. In her latest attempt at stamping some authority on proceedings, this weekend Prime Minister Theresa May announced that she was taking a stance of "No Compromise" with the European Union on Brexit.

This is an extraordinary thing for a Prime Minister to say about a negotiation - not least a negotiation with an ally, to work out a positive future relationship. Where is the leadership is no existent vetos? Theresa May's "We shall not budge" attitude serves no purpose in a two-way negotiation - especially not when the 'No Deal' outcome is so filled with uncertainty and tipped towards unfavourable outcomes.

Yes, leaders need to stand up for the wellbeing of their communities. To represent their views and their wants. But that also means sitting down with the representatives of other communities to find common ground. How can that be done without compromise?

This isn't the first time that Conservative leaders have waded into these waters. David Cameron tried to veto a European Union decision during his tenure and they simply carried on the conversation without the UK. Yet it speaks to the deficit of effective leadership in politics in Britain that Theresa May's Premiership goes on without effective challenge - a deficit both within her party and across on the opposition benches.

Which brings us to Jeremy Corbyn. It's hard to write a long hard sigh into an article.

The anti-semitism scandal is drawing some stark lines, producing some very divisive responses. Leaving aside the questions over the validity and seriousness, and the origin, of the accusations - which range in people's perceptions from legitimate outrage by nervous communities, to opportunistic misrepresentation by disgruntled factions - there has been no redress.

What is unarguable is that Corbyn has not handled the accusations and the barrage of press. Neither well, nor poorly. He just hasn't handled it. He has an ongoing approach to the media of non-engagement. That is a part of his leadership - a rejection of a mistrusted mass media. But all the Corbyn leadership has done is vacate the space. They haven't sidelined it.

Labour has distinct internal divisions and opponents of Corbyn's leadership keep finding mud to sling - or, perhaps, stories that look enough like mud. And every media space the Labour leadership leaves vacant,  is another waiting to be filled by those driving a wedge into the party.

It is a game they don't want to play, and it is possible to appreciate why, but politics isn't just about what you believe - in some raw statement of ideology. It is also about what you are seen to believe. And this second one is that which people frequently remember, and shapes the headlines they read - the breaking news that hits their feeds, which they see but don't read.

On both sides there is an unwillingness to compromise. An unwillingness to take a seat at the table and play the game. Yes the game is treacherous and probably rigged. But refusing to engage does nothing. Refusal just leaves the game just as it is. Refusal to lose prevents any chance of winning.

In isolation lies only ruin and hollow honour.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Half Term Report: Must do better

The Commons continue to play a bigger role, but mostly because the government remains disengaged from domestic matters. At the February half term break, Ministers will return to their constituencies with report cards that read: must do better.

Is a government technically doing a bad job if it isn't doing anything at all? This is a pertinent question as Parliament heads into the February half term recess. That's because it's hard to report on how on the government is handling it's main job - that is, managing the legislative programme - when it doesn't seem to have one.

Back in January our preview of 2018 pointed out that last year, little of the government's legislative programme made any progress. Some was dropped, some was delayed, some disappeared into consultation never to be seen again.

So far, 2018 hasn't been much better. Theresa May's recent, and criticised, announcement of a new electoral offence of Intimidation received much fanfare - but turned out to only be a pledge to consult on the recommendations of a committee report.

A promised update to domestic violence legislation, touted last year in the Queen's Speech, has still yet to appear - despite a similar bill passing the Scottish Parliament in less than a year with bipartisan support.

What about the policies already passed? Those being overseen by ministers either already in place or being implementation? In short, the core elements of the Conservative agenda are besieged as major Tory policies are failing on all sides.

The government's restrictions on Personal Independence Payments for those with mental health conditions have been successfully challenged in court and now all claims are now under review with bigger payouts expected.

The rollout of Universal Credit has been a rolling disaster, stumbling from one mess into the next. At the end of last year the government was forced to concede ground and make some changes. Now, a committee report has questioned it's overall feasibility.

Whether the government's devolution agenda is working might be a matter of perspective. Last week a Conservative county council, Northamptonshire, effectively declared bankruptcy. Even earmarked reserves are being eaten away and council taxes are set to rise across the country.

The strain of funding poor needy neighbourhoods is shifting away from redistribution at a national level, and towards communities trying to support themselves. That might seem like a win for Conservatives uncomfortable with redistribution and what they term 'dependence'.

But it is grinding down communities that need resources for essential frontline services - and councils will know exactly were to point fingers when angry locals come knocking. It also plays right into the hands of Corbyn's pitch for a renewal of municipal socialism.

And that isn't helped by the collapse of outsourcing giant Carillion, the trouble facing other outsourcing firms like Capita, or the fact the government had to take the East Coast Mainline rail franchise away from Stagecoach, who had got their numbers wrong and were losing large amounts of money. These are all simply embarrassments for the government.

While the government seems to have largely abandoned legislating while it pours it's focus into Brexit, backbenchers and the opposition are doing their best to keep things moving forward.

In a remarkably constructive day for the Commons, two private member's bills made it through the second reading gauntlet on 19th January. There was the Fitness for Human Habitation Bill, sponsored by Labour's Karen Buck, and the Stalking Protection Bill, sponsored by Conservative Sarah Wollaston.

Layla Moran of the Liberal Democrats also made use of the final Prime Minister's Questions before the break, to promote a campaign to abolish an old law Still used to criminalise homelessness. It's a push with a good chance to gain traction, thanks to some recent controversy - such as in Bournemouth.

The opposition, as a whole, has also been very effective at forcing issues onto the agenda, with motions on matters like rail franchises and the NHS winter crisis passing. This has continued on from last year when the government stopped taking part in opposition motions - a decision for which they faced criticism even from the Speaker.

While it is good to see the Commons having an impact in political life - plurality should be at the heart of how we make the law - backbenchers picking up the slack, while the government is too busy, is not why we should be seeing it.

Is the government taking it's time? Is it seeking means other than legislation to achieve it's aims? The lack of transparency from the May Ministry makes it difficult to tell the difference between inertia and working around the limitations of a minority government.

However, one of the main arguments for having a standing government is leadership - and being seen is a necessary part of that. It is one thing for the government to give the Commons a spotlight, to let it take the lead on legislation. It is another to let it through absence and abstention.

In January, we argued that there were big issues that needed tackling. That hasn't changed. Neither has the government's lack of engagement with domestic matters. The government remains more talk than action.

When government ministers return to their constituencies for the February half term break this week, they'll do so with report cards that read: must do better.

Liberal Democrat Leadership: A chance to breathe progressive energy into a party sorely in need of a fresh start

Last month Tim Farron chose to resign as leader of the Liberal Democrats. This article won't focus on that, other than where it affects the way forward. However, his resignation does present the party with an opportunity.

The party has been on a rollercoaster, from their first experience of government in decades to a catastrophic loss of public trust that resulted in an electoral collapse that lost the party all but eight seats in the Commons.

Under Farron, who had no part in the Coalition, it appeared that things were turning around. Recoveries in council elections, and the remarkable by-election upset in Richmond Park, suggested that the pro-European party would do well at a general election.

The results were, by most measures, disappointing. Yes there were gains, with some of the party's bigger names returning - even as others departed. But the party went hard on one issue and it didn't land. And there were also unhelpful distractions.

With yet another election unlikely to be far away, the party is at an impasse. There was no election surge and the party has no resonating message. It now has no leader either.

Contenders

The next leader has to grasp these challenge quickly and get on top of them. There can be no room for looking inwards. When nominations close in a week's time, the contenders putting themselves forward must give the party moving forward.

At the outset, it seemed like there would be an a list of experienced contenders to debate just how to do that. The favourites included the experienced former ministers Norman Lamb, Ed Davey and Vince Cable.

But the strong favourite was Jo Swinson. Not only would she have have been the party's first female leader - an important statement in itself - the party would have had in Swinson a liberal feminist at the helm outspoken and capable.

The biggest difficulty barrier ahead of her candidacy, it had seemed, was her time as a minister in the Coalition. Yet her early Parliamentary career was so tangled up with Cabinet collective responsibility, that her voting could only really be seen as representative of the Coalition as a whole.

That gives Swinson, in her return to the Commons, something near to a fresh start. A chance to establish her own agenda and to define herself, and her party, anew.

However, despite being labelled the favourite (by a wide margin), Swinson chose not to stand. She was promptly elected Deputy Leader, however, so her voice will not be missed at the head of the party.

Her choice not to stand would become a trend. Soon after, Ed Davey and Norman Lamb both announced they would not stand either. With no challenger yet coming forward, Vince Cable is at present the only candidate to become the next leader.

Renewal

Over the years, the liberal parties in Britain have found themselves caught between two movements. The free marketers have been pulled rightward by the Conservatives and the social liberals have been pulled leftward by Labour.

And yet, the Liberal Democrats seemed to be making inroads as an alternative progressive party to Labour until the 2010 general election. In longstanding liberal tradition, the party announced it would respect pluralism and go into coalition with the party with most seats and most votes.

That decision, that led to Cameron and Clegg announcing the Coalition in the Rose Garden, ultimately proved wildly unpopular. It hangs over the party two years on. As the presumptive next leader, Vince Cable needs to address weaknesses like these.

To his credit, Cable has already taken steps to head off those concerns that more collaboration with the Tories awaits in the future. Cable described working with the Tories was like mating with a praying mantis - not something you're likely to survive twice.

It helps that the party has been clear that it won't be making any deals and in the election campaign, even Nick Clegg spoke of the need to work constructively with Labour in the aftermath to oppose the Tories - a clear sign that there is no going back.

The break from the past could bring with a fresh start on policy too. At the centre of the their 2017 campaign was the call for a second referendum. But it didn't really get traction. It was a policy that seemed to have missed a change in the public mood.

There is a growing sense that people have accepted that Brexit is going to happen and are focussing now on the future - a mood that makes the Lib Dems position seem nostalgic, or even conservative.

There is, perhaps, a need to draw a line under staying in - following what might be considered two defeats - and to realign thinking toward the future. Not to stop being pro-Europe or even pro-Remain, but to think about what these mean going forward rather than trying to undo the past. Three points to consider would be:

• to scrutinise and campaign for the least damaging Brexit,
• to support the right for individuals to retain their EU citizenship,
• and, to start talking about pathways back to European cooperation in the future.

The key is to start taking the initiative and look forwards, not backwards. To get back to basics, like questions of individual's rights. That idea doesn't just extend to policy on Europe.

Perception

At the heart of being forward-looking in developing policy and taking stances is public perception. For smaller parties it is a difficult, and sometimes perilous, tightrope to walk. But at it's heart, there are practical limitations these parties face and they must tailor their message to that reality.

When he resigned, Tim Farron drew a link between his decision and questions that arose in the election campaign suggesting a conflict between faith and politics. Farron portrayed the conflict as only the perception of an intolerant illiberal secularism.

Now, it certainly isn't incompatible for someone to be personally conservative and yet politically liberal, open and tolerant of others, and respecting their right to live their own lives.

But it is a hard stance to hold as the leader, as the figurehead, of a liberal movement. When asked to assuage doubts about his stance on LGBT and abortion rights, Farron failed to offer reassurance - focusing instead on himself.

Politics is a game played in soundbites and shorthands. The grand rhetoric and inspiring thought absolutely matters, so very much, but it isn't the gateway - the access point. Image and perceptions matter.

For the smaller third parties - for whom taking symbolic stands are one the few opportunities they get to show the public who they are - the leadership has to be a beacon of the values of that party, without equivocation.

The Coalition interfered with the Liberal Democrats' ability to make themselves distinct. The comedown from the personality politics that grew up around Nick Clegg has tarnished their image, along with the links to the Tories.

The party's long held commitments to plurality, to compromise, to democratic cooperation and serving the national interest above the party interests are all worthy. But little of it ever makes it to the public eye and is rarely interpreted as intended.

The party also seems to have struggled to establish what it is for, pitching a stance of 'equidistance' under Clegg that didn't really change under Farron. While there is nothing wrong with Centrism, it shouldn't be confused with just splitting the difference.

As a small party, the Lib Dems can't afford those confusions. It needs a clear message. For a good example, consider the party's 1997 manifesto. It called for active government that would strengthen liberty, promote prosperity and widen opportunity. There is what liberalism is supposed to stand for, summarised in three words: Liberty - Prosperity - Opportunity. Hopeful words that focus on the future, not just management of the mediocre present.

Foundation

The 2017 general election established a Liberal Democrat baseline and perhaps new foundations. Even with just a dozen MPs, the party still have the ability to put forward a capable frontbench team, with recognisable names associated with positive progressive campaigns.

From Vince Cable, with a long history as a treasury spokesperson and minister, and an economics expert; to Ed Davey, who was minister for energy and the environment; to Norman Lamb, who was a minister in the Department of Health, is an outspoken advocate of parity of esteem for mental health and now also chair of the Science and Technology select committee; there are strong credentials. In addition, both the returning Jo Swinson and the brand new Layla Moran are MPs who look like future party leaders.

There Lib Dems survived their mistakes and have decent foundations to build upon. But there are decisions to be made if the party wants to make it back from the brink - for the second time in it's history. But do so, the party needs to be much more self-aware and it needs to be clear.

There is still a place for liberalism under a broader progressive banner, but it has to commit. Even standing as centrist, with its cherished value of inclusivity, can be progressive. But the centre is not to be found halfway between Labour and the Tories.

Vince Cable, increasingly likely to be the next leader, has made positive steps in that direction. He has affirmed the "no deals" stance, with particular venom towards the Tories, supported the Compass campaign for a Progressive Alliance over the past few years and received cross-party backing in his own seat of Twickenham.

The last liberal recovery was founded in localism, campaigning and standing as a progressive party. The 2017 manifesto showed that the core of those ideas remains unchanged. What the party have lost their identity. It must be the new leader's priority to get it back.

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.

Around the World: Renzi, Last Man Standing

Matteo Renzi, Prime Minister of Italy, speaking at a university in October 2015. Photograph: Matteo Renzi a San Giobbe by the Università Ca' Foscari Venezia (License) (Cropped)

In Italy, the Left-Right dynamic that emerged over the last two decades finally seemed to have broken in favour of the Left. Silvio Berlusconi's powerful populist Centre-Right groupings lost ground at the 2013 elections and have struggled in the polls since - falling below even the anti-establishment party Movimento 5 Stella (M5S).

Meanwhile, polling had put the party of the Centre-Left, Partito Democratico, consistently ahead as the only party with a truly national mandate. Even despite having had three separate leaders since the election, Pierluigi Bersani, Enrico Letta and now Matteo Renzi, the Democratici have remained the only stabilising force in Italy's political mainstream.

Matteo Renzi, as leader of the Democrats, is the centre point for what little stability remains. Yet he has staked it all on winning a controversial constitutional referendum - with opposition to be found in all corners of Italian politics - making the plebiscite a vote of confidence in his continued leadership and job as Prime Minister (Politi, 2016).

If that were not enough, on top of Renzi's struggle to change the political and electoral systems, he also faces a battle with the European Union over the rules regarding how he can tackle Italy's National banking crisis (Sanderson & Alex Barker, 2016) - a crisis which, if it where ever to fully unravel, would dwarf the chaos into which Greece has been plunged.

Italy's major national banks are drained of funds, burdened by impossible debts - €400bn in bad loans - and need recapitalisation. EU rules say, however, that the government cannot buy out the banks of their debt (Guerrera et al, 2016), despite support for the policy from the European Central Bank (Jones, 2016), unless the burden falls first on investors.

But in Italy that is all but impossible. The largest share of the debts now weigh heavily upon its citizens, thanks to retail bond and investment schemes. That state of affairs has already caused tragedies, when problems at regional banks led to suicides after families lost hundreds of thousands in savings (Poggioli, 2016).

To force creditors to take the burden is to invite the collapse of Italy's biggest banks and destroy the lives of and impoverish its people. Renzi has expressed his intention to defy the EU and save Italy's banking sector, to protect particularly the country's ordinary savers.

Renzi's government also has ambitious and extensive welfare plans in the works to help those in poverty. Intended to begin in September, after a significant trial period, a programme would extend support for hundreds of thousands of families with children living in poverty, covering a million people to €320/month (Conte, 2016).

The €750mn/year investment, to be doubled as the programme goes forward is conditional on meeting educational and job searching objectives, to spread the governments aim of increasing 'income inclusion'. But it could make a massive difference for the most vulnerable.

But future action depends upon Renzi and the mandate of the Democrats surviving the referendum, which looks to be taking place in increasingly heated circumstances. Anti-establishment and anti-European sentiment seem to be rising hand in hand. The banking crisis and the intransigence of European institutions is not helping. It's no big surprise then that September's vote is being touted as the next big turning point for the future of European institutions after Greece and Brexit.

In that toxic atmosphere, Renzi has staked his efforts against his own position - not the Prime Minister's first act of brinkmanship as he tries to reorganise Italy, having made a similar move to pass same-sex unions (BBC, 2016). But the move stakes more than just his own career on the vote: Renzi is virtually the last man standing in the Italian political arena.

The Democrats are internally divided (La Repubblica, 2016) and only the anti-establishment, anti-elite and Eurosceptic populists M5S, who sit with UKIP in the European Parliament, have something approaching the national mandate to take over.

Making the matter personal by making it a vote on Renzi as well is a dangerous move, not least in this political climate - as former President Giorgio Napolitano stressed (Politi, 2016). It clouds motivations, particularly when Renzi is the central figurehead of the establishment, pushing through reforms that are each time controversial to some large group - from labour reforms (BBC, 2014) to same-sex unions, to the banking crisis currently unfolding - and likely only to feed anti-establishment populism.

Europe finds itself now, once more, with a crisis on it hands. The only leader with a modicum of a mandate is risking his position and the country's stability each time he tries to push through a reform. And yet even as Renzi takes on that task, he finds himself also pressured by the EU that would force him to act punitively against citizens by nullifying their investment savings.

The institutional rules themselves are in essence intended as pro-market anti-trust regulations, aimed at preventing state-corporate collusion, as a bulwark against corruption. For progressives - who want to see an open Europe where all parts cooperate in mutual support for the common good - to see them deployed to prevent the state from performing its basic duty to the people is disappointing.

If Renzi falls, Italy risks falling back into political paralysis, much as Spain has been by its electoral deadlocks. The fact so much has come to rest on the career of one politician should be a disconcerting warning to Europe of the need to find stable ground for all of its member states. Yet at present, Europe institutions seems unwilling or unable to respond positively. Europe's present system of legal authority without sufficient democratic accountability has alienated.

Reform is needed. The need is pressing to argue the case against the flaws of the present system and for the building of a better one. The Democrats were elected in Italy on the slogan 'Bene Comune' - the Common Good. It is long overdue time to start rebuilding Europe under the same words.

Labour Leadership Contest: Corbyn's year in charge has already changed Labour's policy debate, but will it be enough to heal the rift?

Corbyn speaking, just a month after his election, to a crowd of ten thousand people - inside and outside - at Manchester Cathedral, for a Communication Workers Union event.

The Labour leadership contest got under way in earnest on Thursday as Jeremy Corbyn launched his campaign. Evoking the memory of Beveridge, in his speech he promised to lead Labour towards ending the 'five greats evils' of our times (BBC, 2016): inequality, neglect, prejudice, insecurity and discrimination.

Having seen off Angela Eagle in the nominations race, Owen Smith has also stepped up his campaign (Asthana & Elgot, 2016). Unlike Corbyn, who has a - not really of his own making - hostile relationship with the media, Owen Smith is actively courting the media, making TV appearance after TV appearance to increase his exposure amongst audiences who probably don't know who he is.

Smith's key line through these appearances has been to try and present himself as able to be the intermediary between the radical membership and the more pragmatic party. He has promised to be as radical as Corbyn, but more competent at making the practical pitch to the wider country (BBC, 2016{2}).

Owen Smith, in the event of his campaign being victorious, has even pitched a job for Corbyn, offering him the position of Party President - though the proposition was rejected by Corbyn as being the equivalent to a 'Director of Football' (BBC, 2016{3}).

The launch of Corbyn's leadership defence had the appearance of an act of defiance (Sparrow, 2016). Affording no time to his detractors and opponents, he focussed instead on making a Beveridge-esque promise to combat the five great evils and called for Labour MPs to take the hand of friendship, get behind the party and work together.

In fact, the Labour leadership campaign may yet be beneficial for Corbyn. It might well give Corbyn the platform to calmly propose and discuss policy that his leadership so far failed to - conducted as it has been under a concessionless, constant barrage, of media negativity (Cammaert, 2016).

However, his support will be under strain, potentially squeezed by a candidate like Smith - if he can put his message across - with the polls showing trade union members have become less enthusiastic about Corbyn's leadership (MacAskill, 2016).

Smith has already made some promises. The set piece of which was a promise to boost public investment, with a £200bn New Deal for Britain (Edwards, 2016). The proposal has already enthused some Labour MPs, such as Louise Haigh who said she was excited to see anti-austerity turned into practical proposals.

There was a bit of oneupmanship to the campaign though, when a day later Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell announced a £500bn investment plan (Pope, 2016). McDonnell's plan included a National Investment Bank, to have regional sub-sects, for instance a Bank of the North, to manage investment to local needs.

Whatever the variations, both candidates are though confirming support for ending austerity with a big increase in public investment - a move that sits well with what the experts are arguing that the British economy sorely needs to move forward (Blanchflower, 2016; Elliott, 2016).

That alignment between Labour's Left and Right, with economists, is a good sign for the Left, signalling that thinking has shifted away from austerity - making conditions perhaps somewhat easier for those on the Left friendly to public spending.

It might also be a sign that Corbyn supporters, and those on the Left wing of the party that have long felt ignored, even an Owen Smith win in the leadership contest will be far from a defeat to the hated Blairites. Corbyn and his supporters have changed the party and Smith's approach has proved that - they can't ignore the Left anymore.

Contained within the pitch Owen Smith is making is an acknowledgement of the impact that Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters, who put him into the leadership, have had on the party. Their values cannot be ignored.

And yet, tensions remain high. Claims of abuse have come from both sides, of which there is plenty, but those valid claims are undermined at times by claims of abuse by thin-skinned public figures who, earnestly or cynically, mistake criticism for something less legitimate (BBC, 2016{4}).

The question that provokes is whether the breach had already been widened too much. Though concessions are being made in terms of tone and policy, if Corbyn doesn't retain the leadership - and even if he does - the hostility of the party's establishment to the Left still really doesn't make it look, however, like the long term future of the Corbynistas, and their well wishers, is in the Labour Party.

Proportional representation cannot come soon enough.

Contests & Mergers: Is talk of a Labour-Tory merger just an effort to force party members to accept status quo candidates?

Manifesto tag lines from the Labour and Conservative parties at 2015 general election.

With two leadership elections under way for Britain's two biggest political parties, David Cameron's call for a new captain to steer the ship seems to have cast the country adrift. In such messy times, its not unusual to hear odd or interesting ideas for how to get back on course.

But in British politics it is certainly far from usual to hear talk of Conservative and Labour MPs possibly being willing to put aside their tribalism and merged with each other. The proposal seems to be that the so-called moderate members of each party will withdraw and together form a new Centre party should the more extreme nominee for each party's leadership emerge the victor.

Against the background of that threat, the memberships of both parties are being pressured to put aside their extreme candidates to maintain the status quo. For the Conservatives that meant pressure to reject Andrea Leadsom in favour of Theresa May, and for Labour the pressure is to back Angela Eagle's challenge to Jeremy Corbyn's leadership.

Tory Leadership

On the Conservative side, Brexit was the big divide between the nominees. Of the two, Andrea Leadsom was clearly the outsider, the challenger to Theresa May (Kuenssberg, 2016) - who is very much the candidate representing the present Cameroonian direction. May is also most clearly the one likely to be able to continue without a new election, by representing continuity with the manifesto and policies of the Cameron Ministry.

Leadsom garnered some attention during the referendum campaign as she stood alongside Boris Johnson and Gisella Stuart on the stage for the ITV and BBC debates, arguing for Britain to exit the European Union. So much so that, with Boris Johnson's withdrawal, she was easily able to beat the other Brexit nominees - including Michael Gove, who seems to have only hurt himself with his cloak & dagger antics.

In contrast, May remained largely aloof from the EU referendum campaign. However she nonetheless courted controversy when, despite offering some support for Cameron's pro-EU stance, she suggested that the British commitment to the European Convention of Human Rights should be dropped as an inconvenience (Asthana & Mason, 2016) - a stance many have felt is consistent with her hardline positions as Home Secretary.

As Home Secretary, May has been criticised for her stances on a number of contentious issues. From her handling of the subject of Islamist extremism in schools (Adams, 2014), to her continued efforts to push through the Snooper's Charter (Mason, Asthana & Travis, 2016), and of course for her stance on the ECHR, she has been criticised by progressives. She also, and of particular relevance to conservative voters, faced criticism for her management of the border agency when it was found not to conducting proper checks (BBC, 2011).

For her part, Leadsom managed to attract most of the controversy to herself in the course of the contest. She made some ill-judged and troubling comments, from allegedly criticising Theresa May for not being a mother (Pearson, 2016) to saying she opposed equal marriage because it was 'damaging' to Christians (Cowburn, 2016). In fact, the controversies have generated so much heat that this morning Leadsom in fact withdrew from contention - much as Chuka Umunna did from the Labour contest back in 2015.

That left Theresa May to take up the Conservative leadership unopposed. While May is likely to pick up threads from Cameron's ministry, there will likely also be a turn even deeper into social conservatism that will worry progressives.

Labour Leadership

Across the floor, the intrigue that has racked the Labour Party since the referendum has moved on to a new chapter with the breakdown of talks between Deputy Leader Tom Watson, representing the Parliamentary Labour Party, and party Leader Jeremy Corbyn - which were being mediated by trade union leader Len McCluskey (The Guardian, 2016).

This seemingly final inability to close the breach has led to Angela Eagle finally announcing her long touted challenge (BBC, 2016). Pitching herself as a practical socialist, using the long favoured New Labour line that its fine to have principles but you also need to speak to a broad audience, Eagle will stand ostensibly against Corbyn in what has all the making of being the memberships' candidate versus the PLP's candidate.

Complications and potential legal challenges aside, over whether or not Corbyn will be allowed on the ballot without nominations from MPs - his opponents seem very keen to block him - such a contest does not seem to be something likely to unify the already shattered party. Of course on the one hand,  as a gay woman it would certainly be a welcome step forward in representation for the Left to have Eagle in Labour's most senior political position at Westminster.

However, her policy stances have been deeply in line with those of New Labour: she supported the Iraq War and was against an investigation; she supported New Labour's authoritarian domestic policies, like ID cards, 90 day no-charge detentions and stricter terms for asylum; and she also abstained on the Welfare Bill that sought to cut tax credits (Sinclair, 2016).

Corbyn's election was as much, if not more, a rejection of New Labour - its methods, its language and its hybrid of social democracy and neoliberalism - as it was an endorsement of the Labour Left's brand of democratic socialism. If both face the membership, it seems hard to see Eagle winning over Corbyn's supporters, or reconciling them with the mainstream if she wins.

Is a Labour-Tory merger really possible?

In the shadows behind the leadership contests - whether simply a way to galvanise their respective partisan supporters into stopping their extreme wings from taking hold, or as a genuine possibility - a merger of the mainstream of the Conservative and Labour parties has been proposed (Boffey & Helm, 2016).

Historically, such a merger would seem to be impossible. For nearly a century Labour and the Conservatives have been locked in a polemic struggle, government versus opposition - two opposite, though undeniably converging, forces that have defined the British political landscape and formed the basic reference points for any discussion of politics.

However, it wouldn't be entirely without historical precedent. After former Labour leader Ramsay MacDonald was expelled by the party, his new National Labour worked closely with the Tories until being fundamentally consumed by them. During war time, the two parties also showed they were able to work alongside one another amicably.

The referendum has also changed things, even if only temporarily. At no time in recent memory have the mainstream of the two main parties been so closely aligned, with good will so clear between them. May's unopposed run to the Conservative leadership will probably scupper any plans before they could get off the ground, but Labour's crisis makes some sort of realignment seem inevitable.

When a progressive alliance looks closer to being assembled than it ever has, a plan to bring together the so-called centre would be a big setback. If an effort to bring the 'Centrists' together in one large party of Democrats was successful, it would surely suck in Liberal Democrats too. That would leave the UK with a single major political party that is successor to the only three that have governed in more than a century.

The formation of such a party, one massive, pro-establishment, state party would be pretty much the opposite of the pluralism that Britain sorely needs. After the chaos of the referendum, the Conservatives seem to be steadying their ship while the Left remains caught in a storm and likely to run aground.

The next move appears to be in the hands of Labour MPs. The choice ahead of them seems to be between a pluralist progressive alliance, even more pro-establishment centralisation and attempting to simply prop up the shattered husk of the Labour Party - a path favoured by at least one former leader (Aitkenhead, 2016). It would be a brave person who bets on what will happen next.

Response by Blair to the Chilcot report illustrates why we need a progressive alliance and the pluralism it is supports

Tony Blair in his final year as PM and leader of Labour, even as the US planned a troop surge in Iraq, four years after the initial invasion. Photograph: Blair in 2007 by Matthew Yglesias (License) (Cropped)

Last night's progressive alliance event, hosted by the Compass think tank, began with a call for progressives to take ownership of the concepts of love and hope. From all sides there was a sentiment that building a progressive future depends on reaching across boundaries and cooperating.

This could not be in starker contrast from Tony Blair's response to the release of the Chilcot Inquiry's report. Following John Chilcot's statement, introducing the report, former Prime Minister Tony Blair spent two hours giving a response and answering questions.

After apologising and accepting full responsibility, Blair sought to justify his actions. At the centre of Blair's explanation is the portrait he paints of a singular leader whose job it is to make the decisions. That is an attitude that underlines the Blair legacy.

Particularly in the Labour Party, that attitude has opened a drastic separation between the establishment and the people who support a candidate like Jeremy Corbyn. People, active political actors, feeling separated from the decision making reserved to an elite heavily embedded within the establishment and the media.

In his report Chilcot criticised the centralisation of decision making that alienated even the cabinet from the necessary information in a political system that is not, but has become increasingly, presidential. A singular leader was able to take a momentous decision, on his own authority, overruling rules and proper process on the way.

Beneath the idea of a progressive alliance is the principle of pluralism - that decisions should be made with broad consent. It is a poignant criticism of the direction of Blair and New Labour's thinking.

From John Harris - cautioning the audience that it is a priority to speak to those in the most desperate situations and address the inequalities resting upon them and feeding a hopeless view of the future - to Amina Gichinga - calling out politicians for not facing the people, not just for accountability but to build a vision of the future that includes them - the Compass event emphasised the way in which centralisation and majoritarian thinking had alienated people and left them feeling helpless.

Rebuilding trust in politics cannot be done from the top down, without reinforcing an idea of politics being something that is done by elites while the rest wait with ears pressed to the door. The progressive alliance event was adamant on that point - connecting working across party lines with the need for electoral reform and proportional representation.

What Caroline Lucas, Clive Lewis and Vince Cable accepted in their contributions is that the divisions, caused by the ambitions of singular parties to chase majorities, were damaging to the overall aims shared by progressives of all stripes.

As centralising power on the mythical decision-making leader alienates people, so might pluralism empower and energise them. If there are lessons to be learned from the Blair leadership, the Iraq War and Chilcot, it is that decisions must not be made in isolation within the corridors of power. Progressives have to expect a better, broader and more inclusive process and start living up to it.

The Labour leadership election begins in earnest. But what will the candidates stand for?

With the nominations counted and the candidates confirmed, the 2015 Labour leadership election campaign has begun in earnest. The day was marked with the first televised debate last night in Nuneaton, which had been a prime Labour election target seat where the party had failed spectacularly (BBC, 2015).

For the position of party leader the candidates are Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper, Jeremy Corbyn and Liz Kendall (BBC, 2015{2}). At the same time, there will also be an election for the deputy leadership. Standing for the position of deputy leader are Ben Bradshaw, Stella Creasy, Angela Eagle, Caroline Flint and Tom Watson (New Statesman, 2015).

The most pressing issues for the leadership candidates will be to address what they believe went wrong in 2015 (Wintour, 2015), and to find answer to those beginning to ask what the point is of the Labour Party (Jones, 2015; Todd, 2015).

Amongst the prospective leaders, Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper most represent continuity with the New Labour project, having both been deeply involved with Blair and Brown governments and regular frontbenchers over the last Eighteen years. Both Burnham and Cooper announced their candidacy with an appeal to the party not to move Left or Right, but to make a broad appeal with an emotional connection to everyday lives (Wintour, 2015{2}; Gayle, 2015).

Liz Kendall was the first, and is both the youngest and most right-wing, candidate on the list, having made it clear that she believes the Labour Party did not 'do enough to appeal to Conservative supporters' (Chakelian, 2015).

The final candidate, who just scraped onto the list, is Jeremy Corbyn, representing the old Socialist Left-wing of the party. His candidature has been commended for opening up the leadership contest, turning it into an open, public debate between the Left and Right on the future of the Labour Party (Kelner, 2015). Corbyn declared his candidacy by mocking the other candidates' obsession with 'aspiration', by declaring his aspiration the close the inequality gap (Corbyn, 2015).

At last night's debate in Nuneaton, all four had their first chance to connect with an audience (Wintour, Watt & Mason, 2015; Watt, 2015). What was most starkly remarkable about three of the four candidates was how very little seems to have changed from the 2015 general election campaign message. The leaders in waiting are still talking about immigration, work as a responsibility to work, of leaving Labour's past behind and embracing business.

There is a growing consensus that Labour is going to need something more from its next leader if it is going to get into government after the next election. A big idea (Robinson, 2015). Conviction (Behr, 2015). The Green Party MP Caroline Lucas even offered her thoughts, proposing that Labour finally embrace multi-party politics (Lucas, 2015). All of these things will factor as decision time approaches for Labour. It awaits to be seen whether the party will the party stay in the Centre-Right, hoping to beat the Tories at their own game, or if they will try to come up with a real, progressive, alternative message?

The Battle for Number 10 between just two leaders and the Bercow Saga show just how desperately British politics needs reform

The first sort-of-not-a-debate was never likely to be all that exciting, but it suffers in comparison to the political machinations that preceded it earlier today. The Conservatives chose the day that their leader was making a very public appearance to try and oust the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow.

In an effort described as 'grubby', and condemned on all sides of parliament, the Conservatives attempted to pass a motion to change the rules by which MPs vote for the position of Speaker - seen specifically as an effort to remove Bercow (BBC, 2015). Considering Bercow's efforts to clean up Parliamentary politics and modernise Westminster (Dathan, 2015), it wasn't exactly the backdrop that David Cameron would have wanted for facing an interrogation by Jeremy Paxman.

The not-a-debate itself was predictably frustrating and tense - though there were some cracks. Cameron couldn't live on a zero-hours contract and Miliband claimed that his Labour predecessors were wrong on immigration and the deregulation of the banks.

The pretty odd absence of the Liberal Democrats from the debate was at least softened when their policies showed up. The Mansion Tax, and a Referendum on Europe if there is a treaty change, seem to have made it into Labour's repertoire.

However much their absence may leave them a bit isolated, the Lib Dems may be pleased not to have been on the same stage as the other leaders after all. Whatever they might have gained in terms of increased profile, that profile would have come with the great deal of frustration people will feel with the persistence of Cameron and Miliband in refusing to answer questions directly.

Early polling seems to have suggested a 'win' for Cameron (Clark, 2015), but it has been suggested that Miliband will likely be the one who gains in the long term - being seen to possibly be a capable leader will not hurt his party's election chances (Sparrow, 2015).

And yet, despite all of that, the main thing to be taken from the not-debate tonight will be the narrow focus on just two party leaders at a time when British politics has never been more open. The reality of British politics in 2015 is that there is unlikely to be a majority after the election in May, and there will be many smaller parties vying for attention.

Keeping the focus on these two - Miliband and Cameron, Labour and Conservatives - is about as bad for politics as the underhanded attempt to dislodge Speaker Bercow, a committed reformer, from office while everyone else is away or not paying attention.

The focus now switches to the debate between seven party leaders on 2nd April. That should be livelier, if for no other reason than the Clegg effect from 2010 - lots of parties and politicians entirely new to many viewers. That at least will hopefully mark a reforming step, more in line with reality.

Syriza's negotiation with European Leaders is a reminder that we need to take Europe back, not abandon it

Logo of the anti-austerity party Syriza painted on a pavement in the build up to the January election. Photograph: Syriza logo by Thierry Ehrmann (License) (Cropped)

Greece's anti-austerity party Syriza may well have surprised many with their decision to sit down with European leaders to hash out a deal that would keep Greece in the Eurozone (Monaghan, 2015). After their strident attacks on European economic policy, in an election campaign where they pledged to end those policies in Greece (BBC, 2015), for many a Greek exit from the Euro must have seemed sure, soon and swift.

So if Eurozone austerity is so unbearable, why would Syriza bother to stay and negotiate?

Italy, which has been treated as Europe's economic case study because of its own debt crisis comparable to that of Greece, has resisted austerity and is trying to dig its way out of debt (Traynor, 2014). In that task Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi actually wants the European Central Bank to lead, encouraging the institution to lead the way with its latest round of efforts to boost growth by pumping money into the European economy (Treanor et al, 2015).

As for others in Europe, the reality is that reforming Europe's institutions rather than simply abolishing them, with the countries of Europe working together within a better system, is preferable to a return to isolation and handling these crises without support. Those feelings are reflected around Europe, and demonstrate a positive vision of what Europe could be: a co-ordinating body, a network supporting solidarity between member states.

Right now though, Europe's institutions are in the hands of bartering and deal-making national interests. Those forces have co-opted what was once a juxtaposition to their aims - a broad body looking at the greater community interest rather than narrow nationalisms - and re-centred it on a commitment to the national conservative economics of fiscal austerity and privatisation (Jones, 2015). But, if reformed, Europe could do so much more.

The European Union was once the middle road between the American capitalist and Soviet communist super powers, looking to co-operation over American competition or Soviet collectivisation. It supported co-operation between members of the community of nations, and between labour and management. It supported new member states in getting up to the same speed as existing members (Feffer, 2015).

That path to successful integration and co-ordination followed on from a long succession of plans dating back to the Second World War. During the war, the countries of Europe had taken on huge debts that made post-war reconstruction a daunting task. In response, the United States drew up the Marshall Plan, an Act of Congress - with Bipartisan support - that authorised a huge financial investment in rebuilding Europe's infrastructure.

That plan played a large role in rebuilding the UK, France, Italy and West Germany. East Germany, which had been under Soviet control, would only join a reunited Germany in 1990. By that time, the East was in an economic state that lagged far behind the West. Germany responded with massive deficit spending to rebuild the East and accelerate its ability to catch up with the rest of the country (Feffer, 2014).

The European Union of today has its own version of these functions, but it is not employed to nearly the same degree. It is particularly telling that Europe, in the face of the financial crisis, rather than collaborate and pursue a co-ordinated spending program aimed at helping the member states back up to an even footing, individual member states were expected to find their own individual response, to their own crises.

The 2008 financial crash and the Great Recession that followed, essentially caused by reckless capitalism, was initially tackled through the bailing out of private debts by the public treasuries. That private debt, as a result, became public debt (Bellofiore, 2011). The matter the public has been faced with since, is figuring out how to deal with the crushing weight of the debt that was taken on.

One thing has been obvious in the last seven years of crisis. Individual countries, alone, can't manage the accumulated debts that were inherited from the private sector, not least without massive sacrifices. Despite the crisis clearly being interconnected, and global, with debts comparable to the outcome of another great war, this time there has been no concerted collaborative response.

It is in this case, as much as any other, that Europe's fragmentation and disunity has hurt the most. Europe, as a whole, could have shouldered the weight. Instead, the individual countries have been forced to cut and cut and cut. Instead of a Europe that recognised its common bonds and pulled together, we have a Europe of many interconnected parts, acting like parts alone rather than as the parts of a whole.

That disunity is symbolised in the fact that the European currency is not fully underwritten by the political unity which could have brought with it the capacity to hold debt and to lend against the full weight of European wealth (Bellofiore, 2011). Instead, each individual member is using austerity, cutting back its spending in an attempt to surmount and reduce their individual debts.

That comes with a heavy price (Inman, 2015). That austerity effort has attacked market demand by putting a huge strain on personal incomes. As welfare and public sector work is cut back, the amount that people can spend falls and their insecurity increases. At the same time the cuts have also tightened access to credit, squeezing lending to business and making the possibility of finding alternative forms of security and livelihood in the private sector slim.

The absence of cheap credit puts further pressure on the private sector, leading to demands for more 'labour flexibility' - which, in lay terms, means lower pay, shorter hours and less secure contracts for workers - in an effort to cut costs. Those efforts have only squeezed personal incomes and security further still. The whole effect is compounded for future generations, as young people are suffering through colossal levels of unemployment and lack of training opportunities.

The result has been political turmoil in each member state as they find themselves caught between responding to the debt, under pressure from other nations and private sector interests, and an increasingly hostile public response on the other, from people angry about being expected shoulder all of the fallout from the crisis. That has led to huge protests, democratic rejection of mainstream parties and a dangerously rising nationalism and connected intolerance - people, feeling insecure, afraid and under attack, are circling the wagons.

Some of the larger and more prosperous countries have fared better than others, as the economic policies pursued have suited them, or at least their ideologically dominant parties. However, Europe is bound together. The manufacturing regions are bound to the agricultural regions, and they to the commercial and the financial. So, even for prosperous and powerful Germany, there is no escaping the interdependence.

Germany's neo-mercantilist policies have made them dependent upon exports to the surrounding countries, and to the United States (Bellofiore, 2011). As such, it relies upon the spending power and trade deficits of its neighbours, who over time have responded to their trade 'partnership' with Germany by rearranging their economies. That has meant a decline in their own internal production, and an economy steered ever more towards imports from Germany, the service industry and the US-UK system of speculation on inflated capital assets (such as housing) along with propping up spending with consumer debt.

When austerity was applied, cutting back public sector work and public services, and with no strong internal economy to fall back on, it led to stagnation and decline in their own economies. That, in turn, has led to a broader stagnation as countries, like (predominantly) Germany, now have fewer partners to trade with. It has become a destructive cycle.

Italy and its political and economic crisis, as the country that most resembles a microcosm of Europe at large, has become the case study for solving the crisis in Europe as a whole. Both sides, the Right and the Left, have attempted to justify their solution to the Italian crisis, which represents to both sides a core example of what is wrong with European economics.

On the Right, there is an idea that the root of the problem in Italy, and Europe, is a lack of 'competitiveness' (Sinn, 2014). Prices are too high, so the cost of doing business is too high. The solution for the Right, amongst other efforts at depreciation, is to reduce the protections surrounding labour, so wages can be decreased and hours and contracts be made more 'flexible'. With these things achieved, businesses would start to grow again and employment would increase, spurring growth - although with admitted carnage along with the way with households going bankrupt. For their efforts in pursuing this painful direction, former Prime Ministers Silvio Berlusconi and Mario Monti have been praised, and electoral politics has been criticised for getting in the way of the brutal necessary.

The left takes the opposite tack. If Europe's financial bodies would step up to tackle national debts, and to invest towards creating more employment and stronger wages, then:

'If internal demand and production increase more than productivity, the consequent higher employment could ground consumption on income rather than on debt.'

New sources of funding, more jobs and higher wages - supported by Europe as a whole tackling the matter of the collective debt - could lead to a way out of the crisis through the empowering of labour, of individualism, rather than the curbing of it. Public welfare could be funded to shield people during the harsher times, rather than cut to pay off debts. The problem of prices could be handled in moderation during stronger economics times, not least through the increased competition created by a recovering economy.

The debate between Right and Left becomes a matter of cutting debt, cutting spending, and cutting wages; or to borrow in order to prop up spending and up prop labour. Force what would effectively be an economic recession to lower wages and allow private investment to reboot, at the cost of private debts and hardships; or let the co-ordinating whole take on the burden for everyone at the cost of additional debt in the short term.

For the Right, it becomes a matter of nation-states handling the matter internally, alone, through cuts that place the heavy burden on individuals. For the Left, the nation-states would act in common, pursuing the European ideal of the self-governing communities standing together in solidarity, supporting welfare and investment that finds a path out of the crisis that takes the burden off the shoulders of the individual.

That role, looked for by The Left, is a vision of what Europe could be, and why Europe is so important. The European project marks the ultimate point, for the people of Europe at present, of overcoming the divisions that our differences create between us. It means reaching across those differences to find commonality, solidarity and potential.

And yet, Europe is faced with resentment and hostility by Far Right nationalist movements; an economic and political crisis eating away at its individual member states; and the mistrust and scorn of people caught under the weight of austerity promulgated through Europe's institutions. Europe is held in the grip of a system of bartering national conservatisms, which prevent it from playing the sorely needed co-ordinating role, with a view to the broader community welfare.

Progressives, from Italy to Greece and onwards, want to reform Europe, but frequently find their efforts running up against a brick wall. The continental institutions are in the hands of conservative groups that unwaveringly push their agenda, and struggle between the reformers and the establishment results in a stalemate.

The answer to breaking the deadlock is to take back Europe. Movements like Occupy and Indignados, Syriza and Podemos show us the means. Radical democracy, conducted through new parties founded on new principles, with more direct involvement and engagement by and with the people. Among the primary aims of these groups has to be the reform of Europe's institutions around those principles.

If these new movements are to achieve progressive ends, however, they cannot be like-for-like replacements for the old parties. Instead of  top down, patronising leaderships, they need be the co-ordinators of Europe's fragmented communities. The spaces where people can meet and debate, and where they can find solidarity in their struggles.

That too is a role that a reformed Europe could play. The place where Europe's fragmented communities come to discuss, debate and act in common, and where they come to find solidarity. The beginning of the road to achieving it, is to rebuild our political movements along the same principles.

Australia's leadership challenge is just the latest embarrassment for the two-party majoritarian system

Last week Australian politics found itself thrown into crisis, as once again the position of Prime Minister was turned into the subject of an internal party squabble. Tony Abbot, PM and Liberal Party leader, has had his leadership challenged following collapsing ratings in the polls (Jabour & Hurst, 2015).

This is just the latest embarrassment for the old two-party system. That system - which revolves around two monolithic groups, with machine politician leaders, using cheap popular appeals and sound bites to build workable majorities, or to struggle over control of them - in the end merely demonstrates its own weakness.

By centralising power around individual figures, the focus is put on the squabbles for control over the establishment. Those squabbles, over often marginal differences, only leads to an increasing detachment from reality that alienates voters and shuts down open political discussions. The disaffection of voters and the narrowing of choice reduces politics to little more than a stagnant and unstable popularity contest.

This is not the first time that Australia has faced this particular kind of crisis (Howden, 2015). Both major parties, Liberal and Labor, have had a number of so called leadership 'spills', where the party leadership is challenged, over the last half decade. The Labor Party suffered through four contests in just four years, as Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd repeatedly clashed between 2010 and 2013 (Phillips, 2012; Pearlman, 2013).

Coming into power on the back of that Labor Party squabbling, the Liberal leader Tony Abbott was elected offering stability (BBC, 2015). And yet, even if Abbott survives this challenge, his time as leader is limited. His rivals are circling and his authority, or popularity, has been undermined (Massola & Kenny; 2015).

In his desperate attempts to ward off those challengers, Abbot has been telling the same old story, warning Australians, and his own party, to be wary of turning leadership into a Game of Thrones (Pearlman, 2015). But it's a tired tale, used to justify centralised and unchallenged leadership. Justifying centrality and authority, not on their own merits, but as a ward and bastion against chaos.

It is the same story in the UK, where a free political choice is suppressed by the two major parties, Conservative and Labour, who cling to power by scaremongering against third parties, warning against split votes, hung parliaments and coalitions (BBC, 2010). These methods are justified as a practical and necessary response to the iniquities of the electoral system, and yet they persist in their refusal to pursue the meaningful electoral reform needed to make politics more representative - all to protect the fragile balance of their system. And so far those methods have worked.

However, the two-party system is fracturing all over the world. The squabbles over power and the suppression of alternatives should, by now, simply act as a reminder that the majoritarian two-party system simply does not offer enough accountability or representation.

These leadership squabbles simply emphasise the detachment from reality suffered at the highest levels of power. In Australia, both Liberals (who in Australia are conservatives in everything but name) and Labor, and in the UK, both Conservatives and Labour, all of the mainstream parties are guilty.

These parties support a system that hands power to one person, who is surrounded by a small group that represents just a fraction of the population, and has been tightly whipped into an ideological line. People are alienated from control over political decisions. Even parliaments and assemblies are regularly cut out of the process.

There is a great danger in structuring the stability of our institutions around any one individual and the power they can muster in support. It has frequently become the means by which an isolated elite make serious and impactful decisions - affecting real people's lives - in ivory towers detached from reality.

We need to find new ways to govern. We need more choice, more representation, and governments that reflect the whole electorate not just the loudest minority.

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References:
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+ Bridie Jabour & Daniel Hurst's 'Australian prime minister Tony Abbott may be deposed after party revolt'; in The Guardian; 6 February 2015.

+ Saffron Howden's 'Australian politics: Why is it so tumultuous?'; on The BBC; 8 February 2015.

+ Liam Phillips' 'Labor leadership challenge - Gillard vs Rudd'; in The Sydney Morning Herald; 27 February 2012.

+ Jonathan Pearlman's 'Julia Gillard defeated by Kevin Rudd in leadership challenge'; in The Telegraph; 26 June 2013.

+ 'Australian PM Tony Abbott 'will fight leadership challenge'; on The BBC; 6 February 2015.

+ James Massola & Mark Kenny's 'Supporters say Malcolm Turnbull will run against Tony Abbott for Liberal Party leader if spill motion succeeds'; The Sydney Morning Herald; 7 February 2015.

+ Jonathan Pearlman's 'Tony Abbott faces 'Games of Thrones' showdown'; in The Telegraph; 8 February 2015.

+ 'Election 2010: Cameron warns over hung parliament'; on The BBC; 17 April 2010.