Labour Leadership: Corbyn returns to the leadership but party still at an impasse as Labour Right remain defiant

Jeremy Corbyn speaking at a CWU event at Manchester Cathedral in October 2015.

On Saturday, Jeremy Corbyn started his second term as leader of the Labour Party. And yet, despite a second large popular vote victory - actually increasing his already considerable mandate - the Labour Right has already marked out their territory.

Even the night before the vote, Labour MPs where making demands. Amongst them, a demand for shadow cabinet roles that have joint policy setting power with the leader (Sparrow, 2016) and for arbitrary deadlines for leadership reviews that will effectively keep Corbyn on permanent probation (Asthana & Mason, 2016).

For Corbyn's part, he accepted his new mandate with a conciliatory speech. He said it was time to wipe the slate clean, to put aside things said in the heat of the contest and strongly denounced hostility and bullying. He called Labour the 'engine of progress' and called for unity around what the party's factions have in common.

Despite paying lip service, the Labour Right has, from the beginning, resisted Corbyn and sought every means of undermining him. And all the while it has demanded that Corbyn must compromise - which, from their attitude, can only be interpreted as saying Corbyn must do things their way.

To be fair, the leadership of Corbyn certainly has plenty of issues - but none of them really offer the Right of the Labour Party any reflected glory.

Corbyn has displayed poor media strategy - which isn't about playing the media's rigged game, but reaching out to the broader public with a coherent message and making a connection (Jones, 2015; Jones, 2016); and, as Billy Bragg expressed concern, there is a worry that he, and the Labour Party as a whole, are offering 20th century solutions to 21st century problems (Bragg, 2016) - expressed not least in Corbyn's embrace of his party's standard issue rejection of pluralism, saying no to the prospect of a broad progressive alliance.

However, while Corbyn may very well not be the party's saviour, Labour without him has nothing constructive to say. All there has been is whinging, that turns quickly into very public tantrums at the slightest provocation - and even without.

There isn't even any particular effort being made to engage with the positives of Corbyn's short tenure. Rallies where tens of thousands turn up to see Corbyn speak and a tremendous increase in membership and engagement - these things are readily dismissed, when they should be engaged with and used as a platform to reach out into communities.

Trying to reduce support for Corbyn to a 'personality cult', even making comparisons to the supporters of Donald Trump (Manson, 2016), is malicious, untrue and counter productive. It blatantly ignores the fact that many of Corbyn's more militant supporters are part of a long ignored faction and are rallying to support and defend their besieged leader, who's public role represents their fragile reemergence.

It is also to act, untruthfully, as if militant ideologists are a thing that has never otherwise existed, is an invention of Corbyn and the Labour Left, and don't form a loud minority of EVERY political movement. The only difference for New Labour or the Conservatives is that their ideologues wear suits and wield greater media savvy - not to mention both connections and influence.

The Labour Right has, from the beginning, fought Corbyn beyond all reason, sense and seemingly self awareness, undermining at every opportunity - crushing their own party's steadily recovering polling just to take a poorly organised shot at toppling him. All the while, they have failed to make any kind of constructive case for how the leadership should be done differently.

As a challenger, Owen Smith offered practically the same policies. He merely stood as not-Corbyn - an embarrassing revelation of the Labour Right's apparent reduction of all the party's problems to be the result of one old democratic socialist and nothing to do with New Labour alienating most of the country.

And now that their latest, large and embarrassing effort to oust him has failed, they're wedged deeply into a corner. How, after such a deep and prolonged an attack on Corbyn's competence, can they proclaim to the public that they stand behind him?

The next move on that front, from a purely practical viewpoint, is an opportunity for Corbyn to take the initiative. To make symbolic gestures of addressing concerns about his poor approach to the media, for example, so that recalcitrant MPs can say their fears have been allayed and so save face - that is, if he really wishes to lead Labour as the broad socialist-moderate alliance it has historically been.

The only other options appear to be continued destructive civil war, that will simply scorch the earth of the Labour brand completely and render it worthless to anyone, or for one or both factions to leave the party - likely the Right, with the party staying in the hands of the significant emergent Left-wing, socialist and radical democratic, faction of which Corbyn is but the face.

As for Labour's future electoral chances? To say that Corbyn and the Left-wing cannot win is to negate entirely the point of party politics. A party organises around a set of common values and seeks to convince the public of their importance.

The reach elected office, a party must find a way of reaching people who do not know, or currently share share, their values and secure their good will. To suggest it is impossible to convince is to say there is now point to holding a dissenting view, or moving in anyway not driven by the crowd.

If a party isn't to stand with a set of ideals, that inform an attitude to policy-making, then there seems little point to having a party. To say - as Labour MPs have - that the party's duty is just to represent the electorate, is not an argument for how to run a party. It is an argument against party politics.

To run an organised party on the basis of just reflecting your constituency's views, is to run a populist machine designed only for grabbing power - turning constituents into passive actors rather than representing them, and alienating them from power.

For the part of the Labour Right, this is just a deeply-ingrained pragmatic reaction to the iniquities of the present electoral system. At every turn there are conflicts of interest that reduce accountability. An MP cannot be held to their manifesto if they must also represent constituents that didn't vote for them - and if they do, thousands of voices are excluded.

The trouble is that playing the game well, within the iniquitous system, produces power. And that is a seductive lure. However, to express a possibly minority and dissenting view, is not supposed to be about 'winning' power. It is supposed to be about representation.

Politics is supposed to be party candidates, representing the full spectrum of beliefs, being sent by their voting supporters as the people's representatives to an assembly where together they will build a consensus. Where they will build an inclusive compromise that reflects the country as a whole. It is not supposed to be about one party supplanting the system itself, to seize power by convincing enough people it is alive to all of their prejudices.

Adversarial politics offers power at a price. That price is currently tearing the Labour Party in two. One solution is to embrace pluralism, with a number of separate parties with common ideals are willing to cooperate - not least to create a more representative and less alienating system.

However, the most likely (and classic) compromise between the party's factions will be a middle ground between the Left's ideals and the Right's demand for 'electability'. The faction that Corbyn figureheads can achieve that - and success heals rifts faster than anything else in politics.

And yet, this inward-gazing uncooperative party-first attitude, that burns within both Left and Right factions, is unhelpful. While to the two groups squabble over power within and for the party, a plural society goes unrepresented and alienated.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A new realignment of the Left is underway and Proportional Representation and the Basic Income are at the core

In Castlefields arena, Natalie Bennett addresses protesters from many different movements, who came together in opposition to the Conservative government in Manchester last Autumn.

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, Liberal and Liberal Democrat leaders Roy Jenkins, Paddy Ashdown and Charles Kennedy followed a course that sought to 'realign the Left' in Britain. Powered by the dominance of Thatcherite conservatism, it sought to change the approach of the left and ultimately lead to co-operation between progressive parties, in opposition to the Conservatives.

First through Liberal-Labour pacts, of which there is an even longer history, next through the breakaway SDP/Liberal Alliance, and then in the form of New Labour-Liberal Democrat talks and cooperation. And Kennedy's 'Real Alternative' campaign banner, even in opposition to a Labour government, reflected the general cohesion of aims on the Left, if not of methods.

That particular movement on the part of the Lib Dems ended with Nick Clegg's leadership. Clegg took the Liberal Democrats back to a policy of equidistance between the two big parties, Labour and the Conservatives.

However, the fall of the coalition and succession of a Conservative to a majority government seems to have triggered a new phase of realignment. The resignations of Clegg and Miliband led to the election of new party leaders, seen to be of very different stripes from their predecessors.

Tim Farron, the new Lib Dem leader, is a campaigning Northern MP and former Party President who stood aloof from, and in polite opposition to, the coalition. So far his efforts have been concentrated on focussing the Lib Dem fightback on the party's roots - in campaigning locally for community issues and nationally on matters of conscience.

Jeremy Corbyn's election as Labour leader seemed to send shockwaves through British politics. Portrayed by the media as a move back to some Michael Foot and Tony Benn, 80s-esque, hard Left position, Corbyn has faced disquiet and malcontent within the Parliamentary party since taking over with a landslide of party members' votes.

After the last five years, the seemingly inevitable alignment of the Liberal Democrats and Labour was shattered. It would be understandable to think finding new common ground would be difficult or impossible between the party Clegg had taken to the Centre, even Centre-Right, and the party Corbyn has been accused of taking to the hard Left.

Yet a new realignment of the Left is under way and the policies that will define the shift are already emerging in the policy debates of both parties.

Both the Liberal Democrats and Labour now seem to be on the same page, finally, when it comes to proportional representation. Both Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, from Labour's Left, and Chuka Umunna, from Labour's Right, have expressed support for PR. And both parties are engaged in consultations over their future approach to policy, including the welfare system - debates in which the idea of a universal basic income is playing a prominent role.

Ahead of the EU referendum, Farron has even called for a progressive political alliance on Europe - making internationalism again a core value across progressive parties. That matches, in a limited way, the arguments that Caroline Lucas, the Green MP, has been making since the last election that progressive parties need to start working together.

As for the Green Party, in true Green fashion Natalie Bennett is following Caroline Lucas' lead in standing down as party leader once her term is up later this year. So who will lead the Greens through this new realignment, and how they will handle it on into the 2020 general election, is unknown.

But the challenge ahead of the three leaders of Britain's main progressive parties is clear: to stop the Conservatives winning their way to back-to-back governments. Aligning in support of some core common policies is a start.

The next step is to commit to the kind of cooperation on various campaigns and causes that can foster the good will between parties. That mutual respect will be needed to build a real electoral alliance, that stands together behind a limited set of core ideals in opposition to conservatism.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Labour in Scotland

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Labour in England

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reality Check

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In the aftermath of the Syria Vote and the Oldham By-election, New Labour has scored itself some marginal points in its struggle with Corbyn - yet Labour remains divided

Hilary Benn's speech in support of expanding military action into Syria has left the rifts between the Left and Right of the Labour Party as deep as ever. Photograph: Hilary Benn by Jodie C (License) (Cropped)

After a number of important events in the week leading up, from the Chancellor's Autumn Statement to the vote on intervention in Syria, it would not have been outrageous to expect some sort of fallout in the Oldham West and Royton by-election.

In the end, however, it was ultimately uneventful. The incumbent Labour Party won, even increasing its percentage of the vote (Pidd, 2015). There was no drama in the end for Labour, no dramatic surge of support away from the party by voters fleeing its Left-wing leader (Harris et al, 2015; Warren, 2015).

Yet the past week's events, Oldham included, have shifted the political field ever so slightly. In the aftermath of the Syria vote and the Oldham by-election, it is the Right-leaning Labour faction who find themselves the marginal beneficiaries in their struggle with Jeremy Corbyn's leadership.

George Osborne's spending review, courtesy of the Office of Budget Responsibility's generosity in predicting a stronger economy, was as much a political play as economic. By performing a U-turn and not cutting tax credits, for now at least, and not cutting police budgets, Osborne was able to make his policies appear much more moderate (Kirkup, 2015).

From a Labour Right perspective, this was a master stroke by the Chancellor. In their view, Osborne will have countered and undermined criticisms levelled by Corbyn's shadow cabinet by removing its main threads and moved the Conservatives to occupy a centre ground they believed was being abandoned by their own leadership. With the Right of Labour feeling that the middle ground was slipping away from them, the Syria debate came at a politically crucial moment.

The vote on intervention in Syria saw a rebellion of 66 Labour MPs against the position of the party leadership (Sparrow & Perraudin, 2015), after - under a barrage of Conservative heckling - Corbyn had stumbled through his speech (Wallace, 2015). It also saw allegations from Labour MPs of abuse by angry constituents - the responsibility for which they were quick to pin to Corbyn (Dathan, 2015).

The biggest moment of the debate was clearly Hilary Benn's speech, which - while much applauded by Conservatives - in truth had little substance. There were no compelling facts, of which the debate as a whole suffered a disgraceful shortage, only emotional appeals. Described as a piece of political theatre (Shabi, 2015), it served both to stake out a distinct position for the Labour Right and to undermine Corbyn.

After so contentious a week, in was not unreasonable to think that sparks might fly at the Oldham by-election. Yet the result was a comfortable, status quo recovering, victory for Labour. Yet the Labour Right was again able to salvage something for themselves.

In Oldham, some on the Labour Right claimed the victory as a win in despite of Corbyn, amongst a population that had little warmth for pacifist republicanism (Pidd, 2015; Warren, 2015). The late Michael Meacher, a strong supporter of Corbyn and the Labour Left, was even replaced by a new MP, Jim McMahon, who is no follower of Corbyn.

This week has been a stern test for Labour. As a whole it has largely scraped through. However, while there were no decisive moments, the Labour Right will feel it has scored some marginal points in its struggle against Corbyn and his new direction. Yet for progressives more broadly, it was just another week of squabbling and division across the Left.

Can Guy Verhofstadt's four steps to reforming the state help bring together progressives of all stripes?

In July, Guy Verhofstadt outlined to Alexis Tsipras the steps he believed where necessary to reform the state. Photograph: Press Conference from ALDE Communication (License) (Cropped)

Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the Liberal caucus in the European Parliament, was amongst those to congratulate Justin Trudeau on his party's victory in the Canadian general election. The former Prime Minister of Belgium praised the inspiring example set by the Liberal Party of Canada's positive campaign (Verhofstadt, 2015).

Trudeau's team sought to rise above their opponents' negative campaigning and pledged investment in much needed infrastructure - with the promised benefit of stimulating the economy - and to pursue progressive policies like a positive climate change policy, taking the pro-choice side of the abortion debate, and seeking to heal the wounds from internal conflict over indigenous rights (Hays, 2015; Phipps, 2015).

It is unsurprising that Europe's liberals would be looking for the lessons they can learn from the success of their counterparts in North America. In the European Union, liberals govern in only 7 countries, their European Parliament group holds only 9% of seats, and in countries like Germany and the UK the long established liberal parties have faced electoral wipeouts over the last five years.

Yet the elections in Canada - as well as elections in Argentina, Poland and elsewhere over the past week - confirm one thing very clearly. Overcoming the Conservative establishment and fending off the efforts of Right-wing populists to assume control, isn't something that one progressive faction alone can accomplish.

Relying on the distorting effect of electoral systems that force voters into unrepresentative concentrations, or hitching the party wagon to a popular carthorse, cannot be considered lasting strategies. In what is clearly a pluralistic and divided political arena, the alternative has to be the building of alliances - and that means finding common cause between liberals and democrats, socialists and radicals, that can hash out what it means to be progressive in opposition to conservatism.

Back in July, Guy Verhofstadt used a visit by Prime Minister of Greece Alexis Tsipras to the European Parliament to challenge the Syriza leader on the need for political reform in Greece (ALDE Group, 2015) - a confrontation that was at least softened with support for finding a solution to the government of Greece's need for serious debt relief.

In his speech, Verhofstadt laid out a series of reforms Tsipras would be required to take if Greece was going to get the support it needs. Condensed into four steps, they were:

• Bring an end to clientelism & establishment privileges,
• Downsize the public sector,
• Privatise public banks, and
• Open up employment to give young people access.

If these four steps can be taken to represent a condensed version of the reforming aims of modern liberalism, how do they match up with the aims of other progressives?

In Greece, Tsipras and the Radical Left Syriza party have been struggling under stringent fiscal and economic conditions to press on with reforms (Hope, 2015). Tsipras choice to accept Eurozone terms for a further 'memorandum' bailout, to get access to the funds to continue reforms, even caused a split in his party that saw first Yanis Varoufakis and then later the Left faction of his party leave (Farrer, Rankin & Traynor, 2015; Henley & Traynor, 2015).

In his efforts to find a solution to the recurring crises, Alexis Tsipras' pragmatic radicalism has seen the Prime Minister of Greece drifting into the same political territory as that occupied by Prime Minister of Italy, and Partito Democratico leader, Matteo Renzi.

In Italy, Renzi has faced many of the same problems as Tsipras: unemployment, particularly amongst young people; clientelism and corruption; and a public and private sector heavily intertwined (Kramer, 2015). His approach has been to try to work within neoliberal models and play by its rules - a big centrist democrat legacy of Tony Blair (Day, 2014). That has required the pursuit of "competitiveness", including making labour more "flexible" - meaning making the cost of business cheaper, by making the cost and permanency of labour cheaper and weaker (EurActiv, 2014).

In the run-up to the UK general election in May, BBC Economics Editor Robert Peston described Ed Miliband as in the mould of Margaret Thatcher in his attempt to react to the times, and the debts held by the state, to tried to find solutions that did not involve the state being in control or ownership (Peston, 2015). In seeking decentralised solutions, Miliband was crossing into traditional liberal territory, but he struggled to sell them or inspire support with them

With Jeremy Corbyn taking over the helm of the Labour Party there have been fears of a sharp shift towards state ownership. Yet the ideas of the his economic advisory council are fundamentally mainstream and his 'renationalisation' plans have been more about co-operative public ownership than state control (Cortes, 2015).

In Greece, Italy and the UK, economic conditions are forcing parties of the Left to look for solutions that would certainly fall within two of Verhofstadt's recommendations: to downsize the public sector and privatise public banks. The question then becomes whether progressive parties can find an economic approach broadly acceptable to all sides.

As for political reforms, the situation looks trickier. In the UK, support for electoral reform towards something more proportional and bringing an end to an unelected Lords is growing, but is far from certain. In Italy, proposed political and constitutional reforms remain controversial in their attempts to strengthen the executive over the legislative (Politi, 2015), while Italy, and Greece, remain in an ongoing struggle to tackle corruption.

With regards to youth unemployment, in both Italy and Greece, tackling that specific problem seems a long way away as both countries grapple with the broader crisis (Totaro & Vasarri, 2015; Howden & Baboulias, 2015). In the UK, the Conservative government is pursuing apprenticeships as its go to measure, a pledge matched by the Labour Party during the election campaign (Wintour, 2015).

The need to find broad agreement across the Centre and Left is hastened by the dangerous rise of populism in the hands of deeply sectarian factions and moved along by popular nationalism and popular traditionalism (Roubini, 2015). Critics of conservative populism call for a Keynesian response that boosts aggregate demand with job creation and economic growth, that reduces income inequality and increases opportunities for the young.

To achieve these goals, a way has to be found to overcome the problem of social democratic/liberal positions having become toxic and to embrace the fact that people want something more. There is a general progressive hope, expressed through protests and activism, for a grander vision that focusses less on ambition and wealth, and more on cooperation and on what kind of life, and what kind of opportunities, there can be.

Elements of Guy Verhofstadt's proposed reforms being found in the work of other government's of the Left across Europe, even under huge fiscal burdens, certainly shows that some sort of bridge can be built between the positions of moderate and radical progressives, whether democrats or liberals, to offer a positive progressive alternative to conservatism, nationalism and populism.

But these are only the broad strokes and far more progressive things can be achieved. The next step has to be to embrace movements like Yanis Varoufakis' "very simple, but radical, idea" to build a cross-party EU democracy movement (Varoufakis & Sakalis, 2015). In such movements there is a chance to find common ground in pursuit of reform for the common good.

What kind of economy would Labour's new economic advisory council build?

Photograph: John McDonnell MP, with residents and supporters of Grow Heathrow outside Central London County Court in 2012, by Jonathan Goldberg/Transition Heathrow (License) (Cropped)

John McDonnell, Labour's new socialist shadow chancellor, has moved to rebuild the party's economic reputation by appointing an economic advisory council (BBC, 2015). The council is, by all estimations, a supergroup comprised of the rockstar economists of anti-austerity thinking: Thomas Piketty, Joseph Stiglitz, Mariana Mazzucato, Anastasia Nesvetailova, Ann Pettifor and David Blanchflower.

There are two clear aims to this move. The first is to show that, not only is austerity thinking flawed, but that there are clear alternatives. The second is win back for Labour the credibility on economic policy that they had lost, fairly or not, by 2010.

It has been argued, seemingly endlessly, that without both credibility and a clear alternative, Labour's reputation - and so its ability to win elections - will not recover (Elliott, 2012; Kendall, 2015; Reid, 2015). So it is important to know what kind of alternative Labour's new advisors would have them construct.

The resumes of Labour's new advisors

Thomas Piketty is a French economist who had a large impact, in political and economic circles, with his 2013 book Capital in Twenty-First Century. In that work, he puts forward a simple premise and explores it in depth.

Piketty's thesis is that the concentration of wealth, resulting from the rate of return on capital being in the long term in excess of economic growth, is as much a political problem as an economic one. In his assessment, the access to capital brought by inherited wealth and the 'rentier' power it gives, prevents the competition and distribution for which the free market is lauded.

That is an assessment agreed with by the OECD, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. They argue that their findings show that income inequality in fact strangles growth, with countries that have a more even income spread actually performing better (OECD, 2014).

Piketty's proposed solution is for progressive taxes to be levied upon wealth and coordinated globally to suit the globalisation of capitalism. The failure to pursue this, in the French economist's eyes, means standing by as the rich consolidate control over society, crushing democracy in their wake by leaving the poor dispossessed and powerless (Naidu, 2014).

This concern with regards to inequality is shared by Joseph Stiglitz, former Clinton advisor and critic of the management of market globalization (Stiglitz, 2000). Stiglitz's work The Price of Inequality argued that inequality was as much the concern of the 1% as the 99%, as 'their fate is bound up' with how the other side live (Roberts, 2012).

To tackle inequality, Stiglitz argues that there needs to be a change in norms. He argues that free markets in fact need the protection of strong regulations and transparent accountability (Edsall, 2012), in order to break the monopolies on power that are used to influence selfish terms - to, in essence, reclaim capitalism.

For Mariana Mazzucato, reclaiming capitalism begins with reimagining the role of the state (Mazzucato, 2013). Mazzucato envisions the state as a risk-taking innovator, the creator and shaper of markets, and the natural agent to act in the 'common good' where privatisation is poorly suited and will not stop public subsidy (Mazzucato, 2013{2}).

She argues that this includes the provision of essential public services like education or health; investments in public infrastructure; investment and support for entrepreneurs, whether in business, for research, or for science and technology - all areas where steady, engaged, long-term investment commitments are needed.

Yet Mazzucato is not arguing for nationalisation or a growing of the state, but rather for a smarter state (Mazzucato, 2014) - bold and able to take risks. Quoting Keynes, she argues for a state that opens up new markets and regulates them:

"The important thing for government is not to do things which individuals are doing already, and to do them a little better or a little worse; but to do those things which at present are not done at all."

As for the others on Labour's select list of economists?

Ann Pettifor predicted the severity of the economic crisis with her 2006 book The coming first world debt crisis and, in a very Keynes-esque manner, has worked hard to make clear the dangerous role that debt has played in events (Cooper, 2015). She has also argued that the debt crisis exposed dangerous collusion between governments and the finance sector that broke the 'link between risk and reward' and so chained 'free' markets (Pettifor, 2014).

David Blanchflower, a former member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England, has spoken out against the idea that Labour 'caused' the 2008 financial crisis and against the economics of austerity (Blanchflower, 2015). Blanchflower was amongst the signatories of a letter during the Labour leadership campaign - along with Mazzucato - that argued Jeremy Corbyn's economic policy was in fact the moderate, mainstream response and it was instead George Osborne's austerity that was extreme (Blanchflower et al, 2015).

And finally there is Anastasia Nesvetailova, whose work Fragile Finance warned in 2007 of the fragility and instability of the finance-based economy, upon which the whole political and globalised economic house of cards was based (Nesvetailova, 2007).

The respectable face of economic opposition

So what kind of economy do these ideas combine to form?

In a definite stance of opposition to the dominant, and austere, conservative approach, the consensus running through Labour's new advisors is for the state to have a strong role - though not through nationalisation. The emphasis is placed upon the work the state does to create a framework for society - on infrastructure, on social security, on regulating market activity.

In fact, looking over the recommendations is almost like a review of German economics in the late twentieth century during the time of Germany's Wirtschaftswunder - its 'economic miracle'. The social market, so-called Rhine Capitalist, system that underwrote that economic boom was plush with public-private partnerships.

Inspired by German Ordoliberalism, the state was to act as regulator and facilitator in the Rhenist system (Guerot & Dullien, 2012). The aim was to ensure greater equality, and widely enjoyed prosperity, all while retaining an appreciation for free markets - so attempting to get the social aims and a vibrant market to go along hand in hand.

The ideas also bear some resemblance to those of Liberals and Liberal Democrats in the UK over the decades. Setting themselves apart from the Conservatives and Labour, their approach was to argue that it was not about a large or a small state, but about what the state is and what it does (Brack et al, 2007) - so Liberals might pursue the most efficient solution with the least interference with the individual.

In these similarities with liberal ideas, the approach of Labour's new advisors marks a kind of sharp change for the party, away from the centralised and overbearing managerialism it has pursued since the Second World War. But what stands out most is that, if we can accept that austerity represents a purely right-wing form of economics, the vision these economists are putting forward represent the mainstream - the democratic economics of the centre.

Building an alternative

With these very much mainstream, Keynesian-esque, ideas - based on broad analysis critical of austerity but friendly to markets - accomplishing the task of recovering Labour's credibility should not be such a long shot. Even reaching out to reintegrate the unhappy New Labour-ites should not be impossible.

For restoring their respectability, it is now a matter of building that model and presenting it to the public, which - if done right - could create the base from which the Conservative approach can be disassembled.

That would mean embracing Keir Hardie as Jeremy Corbyn did, in his first speech to the Labour Party conference as leader (Kennedy & Grierson, 2015). The existence of a credible alternative to the rigours of austerity allows the party to challenge the necessity of the suffering it has caused, and to try to 'stir up divine discontent with wrong'.

And yet, while the dry and balanced macroeconomic mainstream vision is the economist's dream ticket to government office, it is not hard to imagine these technical reforms falling short of progressive expectations.

There are radical ideas with not touched on here.

Citizen's income (Razavi, 2014), mutuals and co-ops (Webb, 2015), shorter working hours and the possibilities that automation are bringing (Mason, 2015) - these are all ideas tied closely to questions of equality, accountability and innovation.

However, there is likely more to come from the team of Corbyn & McDonnell - not least the pursuit of rail renationalisation (BBC, 2015{2}) and community owned energy companies (BBC, 2015{3}) - than is being accounted for here. Those extra measures are needed.

If we are to have more equality and accountability in the economy, there needs to be more co-operation. Which means more say for workers in the running of their workplaces and a greater mutuality of aims.

And if people are to enjoy full balanced lives, they also need enough time to embrace more than just their universal human rights to fair paid work and 'rest and leisure'. They need the resources and time to study, to raise families, to assemble, to debate and to act.

And if people are to have both of the above with freedom, from both want and coercion, they need the basic guarantee against poverty and homelessness afforded by a Citizen's Income.

As it says in the old Liberal Party's Yellow Book (1928), written under the deep influence of David Lloyd George and John Maynard Keynes:

'We believe with a passionate faith that the end of all political and economic action is not the perfecting or the perpetuation of this or that piece of mechanism or organisation, but that individual men and women may have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.'

A true progressive alternative to conservative economics needs to embrace big ideas. It needs to reform, it needs to challenge and it needs to spark hope of a new way forward.

There are two pitches on the table for the future of the political left in the UK - a radical proposal from Caroline Lucas and a pragmatic one from Vince Cable

The September conference marked Tim Farron's first as leader of the Liberal Democrats. Photograph: Tim Farron at the Lib Dem conference rally on 19 September 2015 by Dave Radcliffe (License) (Cropped)

Tim Farron's first speech, as leader, at a Liberal Democrat party conference came at a crucial time for the UK's political Left (Kuenssberg, 2015). Farron used his speech to try and unite liberals and social democrats and relaunch the Lib Dems as an opposition party at a time when the opponents of David Cameron and George Osborne are scattered and divided.

Less than six months after a bad election night for Britain's progressives, the two main parties of the Left have just come out of the turmoil of leadership elections. The internal wrangling, squabbles surrounding their respective contests, and the distraction they caused - particularly Labour's (Bush, 2015) - have allowed the thin Conservative majority to roll on unchallenged.

The question that lingers behind the efforts of figures within individual parties, like Farron, is how progressives of all parties, with their new leaderships in place, should come together to present an opposition to the Conservatives.

With regards to that question, there have been two pitches, each representing a different approach to tackling Conservative dominance: one from Caroline Lucas and the other from Vince Cable.

Shortly after the election, Caroline Lucas, the Green Party MP, made the first pitch. She suggested that a progressive alliance be formed in time for the next election in order to avoid splitting the anti-Tory vote (Cowburn & Boffey, 2015). Lucas argued that parties on the Left - again, Labour in particular - needed to embrace multi-party politics and co-operation to counter the advantage that 'split' votes offers to the Conservatives under the present first-past-the-post electoral system (Lucas, 2015).

The second pitch was made by Vince Cable, former deputy leader of the liberal democrats and business secretary. Cable took advantage of the dissensions and threats of splits and defections amongst Labour MPs to resurrect the idea of a realignment of the left (Mason & Perraudin, 2015) - an idea favoured by Roy Jenkins and Tony Blair (d'Ancona, 2015). Cable argues that there is a strong support for a progressive, centrist, party and that moderates from Labour and the Liberal Democrats could unite to fill that space. 

The election of Jeremy Corbyn and Tim Farron, as leaders of Labour and Liberal Democrats respectively, clearly shows where the hearts of the party grassroots are - deep within the radical left. That certainly suggests that there is an openness to the pitch made by Caroline Lucas for a radical alliance, where co-operation replaces the previous status quo, in pursuit of common progressive aims.

However, the parliamentary Labour Party and the so-called 'liberal-left' media have been cold to those instincts (Blair, 2015; Cook, 2015). Since his election, Jeremy Corbyn has been faced with rumours of splits, breakaways and defections by the self-described 'moderate' elements of his party (Peston, 2015).

Tim Farron has so far seen little of this kind of response, despite coming from the more radical edge of the Liberal Democrats (White, 2015). Yet his speech yesterday still tacked to the centre, using language that would appeal to centrist and Right-leaning liberals on hard work and opportunities and making references - that will be familiar to followers of the Labour Party (Penny, 2015) - to the necessity of attaining power before a difference can be made (Farron, 2015).

Within both the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party, there are signs that the old patterns are hard to break. When one party makes a radical move, the other makes a centrist move - each trying to outmanoeuvre the other to be the one, dominant opposition to the Conservatives.

That certainly seems to make Cable's version of the Left coming together more likely. Historically, as Tony Blair has been at pains to tell the world (BBC, 2014), that has been the only choice that has ever been successful.

Yet that does not dampen the desirability of a radical alternative - nor lessen its necessity. Achieving long lasting and much needed change will require more than just an opposition. It needs a compelling alternative. Cable's proposal provides the first, but not the second. In Lucas' pitch, there is the possibility of both.

The austerity narrative, upon which Conservative domination rides, is part of a larger set of systems and presumptions that all need to be challenged - down to their roots. Only a radical alternative can do that - one that is willing to question accepted realities like the two-party monopoly over the electoral system.

So far, radical opposition, across Europe, has been stifled by its isolation (Fazi, 2015). In the UK, however, there are growing opportunities for progressives to work together - and they must if they are to challenge the establishment and the Conservatives who control it.

But before progressives can start down that road they must ask themselves a question, to which the answer matters: will they work together in the pragmatic centre, hoping to inherit control over the establishment, to soften its edges; or will they pursue a more radical course, seeking to challenge the establishment with an alternative vision?

Stella Creasy is in a position to be a mediator and, through the co-operative movement, bridge the widening gaps between Labour Party factions

Stella Creasy, the Labour Co-operative MP, has put herself at the front of progressive campaigns - from support for local credit unions to campaigns opposing violence against women. Photograph: Stella Creasy at the launch of LAWRS' anti-violence campaign by Macarena Gajardo (Licence) (Cropped)

Jeremy Corbyn's victory heralds as much change for the Labour Party as it does for British politics. His election through a process of mass, popular internal democracy broke a century of control over the party by a largely middle class establishment of economists and lawyers - as former Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell put it (from Bogdanor, 1983):

'We, as middle-class socialists, have got to have a profound humility. Though it's a funny way of putting it, we've got to know that we lead them because they can't do it without us, with our abilities, and yet we must feel humble to working people.'

Yet Corbyn's rise has not healed the deep stratification within the party, but rather exposed the rifts. The fact that the Islington MP should need to build a coalition of groups within his own party (Kuenssberg, 2015), which is riven with rumours of splits (Peston, 2015), may be an indication that it's about time that the Labour Party began to act like the broad coalition that it very clearly is.

One MP, and parliamentary group, that would benefit from a clearer organisation of Labour MPs, more than most, is Stella Creasy and the Co-operative Party.

Corbyn, and the Trade Unionist 'Left', don't have a great deal in common, beyond their common allegiance to Labour's party and movement, with the Brownite 'Moderates' and the Blairite 'Modernisers'. They have shown themselves, however, to be capable of finding common causes and working together.

The Co-operative Party is one group that could hold them together. Long sitting in parliament with candidates put up jointly with Labour, they have supported members that have played roles across the Labour movement. From former ministers like Alun Michael and Ed Balls to shadow cabinet figures like Chris Leslie and Lucy Powell, many leading Labour figures have been elected as Labour Co-op.

If Labour's internal factions would start to organise themselves - rather than splitting off to form new parties or join others - there could be some consolation for deputy leader candidate Stella Creasy. Despite losing to Tom Watson (Mason, 2015), she would be in one of the, potentially, more powerful positions within the party.

Now one of the most visible women in the parliamentary party, Creasy has the makings of a future Labour leader (Blackburn et al, 2015). But first, as a visible figure in the Co-operative Party, she could lead a fully coherent, organised, internal faction - one that would be able to reach out to all sides and bring them together.

Arguably, the Co-operative Party has never been in a stronger position within the Labour Party.

With the new leadership committed to public ownership and the Labour mainstream having just begun to fully embrace neoliberalism, along with its vast reductions in public spending and role of the state, just as it was swept away by the Corbyn-tide, ideas are needed in which each side can see its values.

Co-operation has the capacity to fill that space. The Corbyn faction has expressed openness to the public ownership they have championed coming in the form of worker and customer co-operatives, rather than control by the state (Voinea, 2015) and New Labour at times embraced mutualism during their time in power (Wintour, 2010).

In those discussion, co-operative voices would have a strong role to play and Creasy and the Labour Co-op MPs could help to bridge the factional divide. As for a leading, mediating, figure, Creasy herself has been a vocal champion of feminism and women's rights (Bryant, 2014; Creasy 2012) and championed credit unions in opposition to pay day lenders - both progressive causes around which even the most disparate wings of the party could unite.

The idea of economic co-operation itself might also have an even bigger impact than just holding together the Labour coalition. It could also be one of the pillars upon which an electoral alliance of Left-wing parties could be built. While it is unlikely that the Liberal Democrats could get behind a program that would see Corbyn pushing state socialism, there has long been a liberal commitment to co-operatives. Small crossovers of this kind can be the foundations for much larger agreements.

Labour is in need of a means to hold its broad coalition together. It is also very much in need of visible female leaders (Moore, 2015). Stella Creasy is in a position to play mediator, along with other Labour Co-op MPs. Played right, its is a role that could see her leading a much wider movement in the future.