European Parliament elections 2019: With dangerous times ahead, progressives need to carefully consider their vote

The facts haven't changed. The first referendum had little to do with the lives of working people. It was one lot of middle class who were pro-market liberals arguing with another middle class group of pro-market conservatives. There was no working class option on the ballot.

Remain meant continuing a framework in need of reform, as it wasn't serving Britain's poorest regions. Brexit was a bad joke, offering more of the same, but with less rights, lower standards and a chance for the rich to prey on all of the instability and austerity that would follow.

Two Years On From the Referendum

Of the two choices, Remain was the least worst option - as we spelled out in our guide to the EU Referendum. That hasn't changed and is still the case two years on. Meanwhile, voting for Brexit - even for most of the middle class, never mind working class - is still the turkeys voting for Christmas.

You can see it most clearly in the calls for Leave on 'WTO terms'. The far right charges the European Union with attacking the UK's sovereignty - a claim entirely undermined by the WTO's priorities, of which meddling with domestic lawmaking is paramount to tackling 'non-tariff barriers' to trade, as we debunked in our article on the World Trade Organisation and Trade.

While these two middle class groups argue about which is the best way to make a quick buck, it's the far right who feed on the resulting turmoil. Slick media campaigns, scrubbing their candidates clean for their supporters - covering up racism, intolerance and greed - break traditional editorial filters.

In Britain, that's letting all of the creepy-crawlies come out of the woodwork - the bogeymen are assembling. From the odious charlatan Nigel Farage, to petty thug Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who hides under the disguise "Tommy Robinson", a dangerous crowd are trying to get elected to the European Parliament.

But the danger is amplified by alliance building going on among far right nationalists in the rest of Europe - under Matteo Salvini, Lega leader and Interior Minister in Italy. After years of forcing their way into the system, they're now gathering for a concerted push on what they feel is their ripest target - the European Union and it's vision of a borderless continent.

Conservative ministers are briefing that the 2019 European Parliament Elections will be the biggest protest vote in history, and they might not be wrong about that. But that only adds to the danger - with voters choosing the far right to convey dissatisfaction, they risk the creation of a powerful far right bloc in the European Parliament.

Vote Remain, Vote Green, Vote Liberal

For progressives, the options are fairly straight forward. This isn't a second referendum. This election has lasting consequences if Brexit doesn't happen - elected representatives taking seats in the European Parliament on our behalf, voting on the European agenda for the next five years.

There are two parties in these elections that have clear pro-European and pro-Remain credentials, and who are well organised with other parties across Europe to have a big influence on the future policy. Labour is neither of them - though well connected, it's stance towards Europe has long only been about convenience.

The obvious party are the Liberal Democrats. They are a part of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, led by Guy Verhofstadt - one the European Parliament's most recognisable figures - and the public clearly know that a commitment to Europe is one of their primary positions.

The Liberal Democrats are moderately progressive, but mostly lean towards the centre and compromise positions when in power - indeed, their European group includes plenty of liberals who would be comfortable with David Cameron's 'modernised' pro-Business, pro-Market Conservative Party.

The less obvious of the two parties, but growing into becoming a real factor, are the Green Party. Consistently pro-European, and well-organised across the continent alongside other Green Parties and small progressive parties, this election is their chance for a big breakthrough in Britain.

Green parties have been making headway in a number of countries, such as in Germany where they now have 67 seats in the Bundestag and have polled above 20% of the vote - ahead of the old Social Democrats - heading towards taking over as the party of the progressive opposition. Further headway has been made at the regional level in a number of countries.

A Cure for Toxicity

Something needs to change, because the political atmosphere has become stiflingly toxic. In Britain, it has become hard to breathe in political spaces filled with the billious air of Brexit, that leaves no room for many more pressing matters.

I am honestly unsure that the Liberal Democrats can provide the kind of change that is needed. I might have thought differently ten years ago. There is a pro-Business, pro-Market, wing to the party that wields a lot of influence where it matters, and keeps dampening the party's more radical voices.

The Green Party on the other hand, unsullied by government and toxic alliance, could inject a new energy into progressive politics - if they can make a big breakthrough. It may be time for something new, to sweep away the old. But that, first, has to find a place to start, a way into the public consciousness.

One thing I am sure of, is that the far right will not give people what they desire. Their path is only to more division, more suffering - because that is what feeds the far right machine, what gives the far right support and power.

In this election you get one vote, though the system is a little more proportional than Britain's first-past-the-post. Tactical voting is not a priority, with turnout much more important - and convincing people to turn out and vote for a progressive and Remain candidate, prepared to work hard in Brussels. For progressive voters, you need to consider who you want to represent you in the EU, and which party can do that while sending the right message at home.

What would politics in Britain look like with the break up of the old power blocks?

What might party splits do to alignment of political parties in England? There would be six parties with Parliamentary seats in England, but how long would that last before mergers began?

The threat of 'splitting the party' has rarely been thrown around in British politics more than it is these days. The rumours of a Labour split rumble on and now the threat of a split in the Conservatve party has returned - issued by the disgruntled Brexiter right wing.

Could we be on the cusp of some major realignment of politics? It's unlikely to be that easy.

The power of the status quo in British politics can not be overstated. While there have been major splits and political realignments before, they have still, ultimately, kept to a two-party form - with one broadly conservative and the other broadly progressive.

Historical Realignment

The biggest shift took a little over thirty years to achieve the new alignment. The beginning was the split of the Liberal Unionists from the Liberal Party in the 1890s, under the leadership of Joseph Chamberlain. The group banged a particularly patriotic and jingoistic drum, supporting Empire and colonialism and opposing Home Rule for Ireland.

Chamberlain's Unionists very quickly aligned with the Conservatives - forming a decade long government. But it was not enough to break the Liberals, who afterward led Britain up to the Great War. But as the Liberals did so, they helped laid the foundations for their own ousting from the two-party supremacy.

In the early days of the Labour movement, trade unionist candidates stood with Liberal backing. When the movement resolved to form a party, the Liberals supported it with an electoral pact that supported Labour into winning it's own seats and building a Parliamentary presence.

Following the Great War, the National Government that had led the country through the war - a coalition of Conservatives, Unionists and Liberals - finally broke up.

Having absorbed the Unionists prior to the war, the Conservatives were now the dominant force - especially as progressive voters being divided between two Liberals factions and the newer Labour Party.

There were a glut of elections in the subsequent interwar period. In them, the Conservatives remained the usually largest party. But the Labour party would win it's first governments as a minority during this time under Ramsay MacDonald as they became the second largest party ahead of the Liberals - even after the Liberals reunited.

However, the onset of the Great Depression split the Labour party as it split others and ushered in another period of Conservative dominance - which would complete a political realignment thirty years in the making.

Members of both the Liberals and Labour would support the Conservatives under a National Government banner that would last until the Second World War - splitting from their parties to become known as Liberal National and National Labour respectively - and led by the expelled Labour leader Ramsay MacDonald and his National Labour for four years.

The whittling away of the Liberals and the continued use of First-past-the-post (Fptp) voting ensured that, as the Consevratives absorbed their National allies, a new two-party system would emerge from the war years. A two-party, Conservative-Labour domination that has persisted since.

Contemporary Realignment

The splits threatened in contemporary politics, if they could actually break out of a mould that has lasted for more than seventy years, would split the Big Two parties into at least four parties.

These would be: a right-wing Brexiter party, the continuing and nominally centre-right Conservative Party, a centrist Pro-European party, and the continuing centre-left Labour Party - splits that would lean British politics rightwards.

Including the Liberal Democrats and the Greens, politics in Britain would have six parties, just in England, with seats in Parliament. The obvious reaction would be for these new groups to try and form alliances under the present Fptp voting system. But if those efforts were frustrated, a move to some form of Proportional Representation might finally be contemplated.

Big questions remain, however. How many MPs would be prepared to actually make the leap to a new party? Brexiter Tories claim to have 80 MPs willing to rebel. And it is easy to imagine, from MP resistance to Corbyn, that a fair number might join a breakaway from Labour - if it were popular.

How many of the Pro-European moderate Tories would be willing to leave to join a new centrist party formed by Labour breakaways? And would the Liberal Democrats merge with such a party to form one big 'Democratic' party?

This last option is the one that, if it worked, might most drastically change the political landscape. But it feels like the moment for such a move has past - a chance not taken by Tony Blair when he had the power and popularity before the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

More likely is a standoff between four factions as they try not to trip over each other and figure out who their allies might be in an election. The winner, perhaps, may be the party that manages not to split apart. As ever, the safety of the status quo is a powerful draw - even when it is ineffectual and mired by factional infighting.

For progressives, the desire is for plurality. For several parties that work constructively together for broader goals, even when they don't agree on priorities. If a split on the centre-left helps stop the bickering and sniping, it will be welcomed. If not, it could be a long time before we see a truly progressive government.

Flags at The Proms: Blue and Gold have become the colours of those calling for tolerance and openness in Britain

On Saturday night, the Royal Albert Hall was a sea of flags. Photograph: Interior of the Royal Albert Hall from Pixabay (License) (Cropped)

A plan by a small crowdfunded group, to hand out the European flag to be waved alongside the Union Flag at the Last Night of the Proms, is just the latest attempt by those among the 48ers to show their continued belief in an open and international Britain.

It is also the latest demonstration to provoke the ire of those in the Brexit camp. Every time there has been a show of support by 48ers, there has been a response of equal volume decrying the show as some kind of protest against democracy.

It is as if the most hardline Brexiters see the European flag as a direct attack on their identity - a challenge to their personal Britishness that must contested and squashed wherever it arises. That response is a profound overreaction.

The particularly notable thing about the best represented form of pro-European attitude in the UK is that it carries the belief that you can be British and European. It is inclusive. Support for membership of the European Union is not seen as the negation of Britishness, but distinctly part of it.

The support shown at gatherings where the Blue and Gold flags have been abundant has been for Britishness, to represent Britain, not to oppose it or protest against it - to celebrate a view of Britain that is tolerant, open and takes an international view.

Reducing these outpourings to the tantrums of "precious snowflakes", crying because they lost, who should "accept democracy", is itself a profoundly undemocratic attitude. Democracy is supposed to be about representation, not domination.

It also turns a blind eye to the reality of the hostility provoked by the Brexit vote - and ignores how the Blue and Gold was the starkest and simplest symbol that people could use to show their opposition to intolerance and their solidarity with the victims.

The reality at the Last Night of the Proms was that an overwhelming display of British pomp and ceremony, in a sea of Union flags, was dotted throughout with many other flags of which the European flag was just one - a nod to Britain's presence on the international stage.

The difference is that the planned presence of the Blue and Gold was taken as a personal affront. For those riled by its presence, they need to realise that it is no challenge to their personal identity - and that the 48ers also fear authoritarian attack on theirs.

Those fears are stoked when, amidst suddenly rising intolerance, thin-skinned patriots undemocratically question the legitimacy of celebrations for an opposition view that had the support of 48% of voters. Democracy begins in acknowledging the legitimacy of the opposing minorities and their right to dissenting views.

The stark lines of nationalism are reappearing across Europe. It would be a travesty for the UK to start suffering from the enforcement of a narrow 'Britishness' that leaves no room for other identities. That, in short, is what the Blue and Gold flag has come to stand for in Britain.

The Alternative Guide to the EU Referendum: A progressive response to the Leave result

How soon the UK will withdraw its representation from a European Union it no longer supports has yet to be determined. Photograph: Espace Leopold in Brussels from Pixabay (License) (Cropped)

With the painfully, aggressively, nationalist suggestion that 'without a bullet being fired' the United Kingdom had declared its 'independence', Nigel Farage claimed victory for the Leave campaign at 4am. Tactless as ever, the UKIP frontman put in his claim early to define the Leave campaign's victory. It is important now that progressives and moderates do not allow this outcome to be defined purely in his or his party's terms.

The Left has to avoid ceding control over events. For instance, immigration looks like having been the dominant factor, trumping the economy at the last. Social tensions, that saw tolerance failing amongst financial struggles and their attendant fears, are clearly present in communities that have been unable to diffuse them with integration.

Progressives can't be sucked into acquiescence to the popular narrative that wants to take the easy road and blame immigrants alone for these stresses and pressures. Progressive policy has to be to heal divisions and to keep making the argument for public investment - in services, in housing, in jobs - as the real solution to the UK's difficulties.

And yet exiting the EU looks likely to drive more wedges between the people of Britain before it heals them. Not least does it raise the spectre of another Scottish Independence Referendum. Nicola Sturgeon was emphatic that Scotland had voted comprehensively for a future in the European Union - in dramatic contrast with England. There has even been a call from Sinn Fein to respect Northern Ireland's pro-European position with a referendum on Irish Unification.

With the result split 52%-48% in the UK as a whole, with Scotland and Northern Ireland moving toward the EU, and England and Wales away, there is as much of a macro divide in the UK as there are regional and local divides. Those divides will not be helped if the British economy takes a further tumble thanks to the isolation of exit.

The European Union itself will also likely suffer for this result as well. The Far Right has already made gains, making strong showings in France, Austria, Poland and Hungary. That sense of Nationalism will only likely be inflamed by 'Brexit' in the elections in European countries over the next couple of years.

What this result cannot do is end the progressive commitment to an internationalist vision of the world. The future for progressives, and the solutions to many of the biggest problems - on the environment, on corporate tax dodging, on managing international debt - remain international.

But maintaining an international view now comes with the much more difficult job of getting to work on building a new pan-European democratic movement, to fill the hole left by the British exit. A key part of that will be going back to the start to make the arguments, from the ground up, that expose the real and dangerous flaws in insular, nationalist and intolerant thinking.

Only by working from the ground up now can progressives break through and begin to change minds. Only from the ground up can progressives unpick the hostility towards Europe, and the false beliefs underpinning it, that prevents us from seeing our commonality, our common values and challenges, and what we can accomplish together.

The Alternative Guide to the EU Referendum: 4 reasons Progressives should reject Nationalism and choose Remain

The final week of Britain's EU referendum campaign has begun under a dark cloud. The death of West Yorkshire MP Jo Cox, allegedly in an act of Anders Breivik-esque murderous Far Right terrorism, has led to outcry over the tone of the debate - with particular concern regarding the Right's rhetoric on immigration.

It has been easy to think these things don't happen in the UK. People are shot in the street in America, bombs go off amongst civilians in the middle east, violent clashes between the police and the public happen on the continent - extremism may be a way of life for others, but not in Britain.

But it isn't true. Britain and Europe have their own long histories of extremism, all too easily encouraged and inflamed. Our own particular flavour of extremism in Europe is Nationalism. Here are our 4 reasons to reject Nationalism in favour of the EU and Internationalism.

I: The EU was an effort to bring a continent together...

The European Union, formerly the European Community, was founded as an effort to get Europe to think beyond National limitations - not to abandon ethnic, provincial or municipal differences to gentrification, but to accept difference, embrace it and build for the future using diversity as an advantage. It was an effort to try and think bigger and broader, to develop a broad view of humanity and how we might live in peace.

The founding tool of that effort was economics. Free Trade and a Common Market were the starting point. Caught between American competition and Soviet collectivism, Europe took a different path, a more cooperative approach - cooperation between government and industry, industry and workers, upon which base was built for a collection of negotiated minimum standards.

National interests have used their influence in European politics to hijack that agenda over recent years, with conservative austerians using the EU as a vehicle for their policies. Yet the foundation for international cooperation and solidarity remains - it just has to be taken back.

II: ...after Nationalism had nearly destroyed us

Before the efforts to bring the continent together, life in Europe was dominated by Nationalism. Europe's century of nationalism began for real in 1848, the "springtime of the peoples". Europe's progressives rose against their conservative monarchist elites, largely in peaceful protests at first, to demand constitutions and broad rights. Yet the progressive movement split.

Liberals and democrats, in their first expressions, split over their aims. The bourgeois liberals were too concerned about their propertied interests, and the Democrats, who embraced Nationalism as its populist rallying call, drove themselves apart along national lines - sectarian divisions appearing as the general democratic cause was swallowed  and patriotisms with competing interests were pitted against one another. The establishment put down its now divided opposition by force.

But that was not the end of the story of Nationalism. In Italy it found life: Mazzini used it as a rallying call to achieve the unity needed for liberation from foreign rule, then Cavour used it as the means to achieve the unity needed for consolidation under an Italian monarch. In Germany, Bismarck used it as the means to achieve the unity needed for the domination of Germany, central Europe and the continent.

The competing national interests of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries led to escalation and fear - and then war. Millions died in the Great War, but Europe hadn't learned its lessons and fell back into its divisions. The internationalism of Keynes and his dire warnings of the consequences of letting national interests dominate, with their vindictive agendas, were ignored.

Then Nationalism found its untrammelled voice in fascism, appealing with foreign scapegoats and unifying symbols to a beaten down public, that was impoverished, starved and looking for someone to blame. In desperation and anger, empathy was the first casualty. The result was one of the worst catastrophes in human history.

III: Sectarianism has found a way to creep back in...

At no time has it been more important for progressives to start working to bring back international cooperation. Marine Le Pen, leader of France's Far Right Front National, has announced that she sees, with no irony whatsoever, a new "springtime of the people" emerging along with a renewal of patriotism.

Jonathan Freedland wrote for The Guardian of the extremist poison that has been poured into the public veins, but the reality is that Nationalism is something we have been recreationally dosing ourselves with for decades. Britain has, since the war, managed not to - mostly - do more than just casually dabble in Nationalism, mostly getting out the flags and national pride only for big sporting events or big occasions.

But slowly, this has allowed Nationalism to become not a political position but rather a given - something that people simply are and are expected to participate in. Even after it, finally, very nearly destroyed us all in the 1940s, it seems we still couldn't put the intoxicating brew down, even when we knew it was lethal. Nationalism is Europe's addiction, its sickness, and it is getting close to falling off the wagon again. The spread of the Far Right through France, Austria, Hungary, Poland, even in Germany and Italy, seemingly egged on by Putin in Russia, is alarming to see for any progressive.

IV: ...but the real solutions remain international

The European Union has been an attempt to get Europe thinking differently. Britain came late to the EU, but was a prime mover in things like the European Convention on Human Rights, from the very start, and along with Italy demanded the Regional Development Fund be set up when it entered the EU - investing in the poorest parts of Europe, by region rather than nation, to improve and equalise the standard of life.

For Britain to be the first tumbling rock that begins the Nationalist landslide would a sad state of affairs, with its long history - though blotted with the meanness and selfishness of colonialism - of reaching out to the world internationally. It would also mean the country had turned a blind eye to its real problems.

The situation in Britain is fairly clear: chronic underinvestment, in key areas, by more than twenty years of Westminster government - an effect exacerbated under austerity - have led to a perceived pressure in the form of competition for work and competition for housing. Migrants are scapegoated, but the real solution is proper government investment, in training to end skills mismatches, in supporting newer and smaller businesses, in building homes - a pattern that is replicated right across Europe.

At the European level too can we see the need for an international perspective. The damage to the environment, that knows no borders, nor major corporations dodging tax while pitting workers against each other in a race to the bottom on wages and rights, again unbound by borders, will be tackled at the national level. Yet 'foreigners' and the European Union, itself an organisation that invests, are being made the scapegoats to hide Westminster's failings.

What do progressives want from politics?

The progressive solutions to Britain's problems are shared with the progressive solutions to Europe's problems - we have more in common than divides us. Establishments disconnected from reality and democracy, wealth hoarding corporations and a need to start reimagining how we think about work, wages and economics.

Justice and Liberty - Equality - Democracy - Progress on all of these fronts - these are the things that progressives ask for. All of these things take time, effort and a consensus to construct. A long struggle to build and reform. In just years, or even just days, these efforts can be torn down. But they take decades and even centuries to construct.

Progressives may have been left out of this referendum, as the sides pitched a presently Centre-Right status quo versus the Far Right's Nationalist dream. But the progressive stance is clear: don't walk away from everything we've worked together to build - stay and fight for it, and keep building.

This is Part 4 of  a  four part series, "The Alternative Guide to the EU Referendum" - click here to go to the introductory hub

The Alternative Guide to the EU Referendum: 4 things you should know about TTIP, free trade and the European Union

One of the most controversial elements of the UK's membership of the European Union, at present, is the TTIP - Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership - trade deal. Between the United States and the European Union, it is intended to break down trade barriers limiting free trade.

The prospective deal has been controversial from the start - being assembled in negotiations deemed secret, under a cloud of fear that business is being given legal rights to seek recompense from governments for profit-hurting policy, reduce Europe's regulatory standards and open protected domestic institutions to aggressive corporate competition.

I: The EU is only what you make of it

The misconception here is that the EU is a distinct, abstract institution, pursuing its own agenda - thus imagining the deal to be the work of the EU alone, with exit a simple blocking measure. But the EU doesn't work like that. It is driven by a council of the governments of the member states, including the UK.

Right now, Britain's representative are David Cameron's government and the Prime Minister has argued forcefully in favour of TTIP. Leaving the EU is not going to stop the UK's Conservative government seeking the pass TTIP-type trade agreement.

The basic reality is that the opposition to TTIP is to be found in Europe, not out of it. In Germany, 250,000 people have marched against the treaty. In France, the government is opposing the treaty for the way it threatens its protection policy covering certain of its own domestic interests. The movements are right in step with the major concerns over the treaty in Britain.

II: Remember ACTA?

As ever, the problem persists of national governments hiding behind the EU - using it as an excuse or a way to pass policies where the public aren't watching, when it is simply a system whose strings they are pulling.

Consider the controversial ACTA treaty. ACTA, which was intended to ensure an international 'harmonisation' of copyright enforcement, was criticised as potentially allowing private companies to violate basic personal liberties like privacy and even threatening generic medicines to protect the financial interests big pharmaceutical companies.

While many national governments around the world and across Europe signed, including the UK, the treaty was ultimately blocked in a vote by the directly and proportionally elected EU Parliament, following massive public protests across the EU.

III: What is the point of free trade?

On TTIP, Prime Minister Cameron has tried to make out that there are stark lines over the deal. From his perspective, on his side - supporting TTIP - are all those who want free trade and the benefits it brings, and on the other are people who are 'against free trade and wanting to see an expansion of trade and investment and jobs' (Mason, 2016).

It is not unfair to suggest free trade is a worthy principle, but why can't we have it on ethical terms?

In its more idealistic form, the EU is all about constructing an ethical free trade area. In its origins, it was conceived of as a way to end war in Europe by stopping national governments getting into strife with each other over control of the natural resources with which to construct to materiel of war.

Going further back, into the 19th century, the campaign for free trade was about breaking open cartels. Under the system of trade formed by the competing systems of national protection, the basic necessities were made prohibitively expensive by the stranglehold over them of powerful and unaccountable landlords and bosses whose interests where served by national government protection.

The Anti-Corn Law League, the early radical liberal campaign in the UK for free trade, sought to break up these cartels to reduce the cost of basic food and goods, so that the poorest could afford a decent and healthy life. The campaign for free trade was in service to the public against the protected interests of the rich landowners.

IV: What does EU trade look like?

What the EU has attempted, but not completed, is to ensure that the free trade it promotes takes place on a fair and ethical playing field. Basic standards, enforced by regulation (the mythical beast the Right love to talk of slaying), protect workers' rights, prevent animal testing and in a host of other important areas ensure a basic minimum expected of business practice in Europe.

Internally, this comes hand-in-hand with policies like the Regional Development Fund. The fund is intended to invest in the poorest, sub-national, regions of the EU to raise the standard of living up, so no country can look to undercut another on basic standards or be cut out left unfairly behind.

Externally the protections, of standards and rights, require trading partners to meet certain conditions for access to Europe's common market - like those of Norway and Switzerland that have been much publicised as alternatives in for the UK during this EU referendum campaign.

All of these ideals depend, however, on who is in charge of policy and negotiation at the EU. Right now, it is the conservatives of many EU member states who are in the ascendency and control policy and decision making at the European level. As a result, the EU's actions have been tinged with conservatism.

Within that system, it has been the Right, and the far right, who have been the ones pushing most aggressively for the UK to do away with the EU's standards - though it has faced resistance. The solution for the Right has become doing away with the EU, but keeping the market intact, as they still want to trade with Europe, but want to be undercut everyone else and help big business pad its profits by doing away with concern for the environment or workers' rights.

What do progressives want from trade?

Exiting the EU will require new trade deals to be negotiated. The conservative Right is unlikely to make those standards and regulations any kind of priority in its negotiations. Maybe, of course, those who want a 'left exit', unrestricted by the European system, will get a government of the Left before too long, to set about forming a new progressive trade policy.

But what are progressives in Britain going to negotiate for, if not an ethical trade area? An ethical trade area underscored by democratic accountability and cooperation?

Even a progressive exit would mean the dismantling of systems of cooperation, decades in the making, that have supported advances in rights, in a move that could only make the Far Right happy - only to have to then try to rebuild it all over again.

Right now for progressives, fighting corporate power and ensuring trade is conducted ethically and with appropriate standards and rights protections, remaining in the EU - not idly, but campaigning for progressive, democratic reforms - is still the best option.

This is Part 2 of  a multi-part series, "The Alternative Guide to the EU Referendum" - click here to go to the introductory hub

The Alternative Guide to the EU Referendum: 4 basic things you should know about the background to Britain's EU referendum

Photograph: European Parliament at Espace Leopold from Pixabay (License) (Cropped)

With the question of Britain's membership of the European Union being put to a referendum, it is important that people know what it is that they're voting for. Whether instinctually in or out, the core of progressive thinking is basing decisions on the facts. So, from a progressive view, here are four of the basics necessary to making an informed decision.

I: This isn't the first referendum

Back in the 1970s, Britain's Conservative government of the day, under Prime Minister Ted Heath, joined the then named European Community. It was not until later, under his successor, Labour's Harold Wilson, that the decision was put to the people in the form of a referendum.

As in 2016, 1975 saw Britain already committed to the EU and the question was whether to end that partnership. As now, the referendum followed a period of renegotiation of the terms of membership and the question divided the government.

The main difference is that in 1975 membership was a new step, at the beginning of a new phase for the project and today Britain has long been a member and has to consider the impact of its membership over a significant period of time.

In 1975, in answer to the question "Do you think the United Kingdom should stay in the European Community?", Britain voted by 67% to remain.

II: How the EU has changed since 1975

The European Union has come a long way from where it began as the steel and coal trading agreement between the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, through the European Community of the 1970s referendum into today's political maze.

Today's European Union is the successor to a set of international organisations, including the European Coal and Steel Community, founded in 1952, and the European Economic Community (EEC), founded in 1958. These bodies worked for cooperation between nations in Europe following the war - founding thinker Robert Schuman said to "make war not only unthinkable but materially impossible" between, particularly, France and Germany, through economic integration.

The organisations created a common market in Europe that would reduce direct competition between countries for control of natural resources, and secure for businesses in any member country access to the resources they needed, without endless red tape, treaties and national policies requiring domineering control over resources that in the past gave unequal preferential treatment for one domestic economy.

The Maastricht Treaty of 1993 formed these various bodies into the European Union was perhaps the biggest change there has been between 1975 and 2016. It was certainly controversial - leading to the founding of what would become UKIP.

Yet these efforts to promote integration are fully within the spirit of the European project - pursuing a step by step, democratic integration of Europe - as laid out in the Schuman declaration:

"Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a single plan. It will be built through concrete achievements which first create a de facto solidarity."

The most controversial change, however, has been less a change than an ongoing process: the continued expansion of the European Union, with the entry of new member states. As the borders of Europe have grown larger, the balance of economic strength between member states has also shifted. The economic weakness of some of these countries, and the relative, comparative, lack of wealth of their citizens, has stoked fears about mass migration into richer member states.

III: What the EU looks like today

The four main components of the European Union today are the Council of the European Union, the European Parliament, the European Commission and the European Court of Justice.

The first two are the Council and the Parliament. The Council gathers the representatives of the elected governments of each member state, with equal representation - like to the United States Senate or the German Federal Bundesrat. The Parliament meanwhile houses MEPs, elected by proportional representation from regional constituencies all across the European Union.

Because the Council sets the policy direction, and the Council and Parliament must vote to pass legislation, fluctuations in which parties are enjoying popular support across Europe affects directly and indirectly the priorities and approach of the Union. With an particularly inward looking conservatives currently dominant in domestic politics in most European countries, conservatism controls politics at the European level as well.

The Commission is the Presidential executive branch that, based on the policy priorities set by the council, proposes legislation and takes responsibility for seeing it implemented across the EU. The Commission is headed by a President who is nominated by the European Parliament and the Council jointly and heads up a body of 27 Commissioners, one from each member country covering different policy areas, and an estimated 50,000 civil servants (compared to around 19,000 working fro Manchester City Council).

The Court of Justice (ECJ) is the highest court of European Law, responsible for interpreting the laws. It is to this organisation that member state courts refer questions of application of European Law.

Between these separate bodies have been created various agencies, carrying out various responsibilities including the European Regional Development fund - whose creation was pushed for originally by Britain and Italy. It invests EU common funds in poorer and less developed parts of Europe, on a regional rather than national basis, to encourage modernisation, create sustainable jobs and stimulating growth - including investing in transport links and telecommunications like broadband.

Yet these funds remain a source of tension, with exit campaigners complaining that too much leaves one national entity, particularly a rich one like the UK, to be spent in another. The reality is that the spending is redistributive, not from one country to another but from richer regions to poorer, with the aim of building up the poorer so that it can stand with less redistribution needed in the future.

IV: Progressive Europe after #ThisIsACoup

The referendum on whether Britain should continue to be a part of these institutions has pricked a sore progressive nerve. After the way senior and influential European figures were seen to have treated Greece, and its Radical Democrat governing party Syriza, during bailout negotiations, and the way the will expressed in Greece's elections and referendums was ignored - decried as an attempted coup against the government of Greece - influential figures on the left have begun to really consider an uncoupling, for fear of being unable to implement progressive change within the European system.

The trouble for progressives lies in the fact that, though stark lines have been drawn by the referendum question, they do not have a clear side to take. Conservatives are supporting the European status quo, that they currently dominate, and the far right are supporting exit - with no third position available.

While there is cynicism with regards to the EU's policy achievements, its process of compromise and alliance-building has seen policy developed and implemented on a much wider scale than might have otherwise been possible - ensuring that issues common to all the people's of Europe can be sorted out by them, mutually, on that same scale.

The value of that approach is seen in the efforts of others on the Left to build an alternative to the two options presented in Britain's upcoming referendum. At the least, it shows how it remains preferable to the possibility of a 'Brexit'.

Over the last few years, Yanis Varoufakis, an economics professor and former finance minister of Greece under Syriza, has consistently argued that there is danger for the Left in letting the mainstream establishment collapse. Rather than cheering the neoliberal implosion, he has sombrely called for progressives to help prevent it so as to avoid the catastrophic affect upon those most vulnerable and to buy time to build an alternative.

From Varoufakis viewpoint, only the Far Right has ever benefited from social and political breakdown, or economic crisis, while the Left has succeeded most from pushing for reform of the system - requiring most often to build up structures and ideas over time to acts as foundations and infrastructure on which to stand its achievements.

It makes sense then that Varoufakis has led the formation of Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25), as a cross party platform, to push the progressive case. That organisation has others like Another Europe alongside it, pursuing a different and more progressive form of European government. What unites them is the belief in the need to form pan-European parties and movements to push for a broad democratisation of those Europe institutions that remain aloof or too little accountable.

What do progressives want today?

Fearful of conservative domination of Europe, it isn't surprising that the Left wants out of what could easily look like a rigged game. Yet there are Varoufakis' warnings to consider, which contain a wider implication within, for those on the Left whose instincts lean towards exit.

Out of Europe there awaits only nationalism, seen in the continued rise of the Far Right which so nearly won the Presidencies of France and Austria, given yet more license to drive more wedges between more people - arresting social progress to a narrowly sectarian view of the world.

Exit also stands it contrast to citizens movements, governing cities and provinces on the principles of municipalism, that offers the most hope for progressives right now. It would be easy to take the lessons of the municipal movement as license for the Left to withdraw and focus on the local.

Yet those pursuing the municipal cause have a more outward view, looking to build alliances between municipalities, between cities, across the entire continent to bring democracy closer to the people and to bring those citizens together in solidarity.

For progressives, the future, the path to their aims - for justice, liberty, equality, progress - still runs the international road. In Europe, that still means looking outward, looking at politics on a continental scale. To that end, the European Union remains the infrastructure that we have.

Exiting one continental system without another to join, when so much for the Left depends on international cooperation, is reckless and wasteful. Between voting to remain and voting to exit, voting to remain is the only option that chimes the broad vision. But it shouldn't be a vote cast lightly.

Remaining is not an "end all" solution, but a first step. The next step for progressives should be to get involved with the movements to reform Europe, to democratise Europe, to beat back austere conservatism and discredited neoliberalism, all in favour of a more compassionate alternative.

This is Part 1 of  a multi-part series, "The Alternative Guide to the EU Referendum" - click here to go to the introductory hub

The Alternative Guide to the EU Referendum

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

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

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

Introduction: The Referendum for Progressives

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The British Left seems finally to have settled on how its relationship with Europe should be defined - positive, engaged, reforming

With his announcement this morning, Jeremy Corbyn pretty much completed the alignment of Britain's progressive-wing behind the campaign to remain in the European Union (Stewart, 2016). The support of the Labour leader now sees Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens, and the trade unions GMB (600k members), Unison (1.3m members) and Unite (1.4m members), all backing an In vote (Mason, 2016; Silveira, 2016; Unite, 2016).

But what it also represents is the British Left finally settling on a way to talk about its relationship with Europe. This was best seen in Corbyn's support for the EU coming with criticisms attached.

Corbyn argued that the EU had protected workers' rights, pushed for better environmental standards and introduced safeguards for consumers (BBC, 2016). Yet he also pointed to shortcomings, like the lack of sufficient of democratic accountability and an establishment commitment to deregulation and privatisation.

That view solidly aligns Labour with the stance adopted by Caroline Lucas, followed by the rest of the Greens, in backing Another Europe (Lucas, 2016) - a movement of activists and campaigners calling for "a Europe of democracy, human rights, and social justice" and moves towards a more hopeful, "social, citizen-led Europe".

Caroline Lucas, the Green Party MP, has argued that Europe is right now in the hands of conservatism because conservatives won successive elections across Europe and formed national governments (Lucas, 2016{2}). As a result they hold many seats on the European Council, which allows them to shape Europe with the policies of conservatism.

Simply losing elections is not good grounds for secession, Lucas argues. Instead we should stay, working with progressives in all of Europe's countries, to build a progressive consensus for reform that protects Europe's social chapter, its workers protections, its environmental protections - made possible by its shape as a continental, cross-border, that brings Europe together to deal with transnational issues.

So far the EU referendum campaign has, with both sides making almost identical claims, revealed that life in or out of the EU is unlikely to be much different on the surface, with even immigration is unlikely to be altered by an exit (Stewart, 2016{2}).

The exception is that leaving is acknowledged to come with the risk of an initial shock to the economy, which everyone seems to accept will happen and will be a bad thing, but no one is sure just how bad (Stewart & Watt, 2016) - with no guarantee that any subsequent growth benefit will be shared, while growth in the EU has been said to come with boosted living standards (Full Fact, 2016).

In a narrow debate, filled with nationalism and misinformation (Allegretti, 2016), the progressive view is a refreshing alternative. Acknowledging past and achievements, and talking about how to build a positive future - one that is open, and commits to cooperation, with people working together to achieve more for the common good.

It is about time that the British Left figured out and stated its position on Europe. The wavering, particularly of Labour's, commitment to the international ideal of Europe has helped to severely undermine public confidence in a bigger, more open world. Corbyn's speech has hopefully put that to rest.

Where is the grand vision? EU referendum debate is mired in a contest over who really represents the 'national interest'

The European humanitarian vision of peace, rights and prosperity for all individuals, regardless of nationality, religion or borders, is not just under attack but being largely ignored by two sides arguing over who represents the 'national interest'.

One of the saddest parts of the European Union referendum debate is that it seems to consist only of two patriotic factions, each arguing that their way represents the 'national interest'. For anyone with progressive, humanist and internationalist leanings, that clearly reflects the same narrowing of political debate that has hit the UK over the last decade.

The scope of the political imagination is being hemmed in. Europe, finding itself once again in the grip of 'national interests', has seen the grand vision that once underwrote the European project hollowed out (Spinelli, 2016).

Europe has faced at least two major crises that have hit the continent over the past decade, one financial and one refugee. If well administered and democratically accountable, European Governance could in itself have been part of the solution. And yet the idea, the entire political direction, has been largely suppressed as taboo in the 'national interest'.

David Cameron's renegotiation was entirely framed by the 'national interest'. Its primary purpose seemed to the search for opt-outs from a European system (Sparrow, 2016) - the ability to restrict or withdraw social security for non-nationals, exemptions from measures that might impact on the finance sector based in the City of London, reductions in regulations affecting business, and a two speed EU that removes an UK obligation to ever closer union.

The proposed Conservative bill of rights is a salient example. It proposes to console lovers of European Human Rights with a national counterpart, but it offers only certain rights - and those it gives to some people with less rights for others, with different categories of rights, creating different strata of people (Chakrabarti, 2015).

The In campaign has approached the referendum on much the same terms. The Labour Party's website for its 'Labour In For Britain' group makes its pitch all about Britain - national security, national economy and national influence, always framed as 'Britain' in the collective. This dynamic is an effect of the narrowing of vision, a seeming fear of anyone questioning patriotism, the kind of fears that lead to the advent of an left-wing party promoting itself with an anti-immigration mug.

As a result there has been little defence of the EU's work on its own terms. Its work across borders, for peace and prosperity and for individuals regardless of identity - protecting the environment, fighting globalised corporate corruption, supporting and promoting rights of the individual, often against infringements by their 'national' governments and nation-state authorities.

Under the aegis of the European Council, National Governments - including that of the UK, and with all of their attendant political bias - have in recent years taken control of the European agenda and turned it away from the grand vision according to their own 'national interests'. In doing their faces have turned inward, their vision narrowed and their eyes closed.

These governments have let fear be stoked, fears based on perceived threats to identity and vital safety nets (Zatat, 2016). This has pushed an EU exit onto the table, that would drop the pursuit of an international politics in favour of an uncertain future of globalised capitalism, doing business with countries who have little or no safeguards to protect their workers - that would in turn, in globalised competition, only undermine the safeguards protecting individuals in the UK.

The grand vision needs to be recovered. There are movements, such as Another Europe and Democracy in Europe Movement 25, and individuals, like Caroline Lucas and Yanis Varoufakis, that believe in staying and taking back Europe for its citizens. They want to improve democratic accountability, to recover the ideals of humanitarianism.

To leave Europe is no genuine alternative. It casts us, culturally, back into a small, narrow, inward-gazing isolation, while throwing us out onto the global markets without the kinds of guarantees that the EU has, at least tried, to offer. To leave is to pursue a revisionist false past, to satisfy some lingering notion of glorious empire. To stay, with a positive approach and a critical eye, presents the possibility of building the future.

Cameron's EU draft deal makes a two speed Europe a fact and gives the European Union a chance to move forward

For progressives, the bright side of Cameron's renegotiation for two speeds of membership is that it keeps Britain at the heart of the EU, where they can continue to campaign for better, more democratic, system.

David Cameron has got, in draft form, his deal on Europe (Sparrow & Smith, 2016). The deal came with an unequivocal statement that the Prime Minister would, if Britain where not part of the EU, join if these were the terms. The Cameron deal, negotiated and Donald Tusk, President of the European Council (chair of the council of EU member states) came to a short list of agreements.

Member states to have the right to use an 'emergency brake' on providing social security to migrants when movement was above ordinary levels, that those outside bodies like the Eurozone should not be expected to fund them, a commitment from the EU to better regulations and more efficient administration, and for national parliaments that make up 55% of seats on the European Council to represent a veto on European legislation (Sparrow, 2016). What these concessions most clearly establish is a two speed Europe (Verhofstadt, 2016).

Romano Prodi, former Italian Prime Minister and former President of the European Commission (Europe's executive branch), had previously foreseen this outcome (CNN, 2004). An attempt had been made to bring together the various European treaties to create a clear Constitution for Europe, only for it to be rejected at referendums in both France and the Netherlands (BBC, 2005; The Guardian; 2005).

Prodi accepted that, with the failure to establish a constitution for Europe, to make progress the European Union must now move at two speeds (EurActiv, 2007) - so that those who do not want to move forward could have their choice respected, without it overriding the choice of others to move ever closer. Without some formal resolution on that direction, however, Europe has seemingly spent the last decade stalled.

Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the liberals in Europe, praised the chance the renegotiations offered for clarity (Verhofstadt, 2015). Verhofstadt stressed that their was common ground in Europe for clearing up the messy boundaries and agreements, so that all countries could align themselves with a sure understanding of where they were headed.

Making the European Union a two speed institution essentially realigns Europe into two groups: some countries pursuing ever closer union, while others stay at arms length. The first group will accept the Eurozone, Schengen, joint border agencies, and the pursuit of better political and economic governance. Those at the edge will continue to have a seat at the table and important relationships and votes on governance, but there will be opt-outs rather than a veto.

For those in the UK who favour European Union membership, this seems to be the best deal on the table for now. What it certainly does offer is a chance to remain close. As Romano Prodi put it (EurActiv, 2007), "a two-speed Europe does not mean that countries that are in the second group cannot move to the first".

To the UK's progressives, this means the chance to renew efforts for a more social Europe (Shaheen, 2015), for the positive impacts that the EU can have in the fight for a greener world (Vidal, 2016), and to engage with continental campaigns for better democracy, like that being launched in Berlin next week on 9th February by Yanis Varoufakis to improve democracy in Europe (Varoufakis, 2016).

Crisis after crisis from Greece to Calais and the Mediterranean have dented the Left's belief in a European future - but they show internationalism is needed more than ever

The agreement between Greece and its European creditors has sent ripples spreading outwards across the continent. Greece, despite its comprehensive referendum rejection of austerity, has nonetheless been forced to accept harsh terms and without debt relief will still face more trouble in the long run (Smith & Stewart, 2015).

That forced capitulation has dented the belief of the Left, and of the radical Left in particular, that it can challenge and overcome the dominant neoliberal austerian narrative. That feeling of powerlessness has clearly shaken the Left's commitment to a future in Europe - though there are those such as Caroline Lucas who are argue that reform, not surrender, of the EU is still the way forward.

In Spain, Podemos - the radical Left party seen as equivalent to Greece's Syriza - has suffered from a slump in the polls (Nixon, 2015), while the mainstream Left, across Europe, is stumbling. Even Denmark's Social Democratic government, under Helle Thorning-Schmidt, has fallen (BBC, 2015). That leaves just eight EU countries with Left-of-Centre governments (Nardelli & Arnett, 2015 - including Italy and France.

There are those who have begun to argue, in the UK, for a 'Lexit' campaign, focussing upon a Left-wing scepticism towards the European project (Jones, 2015) - on a campaign critical of 'European' austerity politics.

The trouble with that assessment is that it ignores how 'Europe', and its institutions, have simply been the vehicle, rather than the originator and pusher, of the neoliberal agenda (Chessum, 2015).

"European project has been used by capital, and national governments which represent that capital, to make the poor pay for the economic crisis, and to bring down left wing governments where they seek to prevent this. With European politics at a crossroads, it is vital that the British left focusses on the real task at hand – building a radical political alternative that can challenge these forces – and not just on building an obsession with fighting the super-structure of the European Union."

National, social and fiscal conservative governments have used their positions on the European Council - the assembled representatives of the EU member states - to roll out their austerian economic scheme (Lucas, 2015).

"With the European council made up of ministers from each member state, it often simply reflects the prevailing currents in European politics. The imposition of austerity in Greece – forcing a population to pay the price for a crisis they didn’t cause – is simply an extension of an economic logic that spans our continent."

Caroline Lucas has argued that simply lashing out the EU itself isn't enough and isn't directing the blame where it really lies (Lucas, 2015). Lucas argues that the aim should be, instead, to reform the Union.

Amongst Europe's mainstream Leftists too, there are still those who are arguing for more European integration. Pier Carlo Padoan, Italy’s finance minister, wants new movement towards EU political union to be seen as the solution to the problem of national conservative member-state governments using the EU to impose their terms on Greece (The Economist, 2015).

That 'stay and fight for reform' mentality has been also been picked up by anti-austerity Labour leadership candidate Jeremy Corbyn (Watt & Wintour, 2015). After being pressured to make his position clear on Europe, Corbyn said that Labour should work with European allies for reform.

In a Europe where the dehumanisation of migrants and refugees (Elgot & Taylor, 2015) and Far-Right rhetoric (Mudde, 2015) are on the rise, the answer cannot be to retreat. For the Left, walking away means giving up on internationalism and solidarity.

Instead, the priority must be to reclaim Europe. To reform its institutions, around internationalism and humanitarianism, and return to Europe a spirit of coordination and cooperation - an energy that desperately needs to felt, all across the continent, from Greece to Calais and the Mediterranean.

The crisis in Greece makes for a painful reminder of why solidarity and co-operation are so important to democracy

Greece has not been shown much solidarity in its time of crisis. Photograph: Greek flag via photopin (license) (cropped & flipped)

As Greece and their European creditors have scrambled to work out a deal to prevent their exit from the Eurozone (Traynor, 2015), there has been a stark absence of solidarity. The apparent lack of a political will to negotiate, compromise and co-operate for mutual benefit, seems very much at odds with the values upon which Europe was founded.

Against the dominant values of the twentieth century - a world divided between collectivism and competition, communism and capitalism, East and West - Europe stood apart. Social democracy dominated the political arena, with negotiated settlements between capital and labour, free enterprise taxed to provide welfare, and co-operation and co-ordination trusted to produce superior results (Feffer, 2015).

As the present economic crisis has rumbled on, the urge of European conservatives to impose their rigorous austerian economics onto the economies of other European nations - in pursuit of some capitalist revival grounded in 'competitiveness', or the power to produce cheaply and therefore profitably - has called into question the commitment of the member states to the core ideals of the great European project (Krugman, 2015).

No where has that been more apparent than in the alarming way that a debate centred on the state's fiscal responsibility, to citizens, to businesses and to creditors, has seen the creeping introduction of the politics of identity. Some have tried to stress cultural roots to the ongoing global economic crisis as if it were the result of certain failings of a collective national character (Harvey, 2010). Those sentiments have spiralled outwards to feed into the Far-Right response to the crisis, with the likes of UKIP, Front National, Golden Dawn - regressively more extremist, respectively - dredging up early twentieth century notions of national sovereignty, identity and intolerance to immigration.

For an internationalist, the European project was supposed to be the beginning of the end, not to diversity or distinctiveness through gentrification, but to the chains of dogma - built out of ethnicities, cultures, religions, nations and even class - that have been used to shackle, divide and keep control over people. It was hoped that peace and co-operation could instead bring about greater tolerance and acceptance of diversity, which might be celebrated, and through freedom lead to more diversity still (Riotta, 2012). It was and remains a very progressive liberal dream.

What the crisis in Greece has told us, is that the old shackles are hard to shake and that the progressive dreams cannot be achieved without a strong, reciprocated will to co-operate.

Saturday's massive anti-austerity, protests across the UK and particularly in London, brought together a mix of Greens, Labour, trade unionists, environmentalists, socialists and campaigners on a range of progressive issues (Khomami, 2015; BBC, 2015). But to succeed in their aims, there are more who need to get on board.

There is hope for that outcome in the form of ex-leader of the Liberal Democrats Paddy Ashdown's suggestion of a progressive convention (Wintour & Watt, 2015), following up on Caroline Lucas' rallying call for a progressive alliance (Lucas, 2015) Ashdown has suggested holding a convention where progressive groups might put aside their tribalism and co-operate on formulating a joint progressive agenda. His suggestion did however fall short of the electoral pacts proposed by Lucas.

The old Left had some key values to which it aspired. For the democrats and socialists they were justice and community. For the liberals is was freedom and individualism. For the environmentalists it has been sustainability. But their visions have been dimmed by a lack of solidarity between these movements, which have often taken to fighting against each other to establish their own grand narratives, determined to pull everyone into their big tent - and thus usually diluting their own message while suppressing that of others.

The progressivism of the future must be defined instead by co-operation - the likes of which, if it had been embraced across Europe from the start, might have been able to stave off the present Greek tragedy before it ever began (Pianta, 2015).

As the Labour leadership candidates had their second debate on Saturday (BBC, 2015{2}), they would have had the anti-austerity protests and the down-to-the-wire struggle between Greece and the Eurozone hanging over their heads. And those events bring with them a big question: does Labour embrace these new proposals or does it continue to try and wrestle with the Conservatives over control of the establishment?

It is well worth considering that a progressive alliance, based on the spirit of co-operation, may well consign the concerns of the old system to obsolescence - thus freeing Labour from its endless and disaffecting chase after majority power. A progressive alliance could put from and centre electoral reform, to create a system that is representative, with a multi-party system that reflects ideals and values, and where co-operation brings those smaller parties together on common ground rather than herds them all into a faceless, ideology-less big tent.

Greece has shown us what happens without co-operation, without solidarity. A detached and emote system that ignores the social aspect of economics and shows more concern for creditors receiving their payments than for ensuring that Greek people have enough food. We are long overdue embracing a better way of doing politics.

Election 2015: The European Union - is the UK's future in or out?

The pressure applied by UKIP and the rest of the Conservative Party's Right-wing has succeeded in putting the question of the UK's membership of the European Union on the table. If those parties succeed in gaining enough seats at the next election, then a referendum on the UK's place in the EU will be on its way. Then, if a majority vote to leave, the UK will sail off into the Atlantic. Sounds simple, doesn't it?

The simplicity is, however, restricted to the actual decision to leave - which itself can be done with an ease that a lot of world leaders find quite disturbing, especially as most of them think the UK and the EU are better together (Preston, 2015). The potential ramifications are much greater and more complex.

Reports suggest, in a best case scenario, that everyone in the EU will lose out economically if the UK leaves, but no one more than the UK itself (Grice, 2015). While there is apparently a quiet acknowledgement even amongst Eurosceptics that - at least initially - the UK will be less well off outside of the EU, there are those who see big business opportunities away from the European system (Preston, 2015).

Amongst Eurosceptics there is talk of the UK's Financial Services industry being 'freed' from the EU Financial Transaction Tax - which was pressured into existence in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis by the campaign for a Robin Hood Tax; 'freed' from the EU cap on bankers' bonuses; 'freed' to pursue new trade deals with 'emerging markets', like India, where some feel the EU failed to negotiate a good enough deal; and even to pursue the marketing of UK agriculture to the world (Preston, 2015).

The trouble is, those arguments all seem to depend upon a lot of 'if'. If the UK is able to negotiate a substantially different deal while still maintaining its trading links (Behr, 2014). If it is able to successfully renegotiate better deals for the UK than it could get when it was able to advertise free access through Britain to the whole of the European Market - at a time when the UK's trade relationships are already very lopsided against the UK (Peston, 2015).

On that particular point: the UK would also have to convince the potential investors that they would be getting a good deal from pouring their money into the products of one of the most expensive places in the world to live and work. With a high cost of living, wages have to keep up, which means businesses fork over large sums of money on labour costs. While the EU is a free market, it nonetheless encourages protections of workers rights and measures to raise the standard of living across all member states, and trading partners, up to the same level to try and avoid anyone being undercut.

Are the UK's workers going to receive those same assurances when they are competing in a global free market against the workers of India or China? It's more likely that they will face the same calls for measures aimed at increasing 'competitiveness' - levelled at countries with high debt like Italy - which, under talk of lowering prices and increasing flexibility, ultimately demands cuts to wages so reduce the cost of labour (Sinn, 2014).

None of this is, of course, to suggest that the EU is perfect. The European Union is subject to the same pressures from globalisation as anywhere else in the world. It needs serious reform, such as the need to make the management of the European economy, and particularly of the Euro, more democratic (Garton Ash, 2015).

But achieving these reforms means getting into the spirit of internationalism. As Nick Clegg said during the BBC's Question Time Election Leaders Special on Thursday (30th April), the main issues facing us today are continental, not just national. The solutions to problems like tax dodging corporations and human traffickers will be continental and international in scale, not confined to particular countries and nations.

There are ideals in the make-up of the European Union - mostly constricted to being merely undertones in these times when ideologically conservative economics is riding high - grounded in internationalism, solidarity, commonality and liberty. There is a sense that, with reform, the European Union could be a positive progressive force for the common good.

The European Parliament has campaigned for equal pay for men and women and for the rights of pregnant workers. It derailed the ACTA treaty, which lead to most European nations refusing to ratify it, and it has also forced the TTIP treaty negotiations to be open and transparent (Robinson, 2015).

The European Globalization Adjustment Fund provides compensation when jobs move abroad, and funding for new training and start-ups. The EU even pursued the capping of bankers bonuses (at an obviously stingy 100% of their salaries) in the face of opposition from the UK government (Robinson, 2015{2}).

The cost to the UK of being part of all this is a net contribution to the EU budget £6.5bn to £8.5bn per year, less than 0.5% of British GDP. That figure extracts from the gross contribution what is spent back in the UK itself, on supporting everything from agriculture and scientific research to grants for local councils. For this investment the Confederation of British Industry suggests net economic benefit of EU membership to the UK is £62-78bn/yr (Robinson, 2015{3}).

As for immigration there is evidence that it has limited impact on wages, even coinciding with a boost in wages in the long term (Preston, 2015). While the 5% lowest paid can be disproportionately affected, the solutions lies in tackling low pay with minimum and living wages, with better education and training, and by addressing the disparities in the quality of life and levels of pay to be found across Europe - once again, continent-wide solutions. In terms of numbers, at present 2.2m British citizens live elsewhere in the EU, balancing out the 2.4m EU citizens living the UK. Less than 5% of the EU migrants claim jobseekers and less than 10% claim other working age benefits (Robinson, 2015{3}).

Are these arguments likely to dissuade fervent Eurosceptics? Probably not. There is a certain sense of Nationalism to Euroscepticism that makes talk of negotiation and reform, rather than abandonment, likely to fall unheard.

That does necessarily not mean that some satisfactory compromise cannot be reached.

A number of leading European figures have for some time been talking about a two-speed Europe - the tone of which might be seen in David Cameron's 'veto' in 2011 (Curtis, 2011). While trying to negotiate policy for the single market, the EU faced opposition from Cameron who demanded protections, exemptions and concessions for the City of London's financial sector. However, instead of actually blocking the move - as would be required for it to actually be a veto - the UK merely removed itself from consideration on the issues being discussed and the rest of the EU went on with its discussions.

Romano Prodi, former Italian Prime Minister and former President of the European Commission, has argued that the move towards a two-speed Union is well under way as a practical response to the realities of the situation (Tost, 2012). Prodi stressed that Europe is taking steps towards a common financial policy without the UK - the next big step in integration - and that Cameron's policies have only moved Britain to the fringes where they will have less influence.

The reality will be a UK that tries to opt out of what it doesn't want - within limits which will still mean much the same situation if the UK wants to trade with Europe - but will remain, in principle, a member of the Union and UK citizens will keep some of the benefits of being EU citizens like free movement and access to European Courts.

Meanwhile, the rest of Europe will continue to grow closer, gradually building a continental federation and reforming it to become more democratic. There are alternatives that would see Britain more involved or holding the EU at arms length, but this approach, of a two-speed Union - seems the only one likely to strike a balance between pro-Europeans and Eurosceptics.