Opposition is Back: Progressives must consider each opportunity with care - do they want to defeat the Government or make policy into a reality?

In our preview for the election, we stated the modest goal for progressives of winning enough seats to mount an effective opposition. Last week confirmed that goal had been achieved.

The Government managed to pass it's Queen's Speech, though barely and with no room for dissension. But it was also forced to back down, or face defeat, on a key backbench amendment.

Theresa May's ministry also U-turned several times over it's enforcement of the public sector pay cap, eventually voting against lifting it. But that question is rumbling on.

Meanwhile, Stella Creasy's amendment to secure free at the point of use access to abortion for women from Northern Ireland using services in England, scored a definitive success.

In exchange for Creasy withdrawing the amendment, allowing the Government to avoid being voted down, the Government announced that it would support and implement the policy change.

Opposition is back and Parliament, and it's backbench MPs, now have real power to influence and even change Government policy. The question is: how to use that influence?

At the 2017 election, Jeremy Corbyn led Labour to a result far better than anyone dared to hope. He and Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell have used their surge in public support to put their agenda front and centre.

But opposition cannot be all about Corbyn. Contrast the way the Government narrowly avoided defeat on Corbyn's public sector pay amendment, and the success of Stella Creasy's efforts from the backbenches and with across the floor support.

Corbyn has undoubtedly set the political weather with the public sector pay issue - and the government's positions is crumbling around them as these words are typed - but a more emphatic policy win might have been possible.

On the day, the Conservatives wavered. There where hints and announcements that the Government had changed it's stance on the pay cap - a clear sign of sensing defeat and laying the ground to avoid damaging dissension in their own ranks.

But they later squashed claims of a turn about. The U-turn was cancelled. The Government had, perhaps, overestimated internal opposition, or had found a way to private soothe concerns.

One obstacle to Conservative dissenters voting for the amendment may have been it's content. It condemned cuts to emergency services, committed to more recruitment and pay rises, in addition to ending the pay cap.

This dynamic is going to be a feature of this Parliament. In it's wording, the Corbyn amendment was a direct condemnation of Government policy, that if passed would have severely weakened it's position.

On the other hand, the Creasy amendment focused very closely on policy and the ethical dimensions. It was an amendment designed to pass, rather than to defeat the government.

As this Parliament goes forward, those along the Opposition benches will have to think carefully on how they fight each battle. There are chances ahead for big progressive wins on policy.

Consider the Umunna amendment. It sought to place a lot of restrictions on the Government over Brexit - against both the broader Labour position and perhaps even the public mood.

Judging the mood will also need careful attention. On Brexit, there seems to be a sense of acceptance, not necessarily happy, and people are now just looking to salvage what they can - for instance, a way to retain EU citizenship as individuals.

Chuka Umunna misjudged the stances of MPs, or their sense of the feeling out in the country, and simply divided Labour at a moment when momentum was in their favour. This kind of misjudgement needs to be minimised. Progressives have they will stand and vote together. Careful decision need to be made over how to use that newfound power.

The Tories are now on a narrow ledge and they're wobbling. As Labour's internal contradictions were exposed when they lost power, so too now is the Tories mask slipping. The different factions - moderates, reactionaries and opportunists - are casting around for someone to blame.

The opposition must press where there are cracks. The public sector pay cap continues to cause tremors, but it won't be the only issue. Human Rights has also been a divisive issue for the Conservatives and it's defence a point of unity on the progressive benches.

The Government has a slim numerical advantage, propped up by a deal that moderate Conservative backbenchers are very uncomfortable with. There is a chance to do some good. If the opposition want to make policy, all they need to do is make it as easy as possible for those backbenchers to rebel.

That makes the choice ahead strategic: do you find allies were they're available to achieve policy gains for the common good now, or play to weaken and topple the Government in the long run? Opposition is back and it is empowered.

Queen's Speech: Theresa May has her DUP pact. What comes next for the Progressive Alliance in opposition?

Theresa May's first time as Prime Minister putting forward a Speech from the Throne was not the triumph she had counted when she called the election on 8th June. The document she provided for the Queen to read was threadbare.

It was an affair more rushed and with less frills than usual. Gone too were the main thrusts of her party's manifesto. Much was reduced to consultations and two thirds of the bills were just carry-overs from the last legislative session.

With no majority, even this thin schedule looked in fragile. Today, Theresa May sought to firm up her position by finalising the deal with DUP for support - bought with billions in funding. But that support comes with the price of a potentially toxic relationship.

With the support of the DUP, Theresa May might just survive the confidence vote will be held on the Queen's Speech. While losing the vote would mean an immediate end to her Premiership, winning will probably only delay the inevitable.

There is an opportunity now for the progressive parties. The Tories have dropped much of their manifesto, have no overall control of the Lords, and a DUP deal is likely to disappoint and aggravate moderate and liberal conservatives among Tory MPs. There will be fall out for the Barnett formula and funding for Scotland and Wales, and an impact on rebooting devolved government at Stormont.

There are even a few bills in the Tories legislative programme over which progressives could exert a strong influence, like the bill to ban tenant fees and a new domestic violence bill. These are a chance for progressives to show they can get the job done.

These productive actions will be important to offset the other side of opposition: frustrating the government's efforts to carry on in its austere rightward direction - and there is still plenty that needs to be frustrated.

Despite the promise of an additional £1 billion in funding for Northern Ireland, there Queen's Speech showed little intent of deviating from the austerity agenda. There is a fight still to be had on social care funding and welfare cuts continue to roll on.

There will also be a colossal amount of work to do on Brexit. The Tory programme contains a range of bills brought about by Brexit that will also need deep scrutiny. It may not be possible to avert Brexit, but its impact on the most vulnerable most be mitigated.

Tory rule has been weakened but it hasn't been toppled. The result of the election has given Parliament new power to hold the Government to account. The parties of progress must get opposition right. They must assert themselves and start setting the terms of debate. There is a new future to be won and this is just the beginning.

Speech from the Throne: Conservatives use Queen's Speech to try and rebrand their efforts in government

By way of the somewhat ludicrous annual spectacle of a grand procession to bring the sovereign to the House of Lords to read it out loud, the government has announced its legislative programme for the year.

The main drive of the 2016 Speech from the Throne was a big rebranding attempt by the government, even against the distracting backdrop of the impending referendum, to try and reframe its political agenda as a 'life chances strategy'. There where elements of it throughout the speech.

The speech featured a number of policy ideas that had already been announced. There was Help to Save, a government aided savings scheme for low paid workers that was announced by the Chancellor that is similar to a Labour scheme previously cancelled by the government. There was also the Chancellor's tax on sugary drinks, mention of infrastructure investment like broadband roll-out, the Northern Powerhouse local devolution project and the controversial push to a seven day NHS.

New announcements along the lines of 'life chances' included new measures to improve education for prisoners, overhauling the prison system to focus on how to give prisoners a second chance. The focus on a new strategy meant that other matters were pushed to one side.

Though bullishly promised, forced academisation seems to have slipped down the order and became a promise to ensure excellence in schools. Considering the negative reaction that the policy has received, it's absence is unsurprising.

More surprising perhaps is that the government has made no definitive move in its wrestle with the House of Lords. The lords has rebelled against government policy numerous times since the last election, yet the so called Sovereignty Bill was reduced to just a reference to a commitment to "uphold the sovereignty of Parliament and the primacy of the House of Commons".

Of course, talk of austerity was pushed aside as well. No new measures were announced but the speech did include the now familiar claim that the government will "continue to bring public finances under control so Britain lives within its means".

Back in the Commons, the debate on the Speech was started by a Conservative backbencher who was perfectly on message, making sure to repeat the phrase 'life chances'.

Jeremy Corbyn, in his response, was sure to pick up on the theme of 'life chances'. He set about listing ways in which austerity has completely undermined any strategy to improve life chances - from the bedroom tax to cuts to disability allowances.

What is clear is that Cameron's circle is trying to reframe its time in government, digging up phrases like 'One Nation', to try and recast new policies like competition in higher education as improving 'life chances', even as 'progressive', through justifications like greater choice for consumers.

In the Commons today, Prime Minister David Cameron was at his most smugly comfortable at the heart the Westminster establishment on a day of extraordinary ritual and pageantry. He wielded the word progressive like he meant to claim it and rebrand it as well - a chilling signal of revisions to come.

True progressives need to be wary of these efforts. The Conservative media machine has proved itself very effective in the past, so it isn't hard to see them finding success pursuing a revision of history to emphasise, or de-emphasise, events as they see fit. The reality of hard times should not be forgotten by progressives and they should not let the reality of those times be lost in public debate.

Conservative Queen's Speech offers some relief to Human Rights campaigners, but also holds new threats to civil liberties

The State Opening of Parliament took place in Westminster today, amongst all of the usual pomp and circumstance. At centre stage of the whole event was, as usual, the Queen's Speech - aka the Speech from the Throne. Accompanied by the government's full 103-page list of bills and notes - and through the traditional though slightly odd process of having a monarch read out the government's plans, largely in their words, like a celebrity giving an advertising endorsement - the Queen announced the Cameron ministry's 26 main legislative objectives for the coming Parliamentary session (Sparrow, 2015).

Alongside some of the expected promises, like an EU Referendum and a more conservative approach to addressing immigration and extremism - along with harsher rules for trade union strike action - there is also some fairly positive news and some news that is less so for those concerned about changes to the Human Rights Act, and to our civil rights and liberties (The Guardian, 2015).

The most notable absence from the speech was a firm commitment to scrapping the Human Rights Act (Wintour & Mason, 2015). In the speech, the commitment has been watered down to bringing forward proposals - meaning that there is likely to be, at the least, a consultation period lasting some years before any legislation is produced.

If so, that would mark a huge first success for the opposition to David Cameron's government. Campaigners for the Human Right Act have been very vocal from the day that Cameron took office and it looks like the message has gotten through.

However, human rights campaigners will have a new task on their hands with the return of the snooper's charter - long resisted by the rights and liberties protecting efforts of the Liberal Democrats (Wintour, 2015). Progressives will be hoping for an extension of the campaign to protect human rights to also cover civil liberties, as the proposed Investigatory powers bill - allow the tracking of communications data - returns to the table greatly expanded (Travis, 2015).

There is hope that progressives can succeed. The pressure they have brought to bear so far, in only a short time in opposition, may well have successfully delayed attempts to tamper with the Human Rights Act for years. Now that the campaign to protect our guaranteed rights has made a significant breakthrough, the next big effort will be to protect our civil liberties.