Progress is Possible: The facts show that the Tories can be beaten - but it's going to take huge local participation

To defeat the Tories, progressives must rise above their partisan divisions to defend the bigger ideas than bring them together.

The statistics for this summer's UK general election are a sorry sight for progressives. Values shared across the whole of the Centre and Left are being threatened by Theresa May's government, and meanwhile there is infighting, disappointment and partisan divisions to contend with.

Some have taken these as the grounds to say that winning is impossible or to double down on the one party, majoritarian rhetoric. But if the Left and Centre spends all of its time fighting itself, the doom and gloom predictions will almost certainly come true. There is a better way to go.

And, on this, the facts speak for themselves.

Take the West Yorkshire constituency of Shipley, seat of Tory arch-meninist, Philip Davies. Shipley was Conservative, with large majorities of more than ten thousand from 1970 to 1997. Then in 1997, Labour gained nearly 7,000 more votes, while the Conservatives lost around 8,000.

Labour kept the seat until 2005, when after eight years in power at Westminster, the seat slipped back to the Conservative by just a few hundred votes. Since then, the support for parties that are not the Conservatives has largely collapsed, with Labour falling back and the Liberal Democrats nearly disappearing as their vote splintered across the spectrum.

Over a ten year period, Philip Davies has built a majority of 10,000. In 2015, the collective conservative vote, Tories and UKIP, was around 30,000 while progressive votes totalled around 20,000 - on a 72% turnout. But this has occurred over time: in 2010 it was 24,000 to 25,000; in 2005 it was 20,000 to 27,000; back in 1997 it was 20,000 to 31,000.

As the by-election in Richmond Park demonstrated, a majority for any party, save for some very few 'heartlands', is far from safe. Sitting MP Zac Goldsmith was turfed out of the seat by a 30% upswing in support for the Liberal Democrats that overturned a 23,000 majority. Goldsmith himself had previously overturned a Lib Dem majority of 4,000.

To press the point further, Labour's win in 1997 would in fact have been impossible if safe seats were unbreachable. Labour won 329 seats in England alone, almost twice as many seats there as the Conservatives and even unseated a host of safe-seated Tory ministers in the process. There are two important things to take away.

One: a huge number of voters in most constituencies do not 'identify' with their vote - they do not consider themselves Tories when they vote Tory, and see no issue in switching to another party if they see a better pitch or feel they were mis-sold a previous one.

And second: no majority is safe in the face of a damned good argument. Zac Goldsmith ran a horrifying negative campaign against Sadiq Khan for London Mayor, had failed to hold his own party to account on a third Heathrow runway and - however the Tories and Goldsmith tried to distance one another - represented an austere authoritarian government overseeing unpopular policies.

An election can be won seat by seat, fight by fight. The political tide turns nationally and locally, ebbing and flowing one way or another, due to a complex set of factors. If voters are willing and support each other, they can take on the system and usher in an alternative. Even a huge slump can be recovered from in dramatic fashion.

For an unusual example, consider the general election in Canada in 2015 - and example with relevance for its use of the Westminster, first-past-the-post, system. Years of austere, conservative, ever rightward drifting government under Stephen Harper was overturned in dramatic fashion.

The centrist Liberals had become the party of government in Canada, providing most of the Prime Ministers of the twentieth centuries with brief Conservative interludes. By 2011, the party's fortunes had been in decline for a decade. Yet it was still a surprise when under Michael Ignatieff, a respected journalist and professor, the party fell to just 34 seats - the fewest in its history.

That made their victory under Justin Trudeau, who was popular despite being derided for being young and unqualified, in 2015 all the more remarkable. In the biggest swing in Canadian federal history, the Liberals went from third with 34 seats, to first and holding a majority of fourteen.

Trudeau ran an optimistic campaign, making bold policy promises and even making a surprise break from austerity, unexpected from the Centrist party. The contrast was significant to Stephen Harper's Conservatives, who took a stance that might be familiar to Theresa May: pleas to trust, "Proven Leadership", for a "Strong Economy", a "Strong Canada" and a "Safer Canada" to "Protect our Economy".

A stern government, turning harsher with terrorism reaching Canadian shores, campaigned on conservatism and strength. Their Liberal opponents pitched optimism and a way to get things moving forward. In that contest, optimism won.

The question ahead for progressives in Britain is how to beat the Tories in each seat. The contest can't be won in the way that it was in Canada. Optimism is a must, yet broadly accepted and respected leadership at the national level of a kind needed to run a national movement of hope is - to be kind - at a premium just now for the Centre and Left.

It is never simple to say that some votes are conservative and others progressive. People vote for different parties for different reasons. But we can say this: the progressive parties - Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens - share some fundamental positions, against austerity, protecting the NHS and social care, to protect the rights of minorities, and people are willing to vote for parties standing for these values. Voters have even looked for Conservatives to stand by these values.

This is a positive struggle that can gain traction, but if voters want an alternative the campaign must be taken on locally - by local activists, yes - but mostly by voters themselves in their own constituencies. The facts say, however dire the present situation, that the Conservatives and Theresa May's austere authoritarianism can be beaten. But in this election it must be achieved by individual votes in individual seats.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fear and hatred have found fertile soil amidst the artificial scarcity of austerity

Today sees the latest in a sustained run of demonstrations in the UK since Donald Trump was inaugurated President of the United States. For many progressives, his election has crystallised their anxieties.

They have watched, maybe even supported under the banners of New Labour, years of exclusionary conservative neoliberalism. That system reaped unequal rewards and ultimately unleashed widespread consequences. The austerity that was imposed to manage them has created an artificial scarcity.

Those actions, results and reactions have left some quarters of society - not few in number and faced on all sides by shortfalls and cutbacks in the name of 'scarce' resources - deprived, disregarded and ultimately disaffected. The political disconnect is tangible.

As wary progressives have worried, this fertile ground for fear and anger - prepared under the inattentive rule of those who were too busy enjoying the fruits of the good times to tend or care for it - is now being exploited.

The most virulent of the poisonous crop that has been sewn is xenophobia. That dangerous weed is being grown deliberately in some places and spreading all by itself in others - though it is perhaps reassuring that it must first be dressed up and sold only through distorting and distancing filters, that shows blatant hatred of outsiders, without an 'excuse', is not accepted.

But people are bringing it home. Making it part of their everyday. It would be a toxic mischief to allow the mistrust and hatred of outsiders to be normalised. The frontline against that threat is challenging the negative attitudes towards people seeking refuge or looking for a better life in a new land.

A major part of events will be the 'One Day Without Us' event, a 'labour boycott' by migrants, and those standing in solidarity with them, to demonstrate the value of migrants to our economy - an event months in the planning (Garcia, 2017; Taylor, 2017).

The day was chosen because it coincides with the United Nations World Day of Social Justice. It theme for 2017 is "Preventing conflict and sustaining peace through decent work":

"Social justice is an underlying principle for peaceful and prosperous coexistence within and among nations. We uphold the principles of social justice when we promote gender equality or the rights of indigenous peoples and migrants. We advance social justice when we remove barriers that people face because of gender, age, race, ethnicity, religion, culture or disability."

Therein lies the inclusive message that has so far run through the opposition to Trump. The exclusivity that the new President stands for is being opposed by a movement for a more egalitarian and inclusive society.

But to create such a society, equality and inclusivity needs to be achieved on an economic as well as social level - and the times seem to be making clear that you really cannot have one without the other.

The anger that stewed within those who felt discarded or ignored, even during the so called 'salad days' when the global economy was booming and Labour was in office, is now fueling a desperate turn inwards that public policy has frequently, if often unwittingly, aided.

Austerity, by slashing public spending, has imposed an artificial scarcity. That sense of a finite limit is being used to fan fears that were more easily assuaged during the years of plenty. Fears of shortage, of limited places and supplies, are forcing people into adopting a triage mentality.

While conservatives talk of austerity in terms of of doing things efficiently to save tax payers some money, myths are spreading, and being spread, about the skivers and the cheats that is feeding sectarian and segregationist mentalities.

These are lines being drawn - borders, classes, and talk of the deserving and the undeserving - and with the fear of scarcity at their backs, no one wants to be on the wrong side of those lines.

After years of exclusion from the gains of globalism, austerity has turned a economic setback into desperation and a society-wide scrambling retreat. Those gathering at today's protests must think carefully on how to reach out with their message, beyond the progressives who will gather around them.

The rise of xenophobia and the rising fear of scarcity have gone hand in hand. Progressives must poke through the propaganda that surrounds the supporters of their opponents and find the desperate people within that noxious cloud and let them know: the choice between aiding our kin and aiding a stranger is a false choice.

Jeremy Hunt is playing dangerously with escalation in dispute with Doctors over future of NHS as he imposes contracts

Junior doctors and supporters gathered outside the Manchester Royal Infirmary on 10th February, during the latest 24 hour junior doctors strike.

After months of wrangling, Jeremy Hunt has decided to impose contracts on junior doctors (Tran & Campbell, 2016). Hunt's decision came just an hour after the second major strike by Junior doctors, where strikers walked out for 24 hours in protest against extension of hours across the weekend (Triggle, 2016).

Negotiations have been ongoing for months, but had broken down on Tuesday after what Hunt, the Conservative Health Secretary, called his 'final offer' had been rejected (Campbell, 2016). Accusations were also flying that all parties had agreed an alternative deal in principle, only for Hunt to veto it (Stone, 2016).

Imposing the contract could easily further inflame an already controversial situation. Public opinion has been firmly on the side of the junior doctors strikes (Stone, 2016{2}), with Hunt being seen as personally culpable for the ongoing action called by the BMA - the British Medical Association, the doctor's trade union.

What Hunt may be counting on is that, in the initial phase, doctor's will have little choice but to put up and begrudgingly acquiesce. Then, to simply let the matter to blow over with time - gambling on the public having a short memory.

Yet the move could instead lead to escalation. So far the strikes have been 24 hours in duration and left emergency care intact. This move by the Health Secretary could push the opposition to longer strikes, with Healthcare provision reduced to a minimum, other medical professions walking in solidarity and larger public protests.

There have also been reports that the numbers of medical trainees have been dropping and that trained medical professionals have been moving abroad (El Sheika, 2016; Johnson, 2016). The BMA has been using these facts during the negotiations as leverage - and warning of a further exodus if unsafe conditions are extended.

However Hunt's move has called out doctors, expecting them to grumble but ultimately comply. Or may be for them to move into the private sector. There have been doubts about Hunt's commitment to a public, tax-funded NHS - the Health Secretary was a contributor to a book calling for a privatised health market in the UK (Stone, 2016{3}; El Gingihy, 2015).

The general feeling amongst Conservatives seems to be favourable towards a long term future of private sector solutions to social security. Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith won some agreement from Prime Minister David Cameron for the idea of, in essence, privatising sick pay and unemployment benefits by forcing people to pay into savings accounts or to buy social insurance as cover (Mason, 2015).

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has risked escalation with his latest move. The BMA says it will consider all options to continue the fight, against changes it believes to be dangerous to public health (Triggle, 2016{2}). Who blinks first matters. Most outcomes could likely be considered a win of some sort for the Conservatives - which shows the cleverness of the game they're playing.

But the game they're playing gambles with social security, the safety net that ensures the common good. In this big moment in the future of the NHS, the Conservatives are showing a ruthless side by pitting the NHS's future against the interests of medical professionals. Its a reckless game in pursuit of prices and profits, but which ignores value - and the fundamental social justice of universal public healthcare.

Still opposition even as Italy on verge of completing historic year for LGBT rights, but progressives must maintain their optimism

The Catholic Church stands in the way of Italy extending legal recognition to same-sex couples. Photograph: St Peter's Basilica from Pixabay (License) (Cropped)

Later this week, the Senate in Italy will be deciding how to respond to condemnation for the lack of legal recognition of same-sex couples (BBC, 2016). The government of Matteo Renzi, Prime Minister and leader of the Partito Democratico, has put legislation on same-sex unions before the Senate to introduce civil partnerships after criticism from the European Court of Human Rights.

Italy was ruled by the ECHR in the summer as being in breach of human rights by not allowing same-sex unions (Kirchgaessner, 2015). That ruling seems to have inspired fresh hope of progress, with campaigners out in numbers over the weekend to call for a change in the law (Kirchgaessner, 2016).

The road to change in Italy, though, is still filled with obstacles. There are deeply ingrained attitudes to overcome (Scammell, 2016) and the power of the Catholic Church is behind the conservative opposition (The Guardian, 2016).

However, the public campaigns for same-sex unions show that there is a possibility of change. The successes of other civil rights campaigns around the world also highlight what can be accomplished. Big steps forward where made last year, on a number of fronts - even when just considering the fight for LGBT rights.

In the US there were reassuring steps, with a Supreme Court ruling establishing that equal marriage was a constitutional right (Roberts & Siddiqui, 2015). Barack Obama celebrated the decision as making the 'union a little more perfect', marking a rare win for the Democrat President in an extremely partisan time in the White House (Jacobs, 2015).

Meanwhile Ireland became the first country in the world to secure the passage of equal marriage by a popular referendum, with an emphatic 62% voting in favour (The Irish Times, 2015). That vote had the additional significance of leaving Italy as the last Western country to not have some form of civic union for same-sex couples (Duncan, 2016).

Later this week in the UK, the Commons will be considering an amendment to the Civil Partnerships Bill that aims to extend civil unions - originally intended as a same-sex alternative to marriage - to opposite-sex couples (Bowcott, 2016).

Though it may seem like a sideshow, at a time when these matters are being debated, it would be a positive and signal step to make all forms of civil union equal, whether marriage or partnership, regardless of gender pairing. For those who are socially excluded, the aim is to be treated as equals.

A chance to take some steps towards that parity approaches in Italy. Yet the outcome of the Senate vote is far from certain. Italy has had a difficult history with liberalising reforms. Campaigns have long been left to parties on the fringe, such as the Radicals, who have campaigned for everything from the separation of church and state to the rights to divorces and abortions (Moliterno, 2000).

And over everything, the Catholic Church casts a long shadow (The Guardian, 2016). The Pope, weighing in on the upcoming vote, declared that god wanted only one type of family union, procreative and insoluble, and no other.

It can be demotivating as a progressive to have a year filled with conservatism, populist nationalism and neoliberal austerity, with discrimination still protected by powerful institutions. To discover in the news that, in the middle of a humanitarian crisis, those most in need of help face segregation - in the most recent case, refugees being forced to wear red wristbands as distinctive markers used to distinguish them (Taylor & Johnston, 2016).

But 2015 also served as a reminder of how much that is positive might be achieved, even under a conservative stranglehold. Progressives must draw upon these accomplishments for strength as they move forward, in order to, as Yanis Varoufakis argues (Varoufakis & Pisarello, 2016), maintain the optimism needed in the continued struggle against discrimination and the hegemony that protects it.