When the Centre is discredited only the Right benefits - the Left has no shortcuts, it has to build and engage to move forward

The advance of the far right Front National in France has given rise to fears for the future of European Unity. Photograph: France and EU-flag, somewhere in Dunkerque by Sebastian Fuss (License) (Cropped & Flipped)

Earlier this week, Marine Le Pen's Front National (FN) took a, sadly not entirely unexpected, lead in the first round of the French regional elections (Chrisafis, 2015). While by no means emphatic, with 28% of the vote, to 27% for the Centre-Right Republicans and 23% for the Centre-Left Socialists, the Far-Right party nonetheless holds a lead that is no joke - thanks to the majority bonus awarded to the leading party in each region.

It will be a cold comfort to progressives that Front National's success has been largely laid at the feet of the parties of the Centre (Nougayrede, 2015). The rise of FN has been described seen as the product of the failures of the parties of the political centre. Those parties are struggling, discredited by their failure to address France's long term problem of unemployment and the impact, and narrow rewards, of globalisation.

The transformist Centre parties, with their "conservative and social democratic modes of liberalism", have come to be seen as a 'complacent', 'insulated' and elite 'caste', and having laid the foundations for themselves to be supplanted by the Far-Right's more emotive and simplistic alternatives (Behr, 2015).

"No two countries have exactly analogous politics, but common threads run across Europe. The unifying dynamic appears to be the interaction of financial insecurity and the cultural detachment of governing elites from the governed... politicians of the technocratic centre are perceived as a caste apart, professionally complacent, insulated by hoarded privilege from the anxiety provoked in electorates by economic turbulence and abrupt demographic change..."

The fact that the Far-Right sit now on the doorstep of the establishment, so close to power in one of Europe's largest and most influential countries, has sparked fears of what the Centre's failure will entail for the broader European project (Betancour, 2015). The European system, a symbol of the time and effort required to build progressive institutions that break down borders and bring people together, was decades in the making - but appears now to be only years in the unravelling.

What is notable is that, as the Centre has collapsed, only the Right has really benefited. Meanwhile the Left has made few, if any, gains. In fact, in France, FN have largely made their initial inroads into the traditional heartlands of the Centre-Left Socialists (Nardelli, 2015). So the big questions for progressives are: Why? And, what can be done?

In France, the first steps taken in response by the scrambling Centre were to close ranks (Willsher, 2015). France returns to the polls for the second round today and in districts where Socialists trail in third place, the party has withdrawn candidates - falling back on tactical voting to ensure the victory of the least worst alternative (Chrisafis, 2015{2}). It also made the remarkable, though unrequited, suggestion of forming a Republican Front - uniting Centre-Left and Centre-Right - to hold back the rise of Front National.

From the perspective of those on the Left, it might be a lot easier to pour scorn on such a project than to become embroiled with discredited establishment's attempts to save their own necks. Yet becoming involved is precisely what some have proposed.

In an article based on a lecture he gave in 2013, before his adventure into political economics as Finance Minister of Greece, Yanis Varoufakis argued that only the Right ever benefits from breakdown and disorder (Varoufakis, 2015).

"If my prognosis is correct, and we are not facing just another cyclical slump soon to be overcome, the question that arises for radicals is this: should we welcome this crisis of European capitalism as an opportunity to replace it with a better system? Or should we be so worried about it as to embark upon a campaign for stabilising European capitalism? To me, the answer is clear. Europe’s crisis is far less likely to give birth to a better alternative to capitalism than it is to unleash dangerously regressive forces that have the capacity to cause a humanitarian bloodbath, while extinguishing the hope for any progressive moves for generations to come."

What Varoufakis touches upon is that progressive politics depends upon building things - like a free and open civic space, or the infrastructure for broadly available healthcare and welfare. These things that cannot be easily made or remade, but are all too easy to tear down. In contrast, social or institutional breakdown benefits the Right because it drives itself with simpler, emotive, even instinctual, constructs. Traditionalism, moralism, nationalism: these have the advantage of being old and familiar, and already deeply rooted in the identity of the audience.

For Varoufakis, when the Centre fails, the Left needs to acknowledge its weakness and take up the task of responsible government - including propping up elements of the old establishment, in order to save past progress and to have something left to reform.

"Yet my aim here is to offer a window into my view of a repugnant European capitalism whose implosion, despite its many ills, should be avoided at all costs. It is a confession intended to convince radicals that we have a contradictory mission: to arrest the freefall of European capitalism in order to buy the time we need to formulate its alternative."

Alexis Tsipras, Radical Left Prime Minister of Greece, has described any politician setting foot upon that road as needing to be pragmatic about what can be accomplished in government (from Horvat, 2013).

"I believe that today 'radical' is to try to be able to take responsibility for the people, to not be afraid of that, and at the same time to maintain in the democratic road, in the democratic way. To take the power for the people and to give it back to the people."

Yet Tsipras' approach, this pragmatic radicalism, has its critics. On the one hand, it plays an exhausting game with democratic institutions that can be easily become fatigued (Patrikarakos, 2015). On the other, buying into the game in order to achieve practical things comes with a risk of succumbing to its pressures and ultimately conforming (Anthony, 2015). Another concern with Tsipras' pragmatic approach, is that the line of thinking can very easily lead to the temptations of Blairism.

Just this week, Tony Blair himself took to the pages of The Spectator to offer a defence of the 'Blairist' approach (Perraudin, 2015). He was quick to point out the 'flaw' in his critics' thinking.

"In particular, significant elements of the Party saw the process of governing with all its compromises, pragmatism and embrace of changing times as implicit betrayal of our principles."

Blair's defence of his direction focusses tightly, as his defenders and successors often do, on being willing to make 'hard choices' in order to be in power - placing value on "aspiring to govern" over being a "fringe protest" (Blair, 2015).

Yet that attitude also features a dangerous obsession with basing practical politics in "reality". On the face of it, this is a call for rational politics, taking the world as what it is rather than the utopia you might wish it to be - to base policy, and the political moves used to achieve them, on the 'reality' of the world as you find it. The trouble is that, beneath the surface of this approach, what it really means is engaging in a deceitful game of playing on, and to, often incomplete or outright wrong public perceptions (Jones, 2015).

For those who feel New Labour wandered too far to the political Right, a big part of the problem was that they had become anchored to 'reality', largely purveyed by a conservative media, and played to popular prejudice in search of an easy route to power. In the process simply turning the Centre and Left into a vehicle for the popular conservatisms of the moment.

The danger of that course is, however, that if you keep playing to conservative perceptions you are only going to reinforce them. The result will be more citizens who interpret the world through conservative perceptions, and so make their decisions accordingly - ultimately making it more difficult to propose progressive policies in the future.

European politics, and in particular politics in France, have seen an expansion of this problem. Technocrats have spent decades quietly implementing the rules and regulations to bring about European unity - at least in the technical sense. Yet they have spent too little time on the engagement, debate and education in the civic space that promotes and spreads the values behind them, and creates the 'values consciousness' amongst the public that parallels institutions and builds a bridge between them.

In the UK, the Liberal Democrats stand as a cautionary tale. The Lib Dems spent decades rebuilding, offering a progressive alternative but where brought low in just five years when they failed to meet the expectations of their supporters - decades in the recruiting - trying to meet the popular expectations of a 'party of government'.

In order to build a lasting progressive politics, there needs to be a long term, concerted social project - for hearts and, particularly, minds - that develops and promotes a form of compassionate, rational, government (Clark, 2015). Progressive parties have to be engaged with the political tasks of spreading ideas and changing minds required for the construction of a progressive social consciousness.

To that end, simply sneaking into power by pretending to be conservative isn't enough, and it never will be. That doesn't mean that the Left shouldn't seek to be practical, like Varoufakis suggests, and, as in France today, be willing to be practical in its compromises with the Centre and the establishment to prevent much worse outcomes.

But the Left has to be about more than just words. It needs to act as well, to actively live its values and promote their means and purposes. Progressives cannot be afraid to govern, but they cannot sacrifice the necessary work for easy access to power. There is no trade off to be made. Trying to do the former without the latter will only lead to failure, compounding more failures to come.

John Bercow's misinterpreted laugh was a mirthless acknowledgement of the fruitless fight for political reform

Speaker John Bercow has fought a long uphill battle to improve the public image and engagement of Parliament. Photograph: John Bercow by Julian Mason (License) (Cropped)

During the tense and heated Syria debate, the House of Commons was for once at full capacity. The significance afforded to the event saw not only high attendance by MPs through out the day, but also saw Speaker John Bercow chair the entire eleven-hour session (May, 2015).

While Bercow received praise for his uninterrupted chairing of the debate, he also came in for criticism for a laugh, at the debate's end, that seems to have been widely misinterpreted. Those familiar with the habits of Members of Parliament may well have interpreted that laugh very differently.

When the debate on Syrian intervention came to an end, Bercow's announcement of further business in the Commons was greeted with laughter by MPs rising en masse and heading for the exits. Some have considered the moment disrespectful or part of some ill-judged and ill-timed jest (Dearden, 2015).

And yet, considered in the proper context, that laugh tells a different story.

An empty chamber for Parliamentary debates is not an unusual occurrence, with MPs turning up in the Commons only for matters of their own interest, or for the 'big' occasions, only to leave for the 'smaller' affairs (The Telegraph, 2014).

Over the years of his Speakership, Bercow has been actively attempting to reform how Parliament is run and to update its procedures and, in particular, its public image (Parliament, 2011). Yet his criticisms of MPs heckling (Perraudin, 2015; BBC, 2013), or attempts to modernise elections with e-voting as part of a push towards more public engagement (BBC, 2015), have all too frequently run into a wall.

In that light, Bercow's laugh comes across as a knowing, mirthless, exasperation at the behaviour of Parliamentarians - as can be seen in the fuller version events, captured by Parliament's cameras but not included in the broadcast.

"Order. We come now to the petition... [Bercow smiles, forced to pause by MPs noisily abandoning the chamber]... I ask members leaving the chamber, however unaccountably, please to do so quickly and quietly so we can hear the petition from the Right Honourable Lady the Member for Chesham and Amersham."

That petition was, to labour the point, on the "mandatory reporting of child abuse" - not exactly a matter of small consequence.

Norman Lamb, Liberal Democrat Health spokesperson, is only amongst the latest to run into the not an unusual occurrence of an empty chamber. His debate, regarding out-of-area placements for mental health care appointments (Dickson, 2015), saw a drastically poor turnout of around half a dozen that left Lamb conducting most of the discussion with two of his Lib Dem colleagues.

The archaic institutions of Parliament and the habits of MPs have long been warned of as one source of the alienation felt by the public from politics. The late Charles Kennedy argued that alienating the public from politics was a dangerous venture (2006).

"Fewer people are joining political parties, yet single-issue pressure groups continue to flourish. Mass international movements - from opposition to the war in Iraq to last year's Live 8 - demonstrate how great issues and principles can still motivate on a huge scale. But somehow our current political culture seems unable to accommodate and address such concerns...

...The danger in all of this is that if sufficient people conclude that there is nothing in the conventional political process for them then they may opt for more simplistic and extreme options on offer. I remain an optimist. But across the mainstream political spectrum there is a candid recognition of the danger."

These concerns are not confined to Parliamentary institutions. The efforts of Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell to carry on a project of reform within the Labour Party, has faced resistance by party MPs who, the reformers say, feel their position and power is threatened the proposed changes (McDonnell, 2015).

In his party reforms, Corbyn has said he wants members to have greater power (Boffey & Helm, 2015). Yet, like Bercow, Corbyn is likely to find the establishment difficult to shift - not least when it comes to increasing public engagement by giving the public more direct power within institutions, often at the expense of their representatives (Bryant, 2015).

Speaker John Bercow has fought a long and seemingly fruitless war to reform how the House of Commons works, up against a Parliament that refuses to shake off its disastrous habits. That fact was clearly on display through the Syria debate, demonstrated in full by the treatment of Jeremy Corbyn during his rebuttal to the Prime Minister in the Syria debate, in which he was loudly heckled and shouted down from the government benches throughout (Stone, 2015).

Today, the UK is governed by a Conservative ministry that holds majority power, although it was elected on only 36% of the vote and hold the support of only a quarter of the registered eligible voters.

Tomorrow, the temporary victory of those campaigning for votes at 16 (Jarrett, 2015) - extending voting rights to finally cover all adult citizens - will likely be extinguished by the Conservative majority in the Commons. With its defeat goes another opportunity for reform.

That inequitable situation will not improve until there is comprehensive political reform. Since the establishment seemingly refuses to bow to even the sternest efforts to change its ways, the burden is now upon citizens to take up the campaign.

Establishment figures like Bercow and party rebels like Corbyn, or vocal campaigners for electoral reform like Caroline Lucas, cannot win lasting change with out active support. Corbyn's election as Labour Party leader was one small demonstration of what can be achieved by engaged citizens. But there is still much more to be done - and it can't be left to representatives.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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