In Argentina, Macri's broad Centre coalition secured the Presidency. Yet the question remains: when can the Left cut ties with neoliberals to pursue truly radical reforms?

Mauricio Macri, pictured casting his vote in the August primaries, united the Centre-Right and Centre-Left opposition to defeat the Kirchner candidate and become the first non-Peronist, non-UCR President. Photograph: Mauricio Macri vota by Mauricio Macri (License) (Cropped)

After twelve years in power, the Kirchnerist faction of the Peronist movement, in the form of the Partido Justicialista, lost their grip on the Presidency of Argentina (Watts & Goni, 2015). In the second round of voting Mauricio Macri, leading the broad centre coalition Cambiemos, defeated the Justicialista, and former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, backed Frente para la Victoria candidate Daniel Scioli (BBC, 2015).

Macri's victory has been received positively as, possibly, the beginning for a new moderate Argentina (Cottle, 2015). And yet, while neoliberals, in particular, rejoice in a pro-market victory, Macri's Presidency has only come with the complicity of the centre-left, specifically the Union Civica Radicale (UCR, Radical Civic Union).

That tentative alliance raises the question of whether, sooner or later, those with Left-wing tendencies, particularly within UCR, will feel the need to go their own way - though there is a lot of work ahead before a progressive slate could win without some sort of agreement with, or against, the Peronist movement.

Not the least consideration is that the election of the conservative liberal Mauricio Macri will not, alone, be enough to change the direction of Argentina. Although, the defeat of Kirchner's populist Peronist candidate - which has brought a positive response from neoliberal pro-market voices - has been regarded as a new turn for Argentina and, possibly a little optimistically, the overthrow of populism (Rodriguez-Brizuela, 2015).

While the Peronists are still the largest group in the Congress, that may shift over the course of Macri's term as half of the Chamber of Deputies is elected every two years in legislative elections. And the efforts already launched by Macri at tackling Argentina's immense economic challenges have received praise (The Economist, 2016). So, for the moment, the momentum is with Macri.

However, Macri's support came from a coalition primarily divided between the Centre-Right party Propuesta Republicana (Republican Proposal, PRO) and the Centre-Left party Union Civica Radical - backed by a mix of supporters from across the centre (The Argentina Independent, 2015). So what of Macri's Radical partners?

Despite the party's name, the UCR is a moderate centre-left party, seen by the harder Left as bourgeois, that has for decades been caught between other factions. The traditional opponents of the Peronists, some internal and breakaway factions such as the Radicales K have nonetheless found themselves sometimes allies with Peronist factions, in pursuit of reforms that promise social justice and improvements to the lives of citizens (La Nacion, 2006).

Yet the authoritarian character of the Justicialista - with fears ranging from electoral fraud to intimidation and suppression of the press, along with policies like the confiscation of pension funds to plug financial holes (Marty, 2015; Crandall, 2012) - seems to have helped align the UCR with the opposition. That has led the UCR on the path joining Cambiemos, despite its mainstream, globalising, neoliberal approach (Rodriguez, 2015).

Now, it would not be a surprise to see the election of 2015 presented as a contest between the market and the state. Yet in reality, it was more after the fashion of the statist, populist and nationalist Peronists, holding a long-term authoritarian grip on power, versus a broad opposition, that Macri has succeeded in rallying around his open and 'neoliberal' way - that embraces the global system.

That is a story replicated across Europe in different shades - liberals and social democrats shackled to the neoliberal mainstream, in the face of rising fear and nationalism, rallying to protect positive gains embodied in the the establishment institutions. So why, the question might well be asked, would or should the Centre-Left consider breaking away from the Centre-Right? It is certainly clear that the global economic crisis is not over and that populist nationalism has not retreated - even in Argentina after its defeat.

The answer is because, ultimately, neoliberalism is no friend to social progress.

For all his moderate liberal credentials, as Mayor of Buenos Aires Mauricio Macri behaved in a typically neoliberal way - defunding social programs in search of competition at the expense of social security (Esperanza Casullo, 2015). And Argentina's Macrinomic path out of its present crisis will likely follow the same austerian path as many countries in Europe - particularly the UK under George Osborne Chancellorship.

But that doesn't mean that some overnight, clean break is imminent. Progressives in Argentina must build gradually towards an unshackling, because the election demonstrated that there is not yet much of a political space for a radical alternative to Peronist statism or the neoliberal market. Yet Macri's election has levered open the door and progressives must step into that new space to develop a fresh consensus around a just, sustainable and liberating alternative, amenable to the building of broad Left movement.

As the Conservative Housing Bill faces criticism, Spain's municipalism movement offers hopes for an alternative way forward

The housing crisis in the UK is deep rooted and impacts on everything around it. Photograph: Regency Houses from Pixabay (License) (Cropped)

The housing crisis is one of the biggest challenges facing the UK. On Tuesday, the Conservative government's attempt to address it, the Housing and Planning Bill, returns to the Commons for its third reading.

The bill aims to introduce one of the government's priority manifesto promises, namely the extension and expansion of rent-to-buy (Foster, 2016). The Conservative plans, including forcing local authorities to sell-off high value vacant properties, have however faced criticism and protests.

Progressive critics have warned that the Conservative plan will only exacerbate problems, risking simply shifting housing out of the reach of the poorest (Chakrabortty, 2016). The dangers of the direction in which the Conservatives are heading only highlights the need to explore other avenues to find creative, positive alternatives - the most promising of which appears to be the new municipalism movement.

The Housing Crisis

Britain's housing problem is extremely serious, but can be boiled down to two main factors. First, a shortage, and second, the exorbitant cost. Recommendations call for at least 200,000 new homes to be built each year to keep up with demand (Rutter, 2014). Yet building is not even keeping up with the sell-off of social housing into private hands and costs, for buying or renting, continue to rise far beyond the reach of ordinary people (Williams, 2016).

In the face of these problems it is of the utmost importance to stress that Britain's housing crisis is at the root of so many other problems and is the impediment of so many paths to reform. Britain's housing crisis is central, not least, to the struggle to arrest the cost of living, which is afflicting both businesses and individual citizens. To name just one problem, welfare reforms, whether progressive or conservative, are hindered by the huge cost of housing benefit.

Nor is it an exclusively modern problem. The large and integrated problem of housing is a long term issue, even being pointed to as the weak link in William Beveridge's analysis and his attempts to build a flat-rate, contributory, subsistence system of social welfare (Birch, 2012).

"The attempt to fix rates of insurance benefit and pension on a scientific basis with regard to subsistence needs has brought to notice a serious difficulty in doing so in the conditions of modern Britain. This is the problem of rent. In this, as in other respects, the framing of a satisfactory scheme of social security depends on the solution of other problems of economic and social organisation."

Amongst the impediments to fixing Britain's housing problems is the matter of buy-to-let (Gallagher, 2015). Alicia Glen, New York's Deputy mayor for housing and economic development, remarked in 2014 that one factor undermining efforts at establishing affordability was the small scale of private rented housing in the UK (Murray, 2014) - an inefficient and expensive system that ignores the benefits, particularly reduced costs, of operating at scale.

Conservative Opportunism

Into the breach have stepped the Conservatives, with plans that represent an attempt at a fundamental shift, not only from public to private but also from rental to ownership (Allen & Parker, 2015). However, Conservative plans to increase housing stock in the private buyers market - by opportunistically siphoning homes out of the social housing sector - so as to drive down prices through competition, will not by itself tackle the crucial element of affordability (Williams, 2016).

In fact, critics see it as only further alienating ordinary people by taking away affordable rented housing and consolidating more of the UK's housing within a market house price bubble - far beyond the reach of those earning around the national average (Chakrabortty, 2016).

For the Conservatives, the point seems to be to complete the plans of Thatcher and theories of Willetts from the 80s and 90s (George & Wilding, 1994). Those efforts focussed on dismantling the welfare state in favour of purely market systems - which included privatised social insurance and privatised housing.

From the perspective of a progressive, the obsession with subjecting the public welfare to competition for 'earned privilege', in a kind of conservative meritocracy that ignores preordained advantages but also, of course, disadvantages, is distressing. In a system that seeks to marry negative liberty, the removal of obstacles, with selfish conservative elitism - pursuing market solutions which look for cost cutting 'competitiveness' even at the expense of livelihoods - social security would begin to look fragile.

The fact that the conservatives are ascendant and have the majority necessary to impose their ideological system makes it urgently necessary to develop a realistic, alternative progressive solution.

Better Ways

In opposition to the Conservative response to the crisis is Caroline Lucas of the Green Party (Lucas, 2016). Her Lucas Plan calls for a serious rethink of the UK's housing model. It addresses the escalating rents by calling for a Living Rent - with a clear cap that not only tightens the reins on out of control rents but seeks to reduce the cost of housing down to an accessible level.

Lucas combines this with the need for getting on with plans for building new 'eco-fit' homes and renovating existing housing to be more energy efficient. These steps could together help to tackle two of the key elements in the battle to arrest the cost of living: the cost of housing and the cost of energy.

However, there are other questions around the issue that cannot be ignored in an effort to rethink the housing model. How should these homes be built, owned and run? There is a clear divide, with scepticism being poured from one side to the other for the idea of centralised authorities holding monopolies over something as fixed as land and shelter - whether that be scepticism towards the state or the exclusionary and elitist actors in the private market.

Hope for a new way forward might be found in the new municipalism movements (Gutierrez Gonzalez, 2016). In Spain, a number of cities have elected administrations born from the 15M Indignados protests, affiliated with Podemos. These local based projects are finding new ways to organise and operate, including massive horizontal co-operation between different city administrations (Shea Baird, 2015).

In Barcelona, for example, the new Barcelona En Comu led city council is making headway in tackling their housing shortage with a plan to use empty, privately owned houses for social rent properties (Rodriguez, 2016). The plan has already secured the use of 150 properties, with maybe 100 more soon to be added - with the owners compensated - which has provided secure, social rent accommodation for 450 people.

This has been achieved at the municipal level, an example of what might be achieved in cities where citizens learn they can run their own public spaces for the common good. Where citizens learn that they can lead radical administrations towards creative solutions. Exactly that kind of active and participatory concern on the part of citizens in the common good, embraced alongside a decentralisation of power, is not beyond the UK's ability to adopt.

In fact, the UK has already seen this kind of co-operative movement with community energy projects. In the UK, there have already been community owned and run green energy projects which have sought to install wind turbines and solar panels (Vaughan, 2015). However, what little support there has been from the government in the form of tax relief has been slowly cut away (Voinea, 2015).

That move has angered those on the Left who believe that community energy represents a way to a sustainable, affordable future that can oppose the power of big energy corporations (Lewis, 2015). Yet, even under attack, community energy has shown that this kind of civic action is possible in the UK. That they are possible, at least, should be an inspiration to those looking for fresh solutions to the problems of housing and energy in the UK.

On the housing front, the Lucas Plan, backed by a renewed appreciation for housing associations and an embrace of giving residents, citizens, and the community a greater stake, offers the outline for a progressive way forward. One that combines smart legislation and regulation with decentralised municipal action in pursuit of smart, creative ways to ensure availability, affordability and sustainability.

Corbyn tries to give Labour a fresh start to the new year, but infighting and bitterness again sours efforts to take party forward

Corbyn's reshuffle ensures his own views are better represented in key posts and increases representation of women, but has been soured by more squabbling. Photograph: Jeremy Corbyn at CWU Manchester event in October 2015.

Ahead of the return of MPs to their work at Westminster on Tuesday, Jeremy Corbyn set out to give the Labour Party a fresh start to 2016. In the light of the divisions in his shadow cabinet during his first few months, Corbyn sought to do this with a reshuffle of his team (Mason, 2016).

For progressives, whether supporters of either Corbyn or Labour's 'moderate' faction, or neither, a fresh start has to be considered a positive step. However, as seems to be becoming an unfortunate trend, the effort looks at risk of being buried beneath internal squabbling.

That would be a disappointing start for the Left in 2016. While some victories have been won by progressives in opposition, in only a very few months - like stopping the implementation of tax credit cuts and at least delaying the eventual onset of their affects (Stewart et al, 2015) - the Left still needs to rally and present an effective opposition in the year ahead.

Despite rumours and speculation, facts were scarce as Jeremy Corbyn set about the task of reshuffling Labour's shadow cabinet on Monday. The clearest consensus seemed to be that making too drastic of a change would be foolish (Kuenssberg, 2016), as it might be interpreted as the taking of revenge on some shadow cabinet members who had spoken out against the party line.

In the event, the reshuffle itself was small in scale (Perraudin, 2016) - although it took days to resolve itself, almost running over into Prime Minister's Questions. Only Michael Dugher and Pat McFadden were ousted from the portfolio's of Culture and Europe, respectively. Maria Eagle moved sideways to culture, replaced in the Defence portfolio by Emily Thornberry, with Pat Glass taking on the Europe brief - certainly increasing the representation of women on the Labour frontbench.

However, controversies have still arisen even from those small alterations. Labour's, now former, frontbencher Michael Dugher took to twitter and the media circuit to denounce Corbyn, claiming he had been sacked for being straight talking and honest (ITV, 2016). Other rumours circle as to why certain MPs were singled out, with words like disloyalty and incompetence being used, and other frontbench MPs have resigned (BBC, 2016; Sparrow, 2016).

To let the beginning of a new year be eaten by more infighting would be a tragic state of affairs for the Left. Some sort of symbolic break, even small, from the first few months could have been a positive move, establishing Labour on a new plateau. After three months in charge, while there had been difficulties and threats of splits, Labour had also, nonetheless, had some successes upon which to build such a position.

At the moment, Corbyn is the Left's most prominent leader - seen as a principled man, an idealist (White, 2016), and as a leader willing also to be an activist, out on the streets in support of a cause (Perraudin, 2016{2}). Corbyn won the Labour leadership election with a huge swell of public support, his party comfortably won the Oldham by-election, and they were also deeply involved in forcing the Chancellor to backdown over the implementation of cuts to tax credits.

Coming up in 2016 are local council, London Mayoral, Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament elections in the Spring, and potentially the EU referendum in the Summer, in all of which progressives need to present a strong and coherent message. There are also policies like the Conservative's Housing Bill that need to be properly scrutinised and opposed. Yet that can only be the case if progressives can come together and working constructively, side by side for the common good.

That means the Left, and in particular Labour, need to learn to play nicely with others - as the political system in the UK still gives too much power to one faction for any single opposition party to make much headway alone. The various groups in opposition need to start finding real ways of working together on common issues - particularly, Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens, but also with the progressive though nationalist groups like the SNP and Plaid Cymru.

A reset, and a fresh start, would have been nice for the Left. For now though, the best that the Left can hope for from Labour is that bridges begin to be rebuilt. The squabbling has to stop (Jones, 2016). Labour's MPs have to remember that their party is the largest on the Left and that the position comes with a responsibility to lead scrutiny of the government - a government that has shown itself to be far less than invulnerable. The time has come to focus on that battle rather than internal intrigues.