cross-posted from IrishElection.com – unfortunately I spent a week editing this, and fear it lost much of it’s coherence along the way….
I’ve had cause to do a lot of reading recently. For reasons that are partially related to work, and partially related to some ideas I’ve been tossing around with friends, I’ve spent some time reading about progressive movements in the UK. The possibility of a hung parliament seems to have created an atmosphere in which people are much more comfortable talking about alliances and coalitions than normal. While think-tanks (of which we really need more in Ireland) such as Demos and the Fabian Society have been putting considerable effort into bringing in progressive voices from Labour and Lib Dems, and even including ‘progressive Tories’. The think-tanks have helped strengthen a conversation around progressive stances through their respective blogs – Demos blog and Next Left. Left Foot Forward have also played a significant role in this conversation.
The conversation has been different in Ireland, but there have been attempts by group blogs such as Irish Left Review and Cedar Lounge Revolution to examine co-operation and sharing of ideas between people of the left. But both blogs have been plagued at times by comments from readers insisting that one political party is more left than another, or that the Government should simply be branded as evil and stupid while we crouch behind our party identities.
I’m a Labour Party member, supporter, activist and employee, and for that I make no apologies. Within the Labour Party, I know people who would describe themselves as socialists, social-democrats, liberals, trade unionists, progressives and even centrists. And there are many who deride my party for the presence of that range of views. Equally, people of the left love to excoriate the Green Party for the role they are playing in Government at present, just as progressive voices have savaged Sinn Féin for their failures in Government in the North. On top of that, we have a plethora of community activists in Ireland who remain disdainful of all parties of the left. I could go on, but my point is that the liberal left in Ireland have fundamentally failed to build a progressive majority.
Will Straw (editor of Left Foot Forward) argues that in the UK, in order to realistically campaign against child poverty or climate change, that:
It makes no sense to appeal solely to the supporters and representatives of one political party – instead we can branch out to like-minded people who have found themselves in a different political tradition or none at all.
Which is certainly a sentiment I agree with. Many people who have expressed such sentiments in recent times, have gone on to propose a ‘Left Alliance’ of political parties – usually encompassing Labour, Sinn Féin, Green Party, Socialist Party and Socialist Workers’ Party/People Before Profit Alliance. That argument is a politically useful one for those seeking to attract votes from voters who identify as left-wing (as when Gerry Adams made such an appeal). However, I believe that the strategy is, at best, one that will achieve success in the very long-term, and at worst, one destined to fail. In the current Dáil, there are 31 members of the above parties, representing just 19% of the total – by any standards, some distance from a majority.
While I would join those who assert Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to be broadly right-of-centre parties, I do not believe that this label applies to all of their voters, or even to all of their members or public representatives. And it is the progressives within these parties, and in broader society, who must be appealed to if we are to achieve any real and lasting change.
What I propose is a new intellectual rigour between those of those who identify as progressive. I think we should come together in groups (be they party-based groups or non-partisan), to develop our thinking – to reevaluate our stances on jobs and employment, energy and security, the ‘national question’, climate change and environmentalism, gender constructs, and a myriad of other topics. We should put our proposed solutions into the public realm, to be published, adapted or referred to by political and non-political groupings as required. And we must realise that segmentation and division of the left only makes us weaker – we must focus on positive proposals, and strengthening of ideas, rather than on criticism of politics, and demeaning the efforts of others.
Ideas, not politics, were the foundations of trade unions, progressive political parties, environmentalist and feminist organisations, and community activities. But it an absence of ideas that now stands between the status quo and a progressive majority. Criticism of focus groups, professional communications, political polling and electoral strategies will continue, and there are more than enough spaces in all media where such conversations can occur. But a broadening of the conversational arena is badly needed to allow new ideas to flourish outside such criticism. Party politics, electoral battles, local differences and battles of spin will also continue. But a more rigorous expression of progressive ideas such as the dangers of climate change, gay rights, and the right to a minimum wage has acheived success in the past, and can again in the future.
The progressive ideas highlighted above succeeded in building progressive majorities, and I believe that we can build many further such majorities – paving the way towards a progressive electoral majority. But first we have to build those ideas.
