Ya Bass

We are democrats and progressives. We propose here a fresh political alignment. Many of us belong to the Left, but the principles that we set out are not exclusive. We reach out, rather, beyond the socialist Left towards egalitarian liberals and others of unambiguous democratic commitment. Indeed, the reconfiguration of progressive opinion that we aim for involves drawing a line between the forces of the Left that remain true to its authentic values, and currents that have lately shown themselves rather too flexible about these values. It involves making common cause with genuine democrats, whether socialist or not.

It started with some like-minded progressives meeting in a London pub. Disenchanted with what they saw as the wrong-headed thinking of the anti-war movement, they began to talk of a new left movement.

On a Saturday last May, right after the general election, 20 or so similarly minded people met in a pub in London. We had no specific agenda, merely a desire to talk about where things were politically. Those present were all of the left: some bloggers or running other websites, their readers, a few with labour movement connections, one or two students. Many of us were supporters of the military intervention in Iraq, and those who weren't - who had indeed opposed it - none the less found themselves increasingly out of tune with the dominant anti-war discourse. They were at odds, too, with how it related to other prominent issues - terrorism and the fight against it, US foreign policy, the record of the Blair government, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and, more generally, attitudes to democratic values.

At that first meeting our discussion focused on our common sense of discord with much current left-liberal thinking. We talked of how the prevailing consensus had ample representation in the liberal press, on the BBC and Channel 4, whereas the viewpoint of our own segment of the left was significantly under- represented in the mainstream media. We had, however, found a place on the internet and in the blogosphere, which had helped to connect people who might otherwise have felt isolated and had given expression to the voices and debates of a left other than the one heard loudly everywhere: from TV screens and newspapers, in universities and other workplaces, in theatres, at dinner tables and at every kind of social gathering. Its ideas were so much perceived as conventional wisdom that many found it difficult to allow that there could be an alternative left-liberal view.

The group that took informal shape that Saturday decided to continue meeting, with the aim of getting its political arguments out beyond the internet, of winning for those arguments a greater space within more traditional forums of public discussion. We have met twice more (at a pub near Euston Station, as it happens); others who were not at the initial meeting have become involved.

We have now produced a manifesto, in advance of a public launch some time in May. In it we set out our basic commitments. In the nature of what it is, a document of orientation, the manifesto may, in some of its points, appear to state the obvious. We make no apology for this. Part of the problem with much contemporary left-liberal opinion is that too many things that should be obvious in the light of the history of the past hundred years seem not to be so.

We hope that this manifesto will serve as an encouragement to others who, like ourselves, bel ieve that some of the most important values of a progressive politics have lately been lost sight of, subordinated to wrong-headed political priorities and insubstantial tactical consideration.

# posted by redstar : 5:09 pm