We Divide They Conquer concludes:
For the next two years we need to build relationships of trust around values and ideas, and against one of the most incompetent governments in living memory. We need to test all the things that unite us and understand where we don’t agree and why. We need to be combinational, open-minded and exploratory. We have the time - but not a moment to lose.
Cooperation under FPTP - an adversarial, winner-takes-all system - will not be easy. Political parties are tribal, and we need to respect that. But it is the "Open Tribe" that adapts, thrives and survives in a future that will increasingly be negotiated not imposed.
To make this cooperation a reality has set up networks for Liberal Democrat and Labour Party members who support such moves.
On Monday an online rally is taking place on Monday afternoon to launch this move to cooperation between progressive parties.
It will include speakers from the Lib Dems, Labour, the Greens and the SNP. The Lib Dem speaker will be Layla Moran.
This emphasis on getting parties talking seems to me exactly right: parties cannot simply instruct their voters to support another party en bloc. It also recognises that neither Labour nor the Lib Dems currently have a clear alternative agenda to offer.
This is a development to watch.
The trouble is that Labour has a clause in its construction that it must field a candidate in every seat. Unless and until they rescind this, as per A C Grayling's suggestion in#Putney,arangements will have to be informal and therefore less effective.
ReplyDeleteNo Labour candidate against Martin Bell in Tatton, 1997.
ReplyDeleteHow progressive is Labour, really?
ReplyDelete