A progressive alliance in the UK is the idea of a cross-party political alliance supporting "

progressive politics Progressivism holds that it is possible to improve human societies through political action. As a political movement, progressivism seeks to advance the human condition through social reform based on purported advancements in science, techn ...

", generally in opposition to

right-wing Right-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics, authorit ...

parties, chiefly the

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

History

20th century

The term progressive alliance has been used to describe the Gladstone–MacDonald pact, the 1903 agreement between the

Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. __TOC__ Active liberal parties This is a li ...

and the Labour Representation Committee (forerunner to the Labour Party) to stand aside for each other in constituencies. In the 1930s, the movement for a

Popular Front A popular front is "any coalition of working-class and middle-class parties", including liberal and social democratic ones, "united for the defense of democratic forms" against "a presumed Fascist assault". More generally, it is "a coalition ...

called for a broad

anti-fascist Anti-fascism is a political movement in opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals. Beginning in European countries in the 1920s, it was at its most significant shortly before and during World War II, where the Axis powers were ...

alliance involving Labour, the Liberals, the

Communists Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a so ...

and anti-fascist Conservatives. This policy was strongly supported by the Communist Party, whilst supporters of the Popular Front such as

Stafford Cripps Sir Richard Stafford Cripps (24 April 1889 – 21 April 1952) was a British Labour Party politician, barrister, and diplomat. A wealthy lawyer by background, he first entered Parliament at a by-election in 1931, and was one of a handful of La ...

achieved a significant degree of influence within the Labour Party at this time, particularly after the outbreak of the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...

in 1936; however, the

Labour Party Conference The Labour Party Conference is the annual conference of the British Labour Party. It is formally the supreme decision-making body of the party and is traditionally held in the final week of September, during the party conference season when the ...

voted against a Popular Front policy on several occasions.

Clement Attlee Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, (3 January 18838 October 1967) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955. He was Deputy Prime Mini ...

post-war In Western usage, the phrase post-war era (or postwar era) usually refers to the time since the end of World War II. More broadly, a post-war period (or postwar period) is the interval immediately following the end of a war. A post-war period c ...

"progressive alliance" in the Labour Party saw the introduction of the

National Health Service The National Health Service (NHS) is the umbrella term for the publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom (UK). Since 1948, they have been funded out of general taxation. There are three systems which are referred to using the " ...

comprehensive education Comprehensive may refer to: * Comprehensive layout, the page layout of a proposed design as initially presented by the designer to a client. *Comprehensive school, a state school that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement ...

and the

welfare state A welfare state is a form of government in which the state (or a well-established network of social institutions) protects and promotes the economic and social well-being of its citizens, based upon the principles of equal opportunity, equitabl ...

. During the 1980s, calls for an alliance of parties opposed to the policies of

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. S ...

grew during a period where the Thatcher government inflicted a number of defeats on the labour movement. One of the key figures arguing for such an alliance was the historian

Eric Hobsbawm Eric John Ernest Hobsbawm (; 9 June 1917 – 1 October 2012) was a British historian of the rise of industrial capitalism, socialism and nationalism. A life-long Marxist, his socio-political convictions influenced the character of his work. H ...

, whose article "The Forward March of Labour Halted" suggested that the working class was not powerful enough to secure the implementation of socialist policies and that cross-class alliances were essential for progressive politics. These sentiments were particularly widespread in the

Eurocommunist Eurocommunism, also referred to as democratic communism or neocommunism, was a trend in the 1970s and 1980s within various Western European communist parties which said they had developed a theory and practice of social transformation more rele ...

wing of the Communist Party, and the party's theoretical journal ''

Marxism Today ''Marxism Today'', published between 1957 and 1991, was the theoretical magazine of the Communist Party of Great Britain. The magazine was headquartered in London. It was particularly important during the 1980s under the editorship of Martin Jacque ...

'', although they were also widely influential within the

soft left The soft left is a faction within the British Labour Party. The term "soft left" was coined to distinguish the mainstream left of Michael Foot from the hard left of Tony Benn. History The distinction between hard and soft left became eviden ...

of the Labour Party. Green Party politician and academic

Rupert Read Rupert Read (born 1966) is an academic and a Green Party campaigner and a former spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion. Read is a reader in philosophy at the University of East Anglia

has described the tactics of Labour and the Liberal Democrats in the 1997 general election, when they focused on attacking the Conservatives rather than each other, as a precedent for a progressive alliance.

21st century

The idea of a progressive alliance was mooted in the run-up to the 2015 general election. For example, the phrase was used by

Scottish National Party The Scottish National Party (SNP; sco, Scots National Pairty, gd, Pàrtaidh Nàiseanta na h-Alba ) is a Scottish nationalist and social democratic political party in Scotland. The SNP supports and campaigns for Scottish independence from ...

leader

Nicola Sturgeon Nicola Ferguson Sturgeon (born 19 July 1970) is a Scottish politician serving as First Minister of Scotland and Leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) since 2014. She is the first woman to hold either position. She has been a member of ...

Green Party A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as social justice, environmentalism and nonviolence. Greens believe that these issues are inherently related to one another as a foundation ...

leader

Natalie Bennett Natalie Louise Bennett, Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (born 10 February 1966) is a Australian-British politician and journalist who served as Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales from 2012 to 2016. Bennett was given a peerage in ...

, and

Plaid Cymru Plaid Cymru ( ; ; officially Plaid Cymru – the Party of Wales, often referred to simply as Plaid) is a centre-left to left-wing, Welsh nationalist political party in Wales, committed to Welsh independence from the United Kingdom. Plaid wa ...

leader

Leanne Wood Leanne Wood (born 13 December 1971) is a Welsh politician who served as the leader of Plaid Cymru from March 2012 to September 2018, and served as a Member of the Senedd (MS) from 2003 to 2021. Born in the Rhondda, she was elected as to the ...

. The idea was also proposed in the run-up to the 2017 general election and after the

2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum The United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, commonly referred to as the EU referendum or the Brexit referendum, took place on 23 June 2016 in the United Kingdom (UK) and Gibraltar to ask the electorate whether the country shoul ...

, in which the vote to leave the EU ("

Brexit Brexit (; a portmanteau of "British exit") was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February 2020 CET).The UK also left the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or ...

") was won by a small majority. The concept of building cross-party alliances, with the asserted aim of working together to ensure the best possible future for the people and country, was debated at a public meeting entitled "Post-Brexit Alliance Building" held on 5 July 2016, hosted by the

think tank A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governmenta ...

Compass A compass is a device that shows the cardinal directions used for navigation and geographic orientation. It commonly consists of a magnetized needle or other element, such as a compass card or compass rose, which can pivot to align itself with ...

. The idea became linked to opposition to a "hard" Brexit. In 2019, such tactical voting to prevent a hard Brexit was advocated by the Liberal Democrats, Green Party and Plaid Cymru, in the run-up to that year's General Election. Each party announced that it had agreed to stand down Parliamentary candidates for each other, in seats where one of them had a realistic prospect of winning, if votes were not split between them. The idea has been taken up by a number of independent organisations. The concept has not been adopted as official policy by any political party, but the

Green Party of England and Wales The Green Party of England and Wales (GPEW; cy, Plaid Werdd Cymru a Lloegr, kw, Party Gwer Pow an Sowson ha Kembra, often simply the Green Party or Greens) is a green, left-wing political party in England and Wales. Since October 2021, Carla ...

have pushed for a coordinated top-down and bottom-up approach to the idea.

Caroline Lucas Caroline Patricia Lucas (born 9 December 1960) is a British politician who has twice led the Green Party of England and Wales and has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Brighton Pavilion since the 2010 general election. She was re-elected ...

, co-leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, argued for multiple local alliances for the best party to oppose the Conservatives and with a focus on bringing in

electoral reform Electoral reform is a change in electoral systems which alters how public desires are expressed in election results. That can include reforms of: * Voting systems, such as proportional representation, a two-round system (runoff voting), instant-ru ...

. Several grassroots organisations,

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

groups and

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

accounts have sprung up with similar names and aims, with

tactical voting Strategic voting, also called tactical voting, sophisticated voting or insincere voting, occurs in voting systems when a voter votes for another candidate or party than their ''sincere preference'' to prevent an undesirable outcome. For example, ...

being encouraged. Compass has been reported as coordinating a campaign group called Progressive Alliance. There are no mutually agreed policy aims between the various organisations, but these would likely include

to change the

voting system An electoral system or voting system is a set of rules that determine how elections and referendums are conducted and how their results are determined. Electoral systems are used in politics to elect governments, while non-political elections ma ...

(e.g.

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...

). The name itself is somewhat unclear as there is no agreed definition of progressivism in

British politics The United Kingdom is a unitary state with devolution that is governed within the framework of a parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarchy in which the monarch, currently Charles III, King of the United Kingdom, is the ...

. There are dissenting views on the benefits of such an alliance, and debate as to whether it could make a difference to the electoral outcome. Local campaigns towards standing a single progressive candidate exist in a number of regions, with the Green and Liberal Democrat parties agreeing to stand down candidates in neighbouring constituencies in

quid pro quo Quid pro quo ('what for what' in Latin) is a Latin phrase used in English to mean an exchange of goods or services, in which one transfer is contingent upon the other; "a favor for a favor". Phrases with similar meanings include: "give and take", ...

deals. For example, in

South West Surrey South West Surrey is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament. Since 2005, the seat has been represented by Conservative MP Jeremy Hunt, the current chancellor of the Exchequer and the former Culture Secretar ...

in 2017, the National Health Action Party's

Louise Irvine Marie-Louise Irvine is a Scottish general practitioner, health campaigner, and parliamentary candidate. She unsuccessfully stood for election in the 2015 general election and the 2017 general election for the National Health Action Party in t ...

was selected by a public meeting run by the local Compass group to run as a progressive alliance candidate. In her campaign for the 2020 Liberal Democrat leadership election, MP

Wera Hobhouse Wera Benedicta Hobhouse ( von Reden; born 8 February 1960) is a German-British politician. A member of the Liberal Democrats, Hobhouse has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Bath since 2017 and serves as the Liberal Democrat Shadow Leader of t ...

advocated a progressive alliance with the Greens and Labour, arguing that the Lib Dems "need to abandon equidistance between the Conservative and Labour Parties". Following the 2021 local elections, Dr Kevin Hickson (

University of Liverpool , mottoeng = These days of peace foster learning , established = 1881 – University College Liverpool1884 – affiliated to the federal Victoria Universityhttp://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/2004/4 University of Manchester Act 200 ...

) and Dr Jasper Miles (

Queen Mary University London Queen Mary University of London (QMUL, or informally QM, and previously Queen Mary and Westfield College) is a public university, public research university in Mile End, East London, England. It is a member institution of the federal University of ...

) expressed doubt about the chances of a progressive alliance. In August 2021, Labour Party leader

Keir Starmer Sir Keir Rodney Starmer (; born 2 September 1962) is a British politician and barrister who has served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party since 2020. He has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Holborn and St Pancras ...

ruled out working with the SNP on an electoral pact.

Notes

References

{{reflist, refs= {{cite news, last1=Barnes, first1=Peter, title=General election 2017: Deals, pacts and alliances, url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39748035, accessdate=28 April 2017, publisher=BBC News, date=28 April 2017 {{cite news, last1=Bulman, first1=May, title=Labour facing revolt as activists refuse to back candidates in bid to fight Theresa May’s plans for hard Brexit, url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-progressive-alliance-general-election-general-election-liberal-democrats-green-party-jeremy-a7709426.html, accessdate=30 April 2017, publisher=The Independent, date=30 April 2017 {{cite news, last1=Asthana, first1=Anushka, last2=Elgot, first2=Jessica, title=Labour figures call for candidates to step aside for Greens in two seats, url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/apr/30/labour-figures-call-for-candidates-to-step-aside-for-greens-in-two-seats?CMP=twt_gu, accessdate=30 April 2017, publisher=The Guardian, date=30 April 2017 {{cite book, editor1-last=Nandy, editor1-first=Lisa, editor2-last=Lucas, editor2-first=Caroline, editor3-last=Bowers, editor3-first=Chris, title=The Alternative: Towards a New Progressive Politics, date=25 August 2016, isbn=9781785900495, pages=368, url=https://www.bitebackpublishing.com/books/the-alternative {{cite web, last1=Bourke, first1=India, title=A budding progressive alliance wants to take back the Brexit heartlands, url=http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2016/07/budding-progressive-alliance-wants-take-back-brexit-heartlands, website=New Statesman, date=7 July 2016, accessdate=28 April 2017 {{cite news, last1=Monbiot, first1=George, title=Labour can still survive, but only if it abandons hope of governing alone, url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/05/labour-survive-governing-alone-political-alliance-unity-british-left-power, publisher=The Guardian, date=5 July 2016, accessdate=28 April 2017 {{cite web, title=Post-Brexit Alliance Building, url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL7qew6ZC5kQFtqA6Xhjzh3lGHVz00pcDt&v=PMHuysv5a4E, website=YouTube, publisher=Compass, accessdate=27 April 2017 {{cite web, title=Progressive Alliance, url=http://www.progressivealliance.org.uk, publisher=Compass, accessdate=30 April 2017 {{cite web, title=Progressive Alliance, url=https://prog-allies.github.io/progressive-alliance/, accessdate=30 April 2017 {{cite web, title=Green Party calls for progressive electoral alliance talks, url=https://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/2016/06/29/green-party-calls-for-progressive-electoral-alliance-talks/, website=Green Party, accessdate=27 April 2017 {{cite web, title=More United, url=http://www.moreunited.uk/, accessdate=30 April 2017, language=en {{cite web, title=The Progressive Alliance, url=https://www.facebook.com/theprogressivealliance/, website=www.facebook.com, accessdate=30 April 2017 {{cite web, title=People for a Progressive Alliance, url=https://www.facebook.com/PeopleforaProgressiveAlliance/, website=www.facebook.com, accessdate=30 April 2017, language=en {{cite web, title=The Progressive Alliance, url=https://twitter.com/TheProgAlliance, website=www.twitter.com, accessdate=30 April 2017 {{cite web, title=How To Vote To Stop The Tories, url=https://www.tactical2017.com, website=Unite Against the Tories, accessdate=30 April 2017 {{cite news, title=Jeremy Corbyn rejects 'progressive alliance' with SNP, url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-39648506, accessdate=28 April 2017, publisher=BBC News, date=19 April 2017 {{cite news, last1=Rayner, first1=Gordon, last2=Hope, first2=Christopher, title=Theresa May warns of 'coalition of chaos' if Nicola Sturgeon forms progressive alliance with Labour and Lib Dems, url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/19/nicola-sturgeon-says-snp-will-seek-progressive-alliance-labour/, accessdate=28 April 2017, publisher=The Telegraph, date=19 April 2017 {{cite web, title=A Progressive Alliance: The Alternative?, url=http://www.bbk.ac.uk/events-calendar/a-progressive-alliance-the-alternative, website=Birkbeck, University of London, accessdate=28 April 2017 {{cite news, last1=Williams, first1=Martin, title=FactCheck Q&A: could tactical voting lead to a progressive majority?, url=https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-qa-could-tactical-voting-lead-to-a-progressive-majority, publisher=Channel 4, date=24 April 2017, accessdate=28 April 2017 {{cite web, last1=Quinn, first1=Tom, title=Why a progressive alliance just doesn’t work in British politics, url=https://reaction.life/progressive-alliance-just-doesnt-work-british-politics/, website=Reaction, accessdate=28 April 2017, date=27 April 2017 Political movements in the United Kingdom Political party alliances in the United Kingdom

History

20th century

21st century

See also

Notes

References