Meeting held on Monday 2nd March 2017
Nine of us were present for conversation.
We started with a quotation about how corporate greed had robbed the working classes. Attributed to Trump, the quote not only emphasised the extent of Trump’s hypocrisy, but also was an indication of how the right has grasped what the left has failed to get: that the established political parties have failed to listen to the neglected poor and their human needs. While the policies of Trump, Le Pen, or other right wing governments will only cause more suffering amongst the dispossessed, they have realised the political gains to be had by addressing, or at least appearing to address, their needs (as indeed did Hitler with National Socialism). Our established political methods – with their either/or, left versus right, combative debating methods epitomised in the House of Commons – suits the needs of the media and its demand for eye catching copy of squabbling politicians. But it fails to listen to the needs of those who have been robbed by the neoliberal economic system.
Such thoughts led us to reflect upon the absence amongst the ‘left’ of any coherent alternative vision. At least, this is how it appears as long as the media present politics in simplistic terms which afford no space for alternatives. Thus, for example, 73% of the public see no alternative to the policies of ‘austerity’.
We discussed what an alternative set of policies might look like. Increasing tax was (again) seen as vital, together with investment, in order to address poverty. Capitalism appears to be failing, even in its own terms as there becomes less and less wealth to be extracted from those already exploited.
The left needs to address environmental destruction: to identify clearly the relationships between increasing inequality and increasing environmental degradation (see Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate). Understandably, those who depend upon food banks are unlikely to see climate change as their top priority. But we need to show how it is the poor who suffer the consequences of the rapacious exploitation of natural resources by large corporations. If natural resources could were adequately taxed, there would be the resources to feed the hungry.
But while such environmental concerns might be the focus of a progressive politics, in the Hope Valley ‘the environment’ is largely appropriated by conservative interests. Thus The Peak Park is lenient towards landowners who burn off heather at a cost to wild life to support grouse shooting for the wealthy, but gives little attention to affordable housing needs in the area. It is altogether appropriate for our What’s Left group to explore how the environment – a key concern in the Valley – needs to be connected with a progressive politics.
We thought that our next group meeting would consider this relationship between the environment and progressive politics. Does the Green Party have anything to offer here?