Compass and the Co-operative Party have both launched new initiatives in recent weeks aimed at understanding and combatting the rise of the far right.
From campaign group Compass comes National Populism & the Political Three-Body Problem, a paper in its New Setttlement series by Ken Spours, while Stories from Community Britain is part of a new Co-op campaign “to highlight the role that communities are already playing in solving our nation’s most pressing challenges and to reclaim the role of communities as a serious political and economic force”.
Chief among those challenges is a crisis of trust in institutions, politics and “even each other” that has allowed “divisive political forces” to step into the gap, “trying to drive us even further apart”.
“We don’t believe the story of Britain needs to be one of division, disillusionment and decline. We believe a better Britain exists – and to find it, you only need to look to the communities who are leading the fightback,” said party General Secretary Joe Fortune.
The essay collection features writing from community leaders and experts who “showcase communities across the country that are already pioneering solutions to important issues like climate change, economic stagnation and social cohesion”.
“Taken together, these stories provide a blueprint of what our country could look like if every community had the power, ownership and resources to shape the places they live,” said Fortune.
“At a time when trust in politics is at an all-time low, these stories prove that real change isn’t just possible – it’s already happening.
“Our country stands at a crossroads,” he added. “One path leads to division – a politics of hatred and disinformation, where billionaires dictate our democracy and divide our country for their benefit. The other path is one of community.
“I hope Stories from Community Britain is just the first step on that alternative path, showing what a different country we could be if we dare to hope for it.
“Community has always been at the heart of the co-operative movement. Now, we’re on a mission to put it back at the heart of politics.”
The Compass paper, meanwhile, looks at the global spread of national populism via an unlikely meeting of “Gramscian political theory and science fiction”.
“With Trump 2.0 entering a new and aggressive phase marked by alliances with big tech, authoritarian power grabs and US expansionism, and Reform UK experiencing a meteoric rise at home, how can progressives navigate a way through to a good society?” asks the group’s Political Affairs officer, Luke Hurst.
Ken Spours’ pamphlet argues that “progressives must create sufficient gravitational pull to replace regressive chaos with progressive stability – and that a combinational, alliance-based politics can help us to do that”.
National Populism & the Political Three-Body Problem: Regressive chaos and progressive stability in 21st Century politics is free to download on the Compass website.
You can request an email copy of Stories from Community Britain from the Co-operative Party website.
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