... And Neither is Progress "Hard Right"

This time, it was John McDonnell turning up the rhetoric while drowning out the sense. On Channel 4 News last night, he said "there’s a group within the Labour Party who have a right wing conservative agenda. Within Progress itself, there are some who are quite hard right, and I think they’ve never accepted Jeremy’s leadership." I don't think this is particularly helpful, and it might be an idea if someone passed around the chill pills. Progress, of which - surprise, surprise - I'm not a supporter of, does receive generous funds from Lord Sainsbury, but I think people are mistaken for viewing the organisation as a right-wing iteration of Militant.

Progress is a pressure group that publishes a magazine, has its own events and, in some locations, meets at a local level. It has internal elections for its strategy board, sets campaigning priorities, and provides training for members and supporters. Unlike Militant, there is no internal discipline. The views of Richard Angell, Progress's national director, aren't taken as holy writ and no one is expected to parrot a line. Of course, there is some ideological coherence but it's not like Progress possesses a political theology members organise around - it magazine regularly carries debate, which is something you tend not to find in the periodicals of the far left. And because Progress isn't a Blairite monolith, there are members in it reconciled to Jeremy's leadership, but want to steer it into political waters with which they're familiar, and members who moan, whinge, and are disruptive. In other words, just as you'll find on all wings of the party. Lastly, Progress pursues a "best builders" strategy for gaining influence - it has an excellent record of consistently turning activists out for elections at all levels.

Of course, Progress does have disproportional influence in the PLP and therefore, until recently, on the policies of the party, but I don't think there's anything particularly sinister or "hard right" about this. That was a political reality and one, as we know, that is now shifting. Progress nevertheless has the right to organise around their views, as do any members in the party and that remains the case. The party isn't becoming a "Trot cult", to use the words of some more excitable members.

Look, we know what's going on here. Both sides are trying to delegitimise the other. As Progress are seen as a key organisational prop of the Labour right, it's long been the butt of left-wing critiques that portray its politics as non/anti-Labour. Not that the centre and the right are blameless angels, eh Jess Phillips?

The issue is whether the members and the electorate have much of an appetite for endless ding-dongs of this nature, and I don't think they have. There are huge differences over policy direction, and it's fanciful to imagine anyone's going to shut up about them, but when they do come up the party benefits from honest argument and evidence-based discussion. In this regard, I'm in complete agreement with Paul. Only anti-politics and cynicism wins from playground jibes and name calling, so how about it?