As UK progressives run scared on welfare, the US left fights back

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jul/21/uk-progressives-run-scared-welfare-us-left-fights

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When the acting Labour leader Harriet Harman proclaimed that the party would not block the latest Tory welfare bill, it was yet another of those moments when people standing up for the virtues of a welfare state threw their hands up in despair. What, many progressive-minded people wondered (as indeed did the newly elected SNP members in parliament), is the point of an opposition that doesn’t oppose and fails to offer a genuine alternative?

Now that the Conservatives have their first majority in almost two decades, they are gleefully scything through a host of social protections – not least of which is the attack on child tax credits within the welfare bill that will leave low-income working families worse off and thrust more children into poverty.

While laudable objections to Harman’s stance are being voiced within the party, including from leadership contender Jeremy Corbyn, it still feels like shouting from the sidelines. Corbyn and a few others aside, it’s all too apparent that an assertive, progressive message that puts average citizens at its core and aspires to protect the most vulnerable is now all but absent from the centre stage of British politics.

To everyone's surprise, Sanders has been giving the frontrunner, Hillary Clinton, a run for her money

So, it has been invigorating by contrast to witness what’s happening in the US.

Far from progressives running scared, there is a palpable and populist movement, fuelled in part by the lingering fallout of the great recession, rising inequality, low pay, insecure employment and other social injustices. The movement is making its presence felt – and winning over voters in the process.

One of those at the helm is Bernie Sanders, independent senator for Vermont (the septuagenarian has always, rarely for a modern American politician, self-identified as a socialist) who is running in the Democratic party primary for its presidential nomination. To everyone’s surprise, he has been giving the frontrunner, Hillary Clinton, a run for her money.

In fact, so successful has Sanders been at standing up for middle- and working-class people that he has narrowed Clinton’s lead in the polls and is credited, along with trailblazing Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren, with forcing her towards the left on economic issues.

The one-time outlier’s stance on the economy failing workers while lining the pockets of chief executives, his critique of Wall Street and vested interests and of the rich creaming off any benefit from the recovery have resonated widely. This month, Sanders pulled a crowd of more than 10,000 to a rally in Wisconsin – bigger than any of the other presidential hopefuls from either party – and has attracted hundreds of thousands of small donors. He’s done all of this campaigning on a 12-point Agenda for America that includes “growing the trade union movement” and “protecting the most vulnerable Americans”.

Related: Barack Obama moves to double US salary limit on overtime pay

Pluck almost any quote from Sanders’s repertoire on economic and social justice and you can begin to understand his appeal. There is no equivocation. Take this one: “Nobody who works 40 hours a week should be living in poverty.” And this: “Balancing the budget on the backs of the elderly, the sick, the children and the poor is not only immoral, it is bad economic policy. It is something that must be vigorously opposed.” Then: “Our nation cannot survive morally or economically when so few have so much while so many have so little. We need a tax system which asks the billionaire class to pay its fair share of taxes and which reduces the obscene degree of wealth inequality in America.”

There are other developments in the country adding momentum to progressive policy instincts. Just when the government in Britain is making moves to undermine trade unions, ministers are mooting charges in the NHS and a US-style insurance system for sick leave, President Obama has been busy introducing measures to extend access to paid overtime.

The push-pull between left, right and centre for ownership of the political tide is a never-ending dance in both countries and, of course, just because the liberal left has renewed vigour in the US doesn’t make for a total sea change. The US remains a country of contradictions, split along political lines. But what people such as Sanders have shown is that principled, passionate advocacy from the left on economic and social policy – and a clear, confident plan to go with it – really can hit home, and even leave people wanting more.