Uneasy bedfellows

What is liberalism when some of those who badge themselves this way have become so illiberal? And what is liberalism's relationship to socialism?

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I am a democratic Socialist who also happens to be pretty liberal and progressive.

I know there are some, those who disagree with my prioitsation of women’s sex based rights and philosophical questions of gender as a social construct who don’t believe that of me. They feel my feminist position is inherently conservative rather than progressive.

I think they’re wrong, but here is my challenge to those critics: as a liberal progressive, I don’t want you to lose your job, your cherished voluntary political position, your livelihood, your friends or, indeed, have your mental health suffer as a result of disagreeing with me. Can you say the same to me and those who agree with me?

Instead, I want to talk to you about our two positions - that we both consider to be progressive - and see if we can find a way to make sure that both are respected and accommodated within public policy making to the best of our ability. I’m willing to debate, discuss and even try to find acceptable compromises to ensure the best possible outcome.

But I will, however, be vehement in standing against any behaviour that seeks to shut out me or my allies; against behaviour that seeks to enforce a belief through repression and bullying, not through persuasion.

That is what being liberal means to me. It’s about pluralism. Accepting that people have views that differ from my own. Trying to persuade people to agree with me through argument not coertion.

Of course I want my own views to triumph in a competition of ideas. Wanting that is not illiberal. But the competition is the point. We have to have the discussion. The battle of ideas should be about who can best persuade, not who has the ability to silence dissent.

This has not been what has been happening within many supposedly progressive spaces lately. This month has seen two employment tribunals where women who share the same values as me have been found to have been hounded at work for doing so. Many HR departments, funding bodies, professional bodies, regulators and political organisations should be looking at the cases of Rachael Meade and Professor Jo Phoenix and asking themselves some very serious and searching questions. Not least “are we next?”

I don’t want to shut down those who would prioritise gender over sex. That’s their absolute right in a pluralistic society. I think that all good arguments are won when both sides are able to present their case in public without fear and that very much includes those who disagree with me. But we all have to do so without lying about, demonising or trying to personally or professionally destroy our opponents. We have to treat them as opponents and not as enemies.

People who narrow their alliances only to the pure will inevitably find themselves in a minorty in a democratic society. They will also - almost certainly - one day find themselves cast among the unpure.

This is not to say that I will ally with any and all people who say they are fighting my cause.I have had occassion to oppose those who I share my own beliefs around gender and sex. I don’t think everyone who is gender critical (GC) is tolerant of debate either. There are GC women and men whose tactics I disagree with on a range from misguided to abhorant. And when I think that I say so.

Much as I do with the Labour Party. I think movements are made better, stronger and more persuasive by internal debate about tactics and policy. GC women (and men) are no more a homogeneous group than the Labour Party is, and that kind of debate and discussion should make us stronger not weaker.

I am increasingly concerned by the illiberal application of liberal values. I don’t think that we win that way.

For example, the police should not be investigating what people think. They should be investigating what people do when they have broken the law. There should be absolutely no room in a pluralist society for a police held register of ‘non-crime hate incidents’ however abhorent or not I find the views expressed.

I say “or not” because a lot of GC people have found themselves on this register. So have a lot of people expressing homophobic and racist views that I find to be vile. I am trying very hard not to lump these things together and I would like our lawmakers and law officers to do the same.

I also think some of the language used about some trans people is just as vile and hateful as I find racist and sexist language. I would and do challenge it when it is used to or near me. However, I don’t think this is the same as not knowing or making mistakes about pronouns. I will always try to use your correct pronouns. I just won’t be forced into declaring mine. This is surely the liberal position. Accepting that people make mistakes and this discussion is incredibly fast moving and fluid so it will always take people time to catch up. Not witch hunting at the first sign of a TERF.

Mostly though, I just don’t think that it’s the police’s job to deal with this. Not least when we have such an appalling rate of detection of serious crimes like rape and sexual assault.

The reasons for this should be fairly obvious. What if societal views change but the register remains? Ask yourself what would happen if the prevalent view today is tomorrow considered out of bounds? There could be a flip from those currently considered TERFs and Transphobes to those who call people TERFs and transphobes finding themselves on this register. I would fight that equally hard. It is the tool here that is wrong - not who currently finds themselves on the sharp end of it.

But here’s the other side of the equation. I’m a social liberal, I am absolutely not an economic liberal.

I am a progressive socialist, not a socialist progressive. The order matters here. The key descriptor is socialist - that’s the heart of my belief system. The progressive is a moderator which states that alongside those core beliefs I choose to practise that socialism in a progressive way.

But socialism does come with a range of views when it comes to progressivism and social conservatism. There are Catholic socialists, for example, who believe my firm stance on a woman’s right to an abortion to be abhorant, but share my belief in a more equal society when it comes to class. Those Catholics might also consider my belief in the priority of sex equally unprogressive as I consider their stance on abortion.

For me, democratic socialism is about imposing moral order on the amoral system of markets to avoid immoral outcomes. It is about the equalisation of rights, opportunites and income between classes to vastly reduce inequality. It is an economic choice.

As socialist and liberal values have been aligned since at least the 1960s, they are often mistaken for being the same thing. This is particularly true in the US where socialism remains a fairly fringe (if growing) movement. Mainstream Democrats do not call themselves socialists and while Biden has done quite a lot of market intervention that would absolutely fit my definition above, he does so without definition and without making that larger argument about class inequality (and please, don’t let anyone tell you America is a classless society).

And of course, whatever your political belief here in the UK- all the way from hard left to hard right - we do tend to import a lot of our politics from the States. So with even the Democratic Socialists there being far more vocal, far more often, about social liberalism than about economic socialism, the notion that you cannot be a socialist without also adopting the in group liberal and progressive opinions continues.

Social liberalism has spread a great deal even as economic inequality has vastly increased. The first part of this is a good thing. But too often this progress is used to obfuscate economic regression.

Some on the right are increasingly vocal in their opposition to Woke Capitalism (look at the way Ron DeSantis has gone after Disney for example) but few on the left seem to have adopted a critical stance to it.

But woke capitalism, however liberal it might be on social issues, is still capitalism in tooth and claw. If companies have decided that the best way to increase shareholder profit is to paint themselves as socially inclusive that is not stopping them from fighting endlessly for their profit margins and motives which only ever increase the wealth of the few at the expense of the many who rely on the publically provided services the taxes they avoid and campaign to lessen pay for.

And most of the time, woke capitalism is really just the most lightweight of PR exercises. We’ll see a lot of corporations tweeting their support for International Woman’s Day on 8th March. How many of those have crèches or truly flexible working or have even addressed the pay gap between the sexes? Very few is the answer.

Class still matters however little we talk about it. Class equality is at the heart of what socialists stand for. If we exclude people who are fighting for socialism because they are not liberal socialists, we lose a great many people from what should be the very real fight.

Let me be absolutely clear. This is not - in any way - to claim that the working class are any more or less illiberal than other classes. That’s not what I am saying at all. Those who think that any step back from the current trends within supposed liberalism are a sop to an unsophisticated working class are being as patronising as hell.

Equally it is worth stating that the identities around which much of modern liberalism is shaped are just as likely to be found in working class people as middle or upper class people (more so when it comes to race of course, because historical and ongoing societal imbalances have made it much more likely that, for a large portion of most minority ethnic groups in this country, you have a statistically lower chance of being born into wealth). Working class people are all races, have all sexual orientations and follow a variety of religions and belief systems.

What I am saying is that if the language of priorities is the religion of socialism, we should not be excluding those who share a class-based analysis from the fight for a more equal share of the benefits of society between classes becuase we disagree with them on other issues.

So when it comes to my socialism, I will stand beside that Catholic and we will fight side-by-side. When it comes to my feminism and social liberalism I will argue with them until the cows come home without ever shunning them. And I will do both concurrently.

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What I’ve been up to

Two episodes of House of Comments that were largely focused on recent Tory psychodrama (tune in, bring popcorn!) firstly on the huge MRP poll and the analysis around it; Secondly on Simon Clarke’s lonely stance and the ongoing turmoil across the party.

We also recorded a new episode of Zeitgeist Tapes. Frankly, given the impact it has had, could we have done this on anything else but the utterly brilliant Mr Bates Vs The Post Office?

These podcasts take quite a bit of time and work. I know I have already asked for subscriptions and donations above, so I won’t do that again. But if you do listen to - and enjoy - any or all of these episodes please consider subscribing and leaving us a positive review.

Last Saturday I was delighted to speak at The Fabian Society’s brilliant New Year conference. Full disclosure, I work part time for the Fabians and they also gave me my first job in politics 20+ years ago. One of the first things I did was run New Year Conference! My speech is a development of the piece I first wrote here offering Labour the slogan Let’s Fix Britain. The video of the session is here. It was a really good event (she says modestly).

From the archives

While I would like you all to read as many of my Substack posts as possible (and subscribe of course) I have a load of old pieces - some political, some not - that I remain proud of and so I thought I would start sharing one every week.

This week, thanks to being made very angry on TwiXter (too often my default setting) I dug out this piece on successful people living in social housing. Written back when I was a weekly LabourList columnist.