Euston Manifesto - 2 comments

A new democratic progressive alliance, in development since May 2005, and named the Euston Manifesto Group, was publicly launched this morning.

The New Statesman are covering the developments, and have added a section to their blog for discussion of the developments.

An extract from the preamble to whet your appetitite:

We are democrats and progressives. We propose here a fresh political alignment. Many of us belong to the Left, but the principles that we set out are not exclusive. We reach out, rather, beyond the socialist Left towards egalitarian liberals and others of unambiguous democratic commitment. Indeed, the reconfiguration of progressive opinion that we aim for involves drawing a line between the forces of the Left that remain true to its authentic values, and currents that have lately shown themselves rather too flexible about these values. It involves making common cause with genuine democrats, whether socialist or not.

The present initiative has its roots in and has found a constituency through the Internet, especially the "blogosphere". It is our perception, however, that this constituency is under-represented elsewhere — in much of the media and the other forums of contemporary political life.

The broad statement of principles that follows is a declaration of intent. It inaugurates a new Website, which will serve as a resource for the current of opinion it hopes to represent and the several foundation blogs and other sites that are behind this call for a progressive realignment.

Why am I telling you this? Well, I've played a small part myself; so too have many other bloggers that you know, and many other people have also read the Manifesto, decided that they agree with it, and have 'signed' to declare themselves as supporters. You can find the current signatory list at the end of the above document.


Your blog needs one of these.

The Group also mantain a blogroll, and an aggregated list of blog posts from supporters' blogs. Both of these things are managed by Bloggers4Labour's software, so if you're a blogger and would like to register as a supporter, drop me a line with your details and I will sort it out. If you're already a B4L blogger, great, you can be on both - I anticipate that a lot of you will be interested by what the Euston Manifesto Group have to say. That said, it is cross-party, so you do not have to be a Labour Party supporter to be added to that list.

Perhaps things are still a little vague, here on Day 1. What's next for the group? Who doesn't support the Manifesto, and why? Well, these are perfectly good questions, but there'll be plenty of time for answers. I won't follow the recommendation and close off comments, however, I will be applying my usual policy of zapping inane and pointless comments, as well as those that are merely hostile. if you have questions, I may be able to answer them, or at least direct you to A Man Who Does.

In the meantime, check the site (and this one, for that matter) for updates - these will be many and varied.

Finally, donations to the group are most welcome!

Update: The latest reports indicate a fair amount of activity on-site, which is good. Plus a few bloggers have joined the Euston blogroll.

Here are some of the more interesting responses I've come across so far, courtesy of wongaBlog, Jo, Chris Dillow, and A.E. Brain. Clearly not everyone's 'sold' straightaway, and there are still questions to be answered and minds to be put at rest.

At the moment, I'm still stuck at work, hoping that the blogroll script holds up with the load until I get home, but (though I'm loath to promise blog posts, having a pretty atrocious recent record) I do hope to post a more personal, "Why I Signed" type of thing in due course.