Making Life Better for as Many People as We Can in the Short Time That We Have

ABSTRACT

What is progressive politics for? ‘Progressive’ has never had a fixed political meaning. In recent years, it has been used as a pejorative term to lump together the ‘metropolitan liberal elite’, Gen‐Z, the ‘woke’, and ethnic minority voters. ‘Progressive’ often becomes a depoliticised, broad‐stroke, lazy shorthand in the same way the American Right uses the word ‘liberal’. It's wheeled out to describe a broad cast of values, themselves often ill‐defined and ephemeral. But no new progressive era has even been defined by its limits. The Labour Party must build the broadest possible coalition – defining it by putting our values at its heart, and demonstrating those values through action.