LabourList signs Progressive Blogging Statement

From LabourList / @LabourList

From now on, LabourList will aim to be an honest and inclusive forum and a hub for all centre-left people to showcase their views in a civil and open manner. We will never so much as scrape at perfection, but we hope that as we redevelop our site and our new inclusive guidelines, we can act according to our own beliefs. With this in mind, LabourList has today signed the Progressive Blogging Statement, a general guide to the principles by which we blog.

Our purpose is simple. We do not believe that new technology leads to inevitable outcomes, but rather that we must all make choices about how we use it and for what purposes.

So we wish to set out why we blog and how we want the party which we support to change so that it can connect to new progressive energy for the causes we support.

1. Ethical and value-based

We believe we must act as ambassadors for the political values we profess. This applies to all politics, online or not. The Obama campaign’s power to mobilise was rooted in supporters living its ethic of ‘respect, empower and include’. As Labour supporters, we wish to ensure that our values of solidarity, tolerance and respect are reflected in how we do politics as well as the causes we seek to serve.

So we oppose the politics of personal destruction. We believe that the personal can be political, where it reveals the hypocrisy of public statements, the wilful misuse of evidence, or breaches proper ethical standards in public life. Where it doesn’t do that, it should be off limits. Politicians should be able to have a family and private life too. A politics of personal destruction violates progressive values and brings all politics into disrepute.

2. Positive about political engagement

We do not believe that the internet is inevitably a force for anti-politics.

We reject the mythology of the internet as a lawless and ethics-free zone. Bloggers are subject to law, as well as to the ethical and civic pressures of our online and offline communities. We are clear that the left can never win a politics of loathing and mutual destruction, because the faith in politics that we need will inevitably be a casualty of war. The nihilistic approach practiced by a few online should not overshadow the greater energy and numbers engaged in constructive civic advocacy.

We believe that we can challenge our political opponents without always questioning their integrity. We believe that there are big political arguments to be had between the left and the right of politics, and the left has every reason to be confident about our values and ideas, which have done much to change Britain for the better over the last century and which are in the ascendancy internationally after three decades in which anti-government arguments have often dominated.

We also believe that what is pejoratively called ‘negative campaigning’ has a legitimate place in politics. Scrutinising the principles, ideas and policies of political opponents is an important part of offering a democratic choice. We should challenge the ideas, claims and sometimes the misrepresentations of our political opponents, just as we would expect them to challenge us. We believe that this is effective when it is done accurately, and that this will become ever more important as the internet makes politics more transparent. So we will point out where there is a mismatch between professed principles and policies, or where the evidence does not back up what is claimed, but we will try not to assume our opponents are in bad faith where we do not have evidence to support that.

3. Pluralist and open

We believe that pluralism must be at the heart of the progressive blogosphere. We believe that debate and argument are what brings life to politics. We want to promote a cultural ‘glasnost’ of open discussion within our party, to show that we understand that the confidence to debate, and disagree, in an atmosphere of mutual respect helps us to bring people together to make change possible.

We believe we must change the culture of Labour’s engagement with those outside the party too, including those who were once our supporters but who are disillusioned, and new generations forming their political opinions. For us, democratic politics is about individuals working together to create collective pressure for change, but also about the need to continue to talk even when we disagree deeply. We believe in engaging with all reasonable critics of the Labour government and Labour Party, wherever we can establish the possibility of taking part in democratic arguments in a spirit of mutual respect.

4. Independent spaces

We believe that attempts to transfer ‘command and control’ models to online politics will inevitably fail. Labour must show that it gets that – in practice as well as theory – if we are make our contribution to the progressive movements on which our causes depend.

The government and the political parties should use their official spaces to contribute to and enable these conversations. We also want to see Ministers and MPs having the confidence to engage in political debate and argument elsewhere, while being clear that there is no value for anybody in seeking to control independent spaces for discussion.

5. Participatory and cooperative

We believe in a cooperative ethic of blogging, because the internet is most potent when it harnesses the creativity, ideas and expertise of many people. The internet is a powerful tool for individual expression. We believe it also enables citizens to interact and collaborate in ways that were never previously possible, and catalyse new forces for participation and activism. As citizens, and as bloggers, we believe in asking not only what is wrong with the world but how we can work together to improve it.

We hope that others will offer ideas and responses – supportive and critical – about these ideas and how they can help to inform the future of our politics.

We know that the outcomes of politics matter deeply, that politics is about passion and argument, and that we may ourselves sometimes fall short of the values and standards that we aspire to.

But this is why we blog – and what we hope to achieve for our politics by doing so.

Signed:

Sunder Katwala www.nextleft.org

Nick Anstead www.nickanstead.com/blog/

Will Straw www.changeweneed.org.uk

David Lammy MP www.davidlammy.co.uk

Rachael Jolley www.nextleft.org

Jessica Asato www.progressonline.org.uk and labourwomen.blogspot.com

Karin Christiansen labourwomen.blogspot.com

Paul Cotterill www.bickerstafferecord.org.uk

Laurence Durnan www.blackburnlabour.org/blog

Alex Finnegan www.abigblockofcheese.blogspot.com

Gavin Hayes www.compassonline.org.uk

Mike Ion mike-ion.blogspot.com

Richard Lane www.politicana.co.uk

Tom Miller newerlabour.blogspot.com

Carl Nuttall www.blackburnlabour.org/blog

Anthony Painter www.anthonypainter.co.uk

Don Paskini don-paskini.blogspot.com

Andreas Paterson citizenandreas.blogspot.com

Asif Sange www.blackburnlabour.org/blog

Stuart White www.nextleft.org

Graham Whitman gtrmancfabians.blogspot.com

Alex Smith www.labourlist.org