The most effective deceits are those that are wrapped up in a kernel of truth and Owen Jones is certainly right that postwar consensus-based politics has been damaged by the weakening of the role of the state in a mixed economy and the acceptance of increasing inequality (Centrists attack the left, but they are the true extremists, 17 August).
But that political central ground is defined by the acceptance that there is not a monopoly on truth and thus a willingness to compromise to try to find common ground with those who share core attitudes of openness, toleration and respect for all in our society. That feeds into solid commitments to parliamentary democracy, gradualism, internationalism and the similar seeking of common ground and partnerships with open societies in Europe and elsewhere.
This contrasts with the views we increasingly see from the ideologues on the right and left who seek to divide rather than unite by painting pictures of elite or establishment conspiracies, who have a barely skin-deep commitment to parliamentary democracy and the rule of law, and who see international commitments, responsibilities and relationships as either a threat to their project, win/lose battles, or opportunities for sanctimonious posturing while people such as the Yazidis wait to be massacred on a hillside. The absence of a political centre ground committed to a mixed economy, parliamentary democracy and an open society is indeed a loss.
Colin Garwood
Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire
• Owen Jones asks of “centrists”, “Will they raise taxes on the rich and major corporations to end cuts? Will they abolish the burden of student debt? Will utilities be brought into public ownership?” He should ask the same questions of Corbyn’s Labour party if it were to gain power in a post-Brexit UK, when we’ll be desperate for any trade deal and inward investment available; socialist states have never been attractive to international finance. If he really wants the Labour manifesto to come to fruition his priority should now be to support anyone – left, right or centre – who is willing to fight for the UK to remain in the EU.
John Warburton
Edinburgh
• Owen Jones criticises, with some justification, the inadequacy of political labels within the Labour party. Self-defined centrists can of course reject this claim because they are impeccably left on identity politics and other social issues. But there is an underlying and fundamental distinction to be made in this Brexit-benighted and austerity-plagued time. That is to separate continued adherents to the policies and philosophies of neoliberalism from those who oppose its continuing and destructive sway. There is probably no better way to separate Labour’s sheep-costumed Blair-type wolves from centre-left and leftwingers struggling, however imperfectly, for alternatives to toxic neoliberalism.
Bryn Jones
(Co-editor, Alternatives to Neoliberalism), University of Bath
• It was instructive to read Simon Jenkins (With every sneer, liberals just make Trump stronger, 17 August) and Owen Jones in parallel. Both identify the central political issue in the US and the UK as the economic position of the working class. Here I am using the term working class in the broad sense of all those whose income relies primarily on the sale of their labour, not in the narrower sociological sense which is commonly associated with the concept of the white working class used by Jenkins. But the problem is how capitalism works as a system. When there is a crisis, or the economy is stagnating, capitalists will do everything in their power, not just in electoral terms, to ensure they are not the ones to suffer. They will make this the precondition to invest in order get the economy moving again. This is what has recently progressive governments in Latin America and what would face Jeremy Corbyn if he succeeds in raising expectations enough to be elected as prime minister.
Alvaro de Miranda
London
• Owen Jones has polarised the world a bit further by devising a new category to heap scorn upon. It is a manifesto for de-selection of Labour MPs. “I can hear the cries already…” he writes. This is one such cry – he ignores the necessity of building a centre-left coalition that, since the 1930s, has been the only way for progressives to achieve political power.
John Pierson
Malpas, Cheshire
• In The German Ideology, Marx and Engels wrote “the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas”. Sadly, the last 40 years have borne this out. Owen Jones’ timely piece implies this when he writes “centrists aren’t pragmatists, they’re ideologues” and it is this ruling ideology that the left is challenging.
John Airs
Liverpool
• Owen Jones makes an interesting point. Traditional warnings from history may exclude the centre – but history suggests that the fight against fascism should not be staked on self-professed centrists with authoritarian tendencies and a stubborn commitment to austerity.
Emma Jones
Abingdon, Oxfordshire
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