Raul Hilberg, the Holocaust historian, explained that for genocide to take place there has to be a triangle: perpetrators, victims and bystanders. In Darfur all the elements are present. We have the victims, the perpetrators, the indifference of bystanders. The issue is what will happen next: will this escalate further as civil war with crimes against humanity, or is there something different here that will bring it into the realm Hilberg describes?

Who are the victims? More than 200 000 black African Muslims have been killed in two years. According to the UN, by September 2004 1.45 million had been displaced, with 500 000 more in urgent need of assistance. The figure now is probably nearer 3 million. Then there are the deaths from disease and malnutrition — in 2005 the UN estimated 180 000 and there are probably now some 80 000 more.

In the recent renewal of fighting the rebel groups who oppose the Khartoum government and who rejected the peace treaty that ended the civil war there have been attacking civilians in the displaced persons camps. The government has launched attacks similar to those condemned by the UN in 2004. Some argue this is a counter-insurgency like many others. But this one is different because of the nature and the project of the Khartoum government.

Who are the killers? The Sudan government has systematically engaged in mass murder; it has the tanks, the aircraft, and its own militia, the Janjaweed. They have their own racist ideology, in this case an Arab supremacist one, which they use to assert their solidarity with Hizbullah and to claim they too are being attacked by evil Zionists. Jonathan Steele has argued on these pages that this is as much an economic conflict between nomads and settlers as an ethnic one between Arabs and Africans. Others have pointed out that all those involved are Muslims. It is difficult to see how this explains the large numbers of black African Sudanese being killed and displaced in such a concentrated period of time.

Who are the bystanders? The international community is once again disgracing itself by its passivity. But the UN has never intervened to prevent a genocide — not in Bangladesh, not in Cambodia, not in Rwanda. It has only recently, under limited US and British pressure, passed resolutions authorising intervention in Darfur. It ignores vicious internal suppressions in other parts of the world.

What is more shocking is the indifference of the left. Instead of demanding our governments act now, we are told that what is going on in Darfur is none of our business. Or that this is civil war, not genocide. Or that it is far too complicated for us to intervene. Or that any intervention on our part would only make matters worse. Or that we shouldn’t call for intervention because no one has the slightest intention of doing anything, so we are raising expectations that cannot be met. Or that the real plan is to invade Sudan and create a new colony.

These are shameful evasions that run counter to all the left is supposed to stand for.

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A conservative foreign policy, which can be practiced by any political party, is one that will place national interest always and everywhere above anything else. If we believe that this is the beginning and the end of the foreign policy question then we should accept that the attempt to construct an ethical foreign policy is impossible. It is worth pausing on this question for a moment. Is social democracy about building walls around our own polity to defend ourselves and keep our people safe from various threats? If so we should venture out from this little island only when material threats exist to ourselves. When civil war breaks out in Yugoslavia we should be with the Tories and do nothing. We should leave the Iraq people living under a genocidal dictator. Today, we should be arguing hard against any form of intervention against the Khartoum government. If that is really what progressives want, then let us say so.

A conservative foreign policy defines national interest in terms of security but also in terms of the economic interest of a broad entity called "the west." Therefore it will pursue intervention in pursuit of the control of resources, particularly oil, because of the pressing political and economic need to deliver stable supplies. While it would naïve to believe that in the realist world of the global economic and the competition for resources that economic interests never influence foreign policy choices, economic interests should not be the deciding factor in making progressive foreign policy choices.

A conservative foreign policy is one that will act unilaterally or, more often, work hard to stop collective action through the United Nations when it does not see vital economic or strategic gains for the United Kingdom. Ideally a progressive foreign policy should be conducted through the United Nations and in line with international law and international humanitarian law. I say ideally because the responsibility to protect and the rights of victims to be saved from gross violations of human rights are more important in certain circumstances that the mechanisms of international law. We should also see the responsibility to protect as a umbrella concept that involves not only prevention of harm and rescue but also a long term commitment to reconstruction.

So we shape a progressive foreign policy by putting victims first, by understanding our national interest in terms of promoting, protecting and enforcing human rights around the world and by working through the mechanisms of international law and the United Nations.

Then we come up against cases. Take Darfur. We all agree that gross human rights violations in Darfur should be stopped, but how?

The African Union (AU) force that has pushed the Janjaweed back does not have enough money or equipment to do the job properly. They do not have the planes to enforce the no-fly zone. They are constantly being attacked by the rebels and by the government's militia. According to one report, they do not have sufficient funds to withdraw.

The best option is for a United Nations force to replace the AU peace keepers. But this is real dilemma the UN system faces us with. Resolutions have authorised the sending of a peacekeeping force to the Darfur region. That force cannot go to Darfur unless the Khartoum government agrees to its entry. This government — which is a coalition and not an Islamic government but which is targeting its African population in Darfur — has broken many agreements. It is worth noting that the overwhelming majority of both the victims and the perpetrators in Darfur are Muslims. Yesterday, Kofi Annan sais, "the message I have tried to get to the Sudanese government is that the international community is not coming in as an invading force, but basically to help them protect the people … If the government had been able to do it itself, I don’t think we would be having this debate".

The rebels fighting the government who did not sign the peace agreement have committed their own atrocities. In response the Khartoum government is organising a force of 10,000 to move south. A Human Rights Watch report on the 6th September stated that the government was indiscriminately bombing civilian-occupied villages in rebel-held North of Darfur. The African director of the HRW Africa said: "Government forces are bombing villages with blatant disregard for civilian lives, "A penalty for indiscriminate bombing in Darfur is U.N. Security Council sanctions, which should be imposed now." But would the impositions of sanctions make the deployment of a UN force more or less likely?

The HRW reports goes on: "Firsthand sources report flight crews rolling bombs out the back ramps of Antonovs, a means of targeting that was often practiced by government forces in their 21-year civil war with rebels in southern Sudan. This method is so inaccurate that it cannot strike at military targets without a substantial risk of harm to civilians. International humanitarian law prohibits such attacks, which can constitute war crimes. Deliberately attacking civilians is in all circumstances prohibited and a war crime."

So here is the rub — the government that plans on ethically cleansing part of its territory as a "counter-insurgency" operation is the government that can say yes or no to a UN force intervening to stop the genocide.

A progressive response should be that international law needs to be enforced, that the structures exist and need to be used, these need to be made to work.

That is what was said in Rwanda in 1994. Then we had a Tory government indifferent to the fate of the Rwandans and instrumental in blocking intervention. Now we have a Labour government that is deeply concerned with the fate of the people but is not prepared to go down the NATO road again, although this has been suggested by the US administration in the past. What should a progressive think — that it is ok for between 250 000 – 400 000 Muslims to die while the legal structures that should deal with this situation are not allowed to work?

In this case these seems to me to be a need to square the circle and that is to accept that some states can sacrifice their sovereignty when they fail to protect their own citizens or when they are attacking their own citizens. The ethical debate for progressives should be about what the threshold of violence that should mean that a state no longer has the right to agree or disagree to intervention. The ICC could be the institution that makes such a decision. And this does not then lead to full-scale invasion — there are many measures that can be taken short of that, but they must be taken in line with international law or else, like Kosovo, they will not be repeatable.

This is the key — the victim-centred progressive foreign policy we need is one that is permanent, repeatable, enforceable and predictable. Only international law can give us these things and the only way international law can be made to work is if it recognises that some states do not belong in the community of nations.

Brian Brivati is Professor of Contemporary History and Course Director of the MA in Human Rights at Kingston University.

To post a response to this article contact Alanjohnsonsdf.

The symposium will be in Town House 102, Kingston University, Penrhyn Road, Kingston upon Thames on 11th September 2006 from 10-6pm

Speakers will include: Vernon Bogdanor (Oxford University), Andrew Blake (UEL), Sarah Childs (Bristol University), Nick Ellison (Durham University), David Walker (The Guardian), Rokhsana Fiaz (Change Institute), Simon Woolley (Operation Black Vote), Eric Shaw (Stirling University), Matt Beech (York University), Anna Showstack-Sassoon (Birkbeck College), Brian Brivati (Kingston University/Euston Manifesto Group), Alan Johnson (Edge Hill College/Social Democratic Futures), Rupa Huq (Kingston University) and Tim Bale (Sussex University)

Panels will cover Security and Foreign Policy, Domestic Policy, Representation, Governance: local, regional and constitutional policy and Party-Government relations.

Audience places are limited. Conference costs £15 (£10 concessions) for a booking form and to reserve a place please email: Dr Rupa Huq.

The answer in the discussion was that the Eustonians are not a political party and therefore they do not have to have a policy on everything. Nor do they have to fight for the political centre from within the system — though some of them spend a great deal of their time doing exactly that and are probably signed up to Compass. Others in the group are not Labour Party members or even supporters but they belong to the left, the ‘corpse’ that Martin identifies. I would suggest that while he is right to point out some holes in the document, he misunderstands our intentions as I understand them. Where he talks of a corpse and the importance of the centre, I would say rather that the nature of politics and political debate has changed. As he himself emphasizes, these are different times. The nature of that difference is that party politics and party programmes are only one way in which the national and international conversation about politics can take place at any time. The world is now full of conversations, often shouting matches, taking place virtually. Through these new media tribes of many kinds are formed and take collective actions. The Eustonians are a political representation of this kind of organic development.

Some of the Euston Manifesto Group may disagree with this, but there is also an argument to be made that the progressive consensus, to which I am committed, is not necessarily best served by a Labour Party in power, but rather by the winning of broader political arguments in the policy-making community and in the minds of the general public. Radical political change is made permanent by its incorporation into the operating consensus, whichever party is in power. It is the shape and content of that consensus which determines the quality of life in this country and the influence of this country abroad. Values of liberal internationalism informed by human rights and egalitarianism, the aspiration of eradicating social exclusion at home and fighting terrorism everywhere, can be held and articulated by people from different political backgrounds. The gradual shift from allegiance to a particular party to allegiance to certain core values that has characterized politics over the last few decades means that the nature of coalitions and the content of alliances that can now emerge may surprise us all. The Euston Manifesto represents a step along one of these new roads. For me it should be broad in its appeal.

Martin describes us as the pro-war left. Many of the group were and remain anti-war and have a range of views on the issues discussed in the Manifesto. What unites us is a belief that developments since 9/11 represent part of a broadly based assault on democracy and that this assault has to be challenged, fought and defeated. Things like the Euston Manifesto are small steps in this larger fight. To an extent the Eustonians have accomplished their mission. The volume of debate on the web and the stirrings of coverage in the mainstream media mean that this alternative left position will now resonate as a recognizable one that should be represented more prominently in future. But most of all people who agree with the broad thrust of what we are saying have a sense of being connected to others. Martin Kettle sums up very well what the message of the Euston Manifesto was for me when he writes:

There is a lot to relate to in what the manifesto says here. It is right about the core things — democracy, liberty, universality. But it is also right about the immoral excuses sometimes offered on behalf of reactionary terrorist actions under the “my enemy’s enemy must be my friend” rubric; right too about the disproportionate indignation about unjustifiable acts on the western side as compared with similar acts on the anti-western side; about the susceptibility towards anti-semitism in some discussion of Middle-Eastern issues; about the numbskull dishonesty of the left about its own crimes and failures; and about the need to champion, not scorn, the principle of international humanitarian intervention.

Perhaps, in closing, it is worth making the point that our ambitions and egos were not as grandiose as many of our critics seem to think. In getting together, producing a document and using the resources of the internet to publish it, we did not assume that we would change the world or that the document would be a blueprint for transforming society. We hoped we would provoke debate, create a space for like-minded people to meet virtually and in person, and have some influence on public discussion. In ‘The essay as form’, the usually unreadable Theodor Adorno makes the following point, which captures for me something of what the Euston project is about:

[The essay] starts not with Adam and Eve but with what it wants to talk about; it says what occurs to it in that context and stops when it feels finished rather than when there is nothing to say. Its concepts are not derived from first principles.

Maybe we should have called our manifesto an ‘essay’!

Brian Brivati is Professor of Contemporary History, Director MA Human Rights and Field Leader BA Human Rights at Kingston University, London.