We are also united in the view that, since the day on which this [the overthrow of the Baathist regime — NG] occurred, the proper concern of genuine liberals and members of the Left should have been the battle to put in place in Iraq a democratic political order and to rebuild the country’s infrastructure, to create after decades of the most brutal oppression a life for Iraqis which those living in democratic countries take for granted — rather than picking through the rubble of the arguments over intervention.

The problem here is the ‘rather than’; and ‘picking through the rubble’ doesn’t help. These make up an ill-chosen phrase. The intent was to say that, once the invasion had occurred and the regime was overthrown, the primary focus of those on the left and others of democratic outlook should have been on solidarity with the Iraqi people and with the democratic forces trying to reconstruct the country on a new, free basis. The authors of the manifesto thought, and we think, that the future of Iraq and the fate of the Iraqi people should have been a more important preoccupation of leftists and liberals than returning constantly, as many have, to why the war should never have been fought. The way the above passage reads, however, it looks as if we’re saying that criticism relating to earlier arguments about the war, concern over the way it was presented by the US and British governments or about the planning for its aftermath, was inappropriate. And that isn’t right. The point was picked up in one of the earliest responses to the manifesto, by Martin Bright on the New Statesman website. He wrote:

The manifesto suggests that we should stop arguing about the whys and wherefores of the war and concentrate on building a left consensus on reconstruction.

And he went on to demur. He’s right: right about what the Eustonians think a left consensus should have ‘concentrated’ on once the Saddam regime was gone; and also right — unfortunately — that we’ve given the impression in the manifesto as written that arguments about ‘the whys and wherefores of the war’ ought to have stopped. We have done, but by a mis-statement of a point meant to be about priorities as if it were about mutually exclusive alternatives. It has not in fact been the position of those blogs which took the initiative leading to the Euston Manifesto that discussion of the origins of the war, or the planning for its aftermath, was somehow out of bounds. As just one piece of evidence for this I refer to a post of my own (old normblog site, ‘But where is the green parrot?’, August 21 2003) on the question of whether the Bush administration or the Blair government deliberately misled their publics. This is obviously a legitimate matter for discussion; more than that, it is a very important one.

The manifesto needs to be amended on this point.

Norman Geras is Professor Emeritus of Government at the University of Manchester

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.