Gramscian politics for the 21st Century
Progressive Political Hegemony
Why the UK Left struggles to develop an alternative progressive hegemony
The UK New Right (Reform UK, Conservatives and Restore Britain) has undergone a major realignment in its embrace of national populist politics, in which its leadership has been handed to the Far Right, supplanting, for now, the established Conservative Party.
While the Right Bloc contains many contradictions and divisions, it still appears to withstand internal inconsistencies, the scale of which would destroy any other political project. This apparent resilience is one of the hallmarks of an effective political hegemonic project.
The Left, on the other hand, has constantly struggled to adapt effectively and to develop an effective progressive counter-hegemony. This is accounted for, in large part, by the cultural and political shortcomings of centrist social democracy and the failed ultra-left experiment of Corbynism. Both have, in their different ways, been top-down and tribal.
Unfortunately, Starmerism continued this baleful tradition with its 'Labour First' sectarianism. All these Labourist traditions have yet to understand that the basis of building a progressive hegemony is to treat political life as a respectful educative and relational project to 'tell a plausible story' of a progressive future within our grasp.
Now enter the new Labour leader and Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who appears much more willing to tell a progressive story. This latest publication on 'Building the Progressive Bloc and the Challenge for the Burnham Project' examines how far Andy Burnham's vision and politics might be breaking from the Labourist tribal model.
Four conceptual building blocks - the 45-degree political party, alliances, new settlements and a relational Labour political culture
Building the Progressive Bloc. Challenges for the Burnham Project
Ken Spours, October 2026
This latest draft publication for Compass develops Gramsci's concept of the historical bloc and applies it to the Burnham Project to analyse how far his politics might contain the seeds of a new progressive settlement.
The New Mainstream: Radical realism to unite a fractured Labour Party and a divided nation
Ken Spours, 24 September, 2025
This piece published by Compass argues that Labour factionalism always leads to political failure and that the initiative and movement 'Mainstream' can help reunite Labour and provide a dynamic platform to defeat the Far Right. The blog also contains a brief analysis of Mainstream as an alliance-based idea and strategy.
The Ship and the Sea. The Framework for a New Settlement
- Ken Spours & Neal Lawson, 2023
This thinkpiece argues that Labour and the wider Left need to develop a strategy and vision for an political, economy and ecology settlement that looks beyond winning elections. People need to be inspired by the prospect of progressive change that can happen soon without having to wait a lifetime. The paper suggests that the timespan for a new settlement should not be tightly linked to the parliamentary cycle and that a period of 10 years is realistic. The metaphor - Ship and the Sea - describes a strategy that not only focuses on the enactment of policy (the Ship), but also attempts to change the wider cultural and material context (the energies of the Sea). It is the combination of both that can provide for a stable progressive settlement.
Common Platforms. A new stage of alliance-based and participatory politics
- Ken Spours, Frances Foley & Nick Mahony, 2021
This thinkpiece discusses ‘Common Platforms’ as a new stage of a progressive, collaborative and participatory politics. This multi-dimensional concept of alliance-building extends the strategy of the ‘Progressive Alliance’, which found expression as an anti-Tory electoral pact in the 2017 General Election. The concept of Common Platforms can also be seen as developing the different layers of what Gramsci referred to as the 'historical bloc'.
The Very Modern Prince’: the 21st-century political party and the political formation
Ken Spours, 2016
'The Very Modern Prince' is a 21st-century interpretation of Gramsci's famous work on the role of the political party - The Modern Prince. The paper argues that to build a new hegemony the progressive 21st Century political party has to become a 45-degree blend of a collectively disciplined party (vertical) and as an open political formation (horizontal). This 'combinational' vision of the 21st-century progressive political party prioritises its educative, intellectual and connective roles and also functions as a critique of both the traditional political party (electorally bound) and more recent ideas of the political party as a pure digital network.