Euston Manifesto
[1][2] The manifesto proposed a "fresh political alignment", which involves "making common cause with genuine democrats, whether socialist or not", in which the Left stands for democracy, freedom, equality, internationalism, the open-source movement and historical truth, while condemning all forms of tyranny, terrorism, anti-Americanism, racism and antisemitism, including any form of it that "conceal[s] prejudice against the Jewish people behind the formula of 'anti-Zionism'".
There are about thirty members of the group, and a larger number of signatories, four of whom were most heavily involved in authoring the document: Norman Geras, Marxist scholar and professor emeritus at Manchester University; Damian Counsell; Alan Johnson, editor of Democratiya; and Shalom Lappin.
Other members included Nick Cohen of The Observer,[3] who co-authored with Geras a report on the manifesto for the New Statesman;[4] Marc Cooper of The Nation; Francis Wheen, a journalist; and historian Marko Attila Hoare.
The group met more formally after the document's first drafting, at a branch of the O'Neill's Irish-themed pub chain on London's Euston Road—just across the road from the British Library—where the manifesto was named, and its content voted on.
Early signatories of the American statement included Ronald Radosh, Martin Peretz, Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Michael Ledeen and Walter Laqueur.
The authors start by identifying themselves as "progressives and democrats" and calling for a new political alignment in which the left stands unambiguously for democracy, and against tyranny and terrorism.
Within this, they say labour unions are "bedrock organizations in the defence of workers' interests and are one of the most important forces for human rights, democracy-promotion and egalitarian internationalism".
As part of promoting economic equality the authors call for supporting increased development in poorer nations, in order to alleviate extreme poverty.
Statement of Principles no.7 of the Manifesto reads: "We recognize the right of both the Israeli and the Palestinian peoples to self-determination within the framework of a two-state solution.
It supports the doctrine of humanitarian intervention and argues that a state's sovereignty should be respected only if "it does not torture, murder and slaughter its own civilians, and meets their most basic needs of life".
The authors reject the idea that free software is simply theoretical, instead believing it "a tested reality that has created common goods whose power and robustness have been proved over decades".
Its critics argued it contained too many statements of the obvious, that it had little to say about "imperialism" or the power of global corporations, and that it was in reality a front for its authors' support for the current foreign policies of the British and American governments.
Of eight people advertised as attending a Euston Manifesto Group meeting at the 2006 Labour Party Conference, six supported the Iraq War.
[10] Some of the manifesto's authors have criticised anti-war figures and groups, including George Galloway and the Stop the War Coalition for their alliances with Islamists.
[7][11] Although there is still disagreement within the group over the rationale for the war, the authors agree that after the bombs stopped falling the left ought to have united around a campaign to support Iraqi democrats, feminists, and progressives.
Its attempt to build a broad virtual coalition has left it as a statement of liberal universalisms with no character, and allowed it to be defined by what it opposes, the mainstream anti-war movement... the EM group merely reproduces the confusion and atomisation of the Blogosphere in a new form".
Davies argued that the group's flaw was "the relentless refusal to actually bring anything down to brass tacks" and that they would demand action on various issues without following through on implementation.
In the early days, it allowed them to assemble a broad coalition, uniting war supporters and opponents under a vague banner of 'that Galloway chappie has gone a bit too far'.
