- https://leftrenewal.org/lraw-en/ (Left Renewal in an Age of Waiting, by Ben Gidley and Daniel Mang – 1 October 2025)
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In this pamphlet, we, two of the authors of For a consistently democratic and internationalist left, return to some of the fault lines within this text – which reflect some of the differences among the authors as well as fault lines in the coalitions we call for.
We wish to clarify ambiguities in our original text (as we see them) but also to deepen and broaden the analysis proposed there.
# Summary
## First of all
We defend a consistently democratic, internationalist, anti-authoritarian left politics.
We argue for broad coalitions, but remain critical of nationalism, authoritarianism, and confusionism.
We oppose liberalism, but recognise the urgent need to form tactical alliances with liberals against the greater danger of the far right.
We call for a left that balances short-term realism with long-term utopian aspiration.
## Class and Interlocking Systems of Oppression
We argue for a renewed focus on class without falling into class reductionism.
We emphasise that class is shaped by and intersects with gender, “race”, sexuality, and other relations of difference and domination.
Our class politics is planetary: link up “core” and “periphery” struggles, instead of placing them in competition.
## Emancipatory Politics
We call for a re-imagining of what leftism means – bringing in the insights and themes of feminist, queer, ecological, anti-racist… social movements.
We reject both reactionary anti-woke backlash and identity absolutism, and call for broad, emancipatory coalition-building.
## Feminism and Gender Politics
We argue that a feminist transformation of the left is essential and overdue.
We are pro-transfeminist; our politics is shaped by queer and sex-radical feminisms.
Gender and sexuality are material.
## Micropolitics and Subjectivity
We stress the need for radical left approaches to affect, emotion, and interpersonal power.
We call for reflection on how projection, fetishisation, and nostalgia shape left politics.
## Nationalism and Collective Identities
We ultimately oppose all forms of nationalism, recognising its inherently exclusionary logic.
While we support struggles against national oppression, we want to strengthen anti-nationalist and democratic tendencies within such movements.
We advocate for planetary belonging over ethnonational attachments.
## “Race”, Racism, and Atlantic Bias
We challenge the Atlantic bias in dominant left conceptions of “race”.
We insist on a more nuanced and global understanding of racialisation and of imperialism.
We warn against left romanticisation of “anti-Western” powers like Russia and China.
## Religious Fundamentalisms
We oppose all religious fundamentalisms, including Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu and Buddhist variants.
We retain the term “fundamentalisms” to highlight these movements’ authoritarian use of religion and state power.
We oppose liberal Islamophobia while defending emancipatory secularism.
## Environmentalism and Extractivism
Our ecological vision of emancipation is critical of extractivist versions of left politics.
We call for rethinking abundance and transforming human relations to nature and non-human life.
The left needs to recognise the centrality of anti-extractivist, indigenous and peasant movements to a global emancipatory politics.
## Democracy and Liberalism
We defend the existing limited forms of political democracy while working towards a deeper democracy.
We criticise the authoritarianism within those parts of the left that dismiss individual rights and glorify past and present repressive regimes.
We advocate tactical engagement with electoral politics, rejecting both abstentionism and maximalist detachment.
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