When will we ever learn? Brexit, as terrible as it was, was not the wake up call to the progressive sentiment. Now we have Brexit x10. The victory of Donald Trump. But what do we expect when we stand establishment candidates who helped create the conditions for Trumpism? Clintonism and Blairism, as we keep saying, are finished. A politics that attempts to humanize neo-liberalism and only ends up embedding it was doomed to fail. Elections are no longer won from the centre and the slide into the abyss cannot be defeated by triangulation. The only thing that can win is a genuine alternative, created with and by or our fellow citizens, that makes our country much more equal, sustainable and democratic.

Three weeks ago Compass went to Barking in East London to listen to what could become part of the UK’s Trumpland. We heard local residents talk about lives in which wages were too low, rents too high and people were ground down by a system that doesn’t work for them and doesn’t care about them. They were all Brexit, and who could blame them? Why would they vote for more of the same? So few were still Labour. Anything was better than the lives the last 30 years had given them. We came away from the meeting in admiration of their spirit and ability – but fearful of where they might go politically unless better alternatives were built with them.

Last night we were at the other end of the District Line in Richmond Park, but it might as well have been another planet given its wealth. We were there to bang the drum for the progressive alliance. In the perfectly named Unitarian Church we heard loud and passionate calls for progressives to unite. John Harris, the Guardian journalist, said the terrifying rise of the right and threat to our liberal and democratic culture amounted to a national emergency, and that at such moments we put aside tribal and personal interests. The Greens to their immense credit, understand the scale of the challenge and did the right thing by standing aside for the Liberal Democrats – the best placed party to defeat Zac Goldsmith. Just as UKIP and the Tories have stood aside to try and ensure he wins.

Labour, against all logic, is standing a candidate whose presence on the ballot paper can only do one thing: make the victory of the candidate of this lurch to the right more likely. Given our open and democratic beliefs, we gave a platform to Labour’s candidate to hear his case for standing. It was embarrassingly thin. Self-interest put before national interest. How long will Labour go on doing the same thing and expect a different outcome? Surely they must see the folly of such narrow tribalism in the face of such a terrible threat?

A generation of politicians has failed our country. The seeds of this terrifying shift have been sowed long ago and run very deep. The capitulation to financialisation and free markets by the mainstream centre-left has reaped a social and now political whirlwind. People feel so alienated and humiliated that they will vote for Brexit here and for Trump in the USA. What bit of ‘it’s our fault’ does the old progressive establishment not get?

Given our corrupted voting system, the minimum we must do is build the progressive alliance – an idea not on the radar six months ago, but is now the only hope for progressives. Proportional representation, mass social house building, control of the financial system and a basic income now look like the essential building blocks of the alternative. Because unless we offer a credible transformation of our democracy and economy, Trumpism will be coming to the UK. Indeed, it’s already here. Aaron Banks, and his desire for a hard right populist peoples movement, has just been given the green light.

So this is still not the worst it can get. Things are now moving so fast that our political opponents could yet emerge in uniforms. 1930’s parallels are easy to make but that doesn’t make them wrong. The victory of Trump will unlock another wave of hatred. People have been lost, let down, bewildered and marginalized for so long that they are turning to a dark side. Just think what has been said in the UK in the last few days about electing our judges. Think about the rise in hate crime since Brexit. And we have to say that Labour, thus far, is not stemming this tide or showing signs of being able to. And even if they did, they cannot hope to do it alone. The moment calls for unity amongst everyone who cherishes a liberal, more egalitarian, sustainable and democratic society.

Compass is a small organisation, but not so small we didn’t see this coming and not so small that we can’t play a key role in digging the deep intellectual, cultural and structural basis for the fight back. We, like the progressives we fight alongside, understand this moment, why it’s happened and what we do about it. And we know that everything that gave rise to Brexit and Trump can and must be countered. It is all about who is best at politics. It’s now imperative that we show it’s all of us.

In strength and solidarity,

Neal, Ayeisha, Frances and the Compass Management Committee