The three fears the left must conquer

Zohran Mamdani and Andy Burnham show how “high-energy” progressives can win

Today on Arguably, former No 10 policy director Geoff Mulgan returns to explain how to solve the “progressive puzzle”. To read it now, become a paid subscriber or sign up for a seven-day free trial.

(Lev Radin/Shutterstock)

Progressives haven’t run out of voters. They’ve run out of nerve.

Something telling happened at the Global Progressive Mobilisation in Madrid this April. In attendance were Brazil’s Lula and Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum, South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa and Spain’s Pedro Sánchez – a gathering of leaders who collectively represent hundreds of millions of people. They used the word “progressive” freely and confidently. But ask any of them or their advisers what that word actually means in 2026 – what specific transformation it promises, what story it tells about the future – and the answer tends to dissolve into warm generality.

That is the progressive puzzle. Not a lack of votes, not even a lack of values, but a collapse of forward vision so profound that a movement defined by belief in human improvement has quietly stopped believing in it.

The problem is clear: in recent years, progressives became small-c conservatives, opting for centrism and caution, aspiring to be competent managers rather than makers of change. In doing so they created a politics that’s technocratic and uninspiring – lacking both a compelling explanation of the present and any plausible roadmap for the future.

The result has been a double failure. Moderate progressive parties have defaulted to short-termism and incumbency bias, captured by business interests and drained of emotional energy. Meanwhile, the occasional victories of more radical left parties – from Syriza in Greece to the Historic Pact in Colombia – unravelled quickly on contact with the difficulties of power. The centre offered little inspiring; the radical left offered inspiration without delivery. Neither had solved the puzzle.

Three fears lie at the root of this paralysis, each rational in moderation, each disabling when taken too far.