In the UK there are citizens' alliances in seven cities working together to improve both local and regional issues; as a result of their work, 1,500 accredited employers now pay the living wage, promoted by Citizens UK since 2001.
It is up to us to explain how global change can be harnessed, how we in Britain can use our strengths – our universities, industry and innovation, our diverse population, our global alliances (especially the EU) – to make life here better.
Cameron was simply "playing to the gallery of the Eurosceptic backbenchers in his own party, and making threats when instead he should be forging alliances", said shadow Europe minister, Gareth Thomas.
It reminds me of the difference in tactics between Outrage – fans of direct action against, for example, bishops – and Stonewall, keener to make quiet political alliances in the service of long-term change.
In his new book Racism, Class and the Racialized Outsider, Satnam Virdee charts how groups such as the Indian Workers Association, or Jayaben Desai and the heroic women strikers at the Grunwick film processing plant, were constantly building alliances with others on the left, whether in the trade unions or the Socialist Workers party.
The aim is to raise the EU's profile and cement alliances by winning new pledges for greenhouse gas cuts – intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs) in UN jargon, the backbone of any deal in Paris – before June at the latest.
Building community alliances through the promise to deliver community designed social agendas is potentially the basis for a successful political strategy as well as a political necessity to combat climate change and dilapidated public services.
This has produced a growing number of young, professional community organisers for whom supporting citizens' alliances is a vocation.
It is a story recalled by its main players in a series of remarkably frank conversations as one of unlikely alliances and bitter divisions, a clash of power, identity and the deepest questions of nationhood.
In November 1998, Gehri was listed as an observer at the UN climate change negotiations in Buenos Aires on the delegation of the Climate Council, a group fronted by the late Don Pearlman, once described as "the high priest of the carbon club" for his alliances with oil-producing countries at climate change negotiations.
The move raised European and Nato fears that Moscow might seek to exploit the hard left and extreme right coalition under Alexis Tsipras as a Trojan horse within the key western alliances.
