The end of New Labour
To the surprise of nobody, Tony Blair this week announced a general election for the 5th of May. Cue the starting pistol, although in reality, the major players have been limbering up for the final sprint finish for several months.
For some time now the electorate has been urged to undergo a little collective amnesia when considering Labour’s record in power. In the Wednesday edition of the Guardian, the government’s cheerleader Polly Toynbee continued in the vein that she has been ploughing for several months: forget about Iraq, vote Blair and eventually you’ll get Chancellor Gordon Brown moving in to Number 10.
Forget Iraq. As if it were that simple to forego. Never mind the deaths of British soldiers, the uncounted tens or even hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilian deaths, the lies over WMD, the revisionist talk of ‘Iraqi liberty’ in a country where fundamental Islam is now taking root, the abject refusal of Blair to even contend an apology, the disgraceful tangent we have joined America in forging on the world stage. Two years ago, more than a million people showed their defiance and disgust at the idea of war, a demonstration that cut across class, culture, race, background and ideology. It amounted to nothing. Tony Blair ignored the wishes of the people who twice elected him to bloated Commons majorities, and now when an election is looming and the Conservative are in the ascendancy, he wants us to forget about that betrayal and put the past behind us and come back into the fold. Yet for many, Iraq looms over Blair – and, due to his increasingly presidential style, over the entire Labour party, notwithstanding those who fought against it – like a barrage balloon, dwarfing everything else into insignificance.
The arguments for the good that Labour has done ring hollow, mainly because they’re not being made at all by the government. Instead, potential swing voters who are considering defecting to the Liberal Democrats, the Greens or even Respect, are being admonished by the spectre of a Michael Howard victory on May 6th. Forget Iraq, we are being told; forget everything else, strip the issue to its core – that by not voting for Labour, you could be sentencing the country to another period of Tory rule.
It is no wonder that political apathy is so widespread, nor is it surprising that this election will surely sink below the 59% voter turnout of 2001. The choice is a stark one, but depressing on both sides. On one hand, an eminently dislikeable and inept public servant who will pick and choose issues from the far right – immigration, land rights for gypsies, ‘tougher’ penalties for criminals – in order to slap together a reactionary agenda that will appeal to the baser instincts of the populace. On the other, a distrusted prime minister who has successfully moved his party further and further to the right, and who will be consigned to history as the joint architect of an illegal, immoral and thoroughly opposed military folly.
Michael Howard is seeking to reposition the election as a “referendum” on Tony Blair’s eight years in power. His ploy, and a clever one at that, is to emphasise Blair’s visibility as the head of the government, whilst Labour tries to underplay it. The Evening Standard reported on Thursday that the Prime Minister’s image will be absent from the party’s manifesto brochure; likewise, many MPs are looking to marginalise Mr. Blair’s prominence in their own constituencies, a fact which Mr. Howard cleverly mocked in the Commons.
But for the traditional Labour voter, the issue shouldn’t be a referendum on Blair as much as it should be one on the entire party’s ideological path. To pin the blame for New Labour’s excesses entirely on the Prime Minister, while holding onto the quaint notion that the rest of the party retains a socialist bent, is a naïve belief that should firmly be debunked. In the years between the 1992 loss and the 1997 landslide, the party took huge strides to the right that cannot and will not be simply overturned by a change in leadership. In the London Review of Books, John Lancaster talks of the path that David Blunkett took in going from leader of the ‘loony Left’ Sheffield council in the 1980s, to the Labour home secretary who introduced authoritarian measures such as the suspension of prisoner’s rights, the widespread use of ‘anti-social behaviour orders’, and who described civil liberties concerns as ‘airy-fairy’. Blunkett’s journey may have been the most dramatic in its rightward tangent, but the truth is that the entire apparatus of the party now stands to the right of centre on most issues that concern Labour voters. This may well be a successful formula for winning elections, but in such a dire situation, is this even a welcome result?
Well, yes. A victory for Labour in this election is, at a stretch, a desirable objective, but with certain caveats. Some intellectuals have argued that another landslide is necessary in order for Gordon Brown to have a workable mandate when the inevitable happens and Tony Blair finally stands aside. I disagree with this, and would go as far as saying that another huge Labour majority on May 6th would be almost as bad as a Conservative victory. Ideologically, Brown differs from Blair in the most trivial ways, and thus a strong showing at this election would merely set into stone the New Labour doctrine of rightward expansion into traditional Conservative territory. They should be returned to power on a slim majority, so that the party can take stock of its situation and begin to rediscover its roots. This election must signal the beginning of the end for New Labour.
For some time now the electorate has been urged to undergo a little collective amnesia when considering Labour’s record in power. In the Wednesday edition of the Guardian, the government’s cheerleader Polly Toynbee continued in the vein that she has been ploughing for several months: forget about Iraq, vote Blair and eventually you’ll get Chancellor Gordon Brown moving in to Number 10.
Forget Iraq. As if it were that simple to forego. Never mind the deaths of British soldiers, the uncounted tens or even hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilian deaths, the lies over WMD, the revisionist talk of ‘Iraqi liberty’ in a country where fundamental Islam is now taking root, the abject refusal of Blair to even contend an apology, the disgraceful tangent we have joined America in forging on the world stage. Two years ago, more than a million people showed their defiance and disgust at the idea of war, a demonstration that cut across class, culture, race, background and ideology. It amounted to nothing. Tony Blair ignored the wishes of the people who twice elected him to bloated Commons majorities, and now when an election is looming and the Conservative are in the ascendancy, he wants us to forget about that betrayal and put the past behind us and come back into the fold. Yet for many, Iraq looms over Blair – and, due to his increasingly presidential style, over the entire Labour party, notwithstanding those who fought against it – like a barrage balloon, dwarfing everything else into insignificance.
The arguments for the good that Labour has done ring hollow, mainly because they’re not being made at all by the government. Instead, potential swing voters who are considering defecting to the Liberal Democrats, the Greens or even Respect, are being admonished by the spectre of a Michael Howard victory on May 6th. Forget Iraq, we are being told; forget everything else, strip the issue to its core – that by not voting for Labour, you could be sentencing the country to another period of Tory rule.
It is no wonder that political apathy is so widespread, nor is it surprising that this election will surely sink below the 59% voter turnout of 2001. The choice is a stark one, but depressing on both sides. On one hand, an eminently dislikeable and inept public servant who will pick and choose issues from the far right – immigration, land rights for gypsies, ‘tougher’ penalties for criminals – in order to slap together a reactionary agenda that will appeal to the baser instincts of the populace. On the other, a distrusted prime minister who has successfully moved his party further and further to the right, and who will be consigned to history as the joint architect of an illegal, immoral and thoroughly opposed military folly.
Michael Howard is seeking to reposition the election as a “referendum” on Tony Blair’s eight years in power. His ploy, and a clever one at that, is to emphasise Blair’s visibility as the head of the government, whilst Labour tries to underplay it. The Evening Standard reported on Thursday that the Prime Minister’s image will be absent from the party’s manifesto brochure; likewise, many MPs are looking to marginalise Mr. Blair’s prominence in their own constituencies, a fact which Mr. Howard cleverly mocked in the Commons.
But for the traditional Labour voter, the issue shouldn’t be a referendum on Blair as much as it should be one on the entire party’s ideological path. To pin the blame for New Labour’s excesses entirely on the Prime Minister, while holding onto the quaint notion that the rest of the party retains a socialist bent, is a naïve belief that should firmly be debunked. In the years between the 1992 loss and the 1997 landslide, the party took huge strides to the right that cannot and will not be simply overturned by a change in leadership. In the London Review of Books, John Lancaster talks of the path that David Blunkett took in going from leader of the ‘loony Left’ Sheffield council in the 1980s, to the Labour home secretary who introduced authoritarian measures such as the suspension of prisoner’s rights, the widespread use of ‘anti-social behaviour orders’, and who described civil liberties concerns as ‘airy-fairy’. Blunkett’s journey may have been the most dramatic in its rightward tangent, but the truth is that the entire apparatus of the party now stands to the right of centre on most issues that concern Labour voters. This may well be a successful formula for winning elections, but in such a dire situation, is this even a welcome result?
Well, yes. A victory for Labour in this election is, at a stretch, a desirable objective, but with certain caveats. Some intellectuals have argued that another landslide is necessary in order for Gordon Brown to have a workable mandate when the inevitable happens and Tony Blair finally stands aside. I disagree with this, and would go as far as saying that another huge Labour majority on May 6th would be almost as bad as a Conservative victory. Ideologically, Brown differs from Blair in the most trivial ways, and thus a strong showing at this election would merely set into stone the New Labour doctrine of rightward expansion into traditional Conservative territory. They should be returned to power on a slim majority, so that the party can take stock of its situation and begin to rediscover its roots. This election must signal the beginning of the end for New Labour.
posted by DN at 1:53 AM
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