Blair Is Destroying Labour
The title of this article might seem a bit odd at first glance. The idea that the Labour Party’s most successful leader ever could be ‘destroying’ the party just doesn’t add up. Unless that is, we ignore the short-term vagrancies of electoral politics and fast forward a decade or so. We are endlessly hearing from Westminster based journalists that the Prime Minister is obsessed with his place in the history books. Now I’ve never met the guy so I’ll leave the amateur psychology to them but I doubt that he would wish the history books to show Tony Blair as the Labour leader whose leadership drove the party into electoral oblivion.
Yet, in the long term, this is not as implausible as it sounds. Unlike the days when Labour and the Conservatives could be certain of 35% of the vote irrespective of their wider popularity, the electorate is now thoroughly de-aligned and highly likely to shift their allegiance at a stroke. Just as Black Wednesday and other assorted catastrophes turned the Tories from the most successful political party in Europe to an irrelevant minority overnight, New Labour’s time will come. As it stands, despite the massive majorities, there is ample evidence that this government is deeply unpopular even during these prosperous times. Just imagine what the voters would do to Blair if there was a real economic crisis.
If, or should I say when, the moment of Labour’s electoral demise comes, they will need to fall back on their membership and core support. During the party’s darkest hours of the 1980s, they could still count on the rock solid support of at least 30% of the electorate – made up primarily of trade unionists, the poor, liberals, pacifists, socialists and those who just couldn’t stand Margaret Thatcher. Likewise, even as the Tories in opposition lurch from one embarrassing leadership contest to the next, their bottom line of 30% looks rock solid. However, unlike Thatcher and Major, Blair has jeopardised the party’s future by ignoring, provoking and finally completely alienating his party’s support base.
Under our undemocratic first past the post system, it has become the conventional wisdom that, in order to win an election, all you need to do is win over the tiny minority of ‘swing’ voters in marginal seats. Blair and the New Labour hierarchy have swallowed this hook, line and sinker and duly targeted their entire spin offensive at winning over these non-partisan voters. Yet it is pure nonsense. Even in marginal seats, the Labour vote is still primarily made up of people who fit one of the aforementioned categories and can be broadly described as ‘left-wing’. If these people desert Labour, then it won’t make a jot of difference where the swing voters go. And all the evidence suggests this is happening already. Discontent over various issues like privatisation, war, tuition fees or rising inequality is driving millions of lifelong Labour voters into the arms of the Liberal Democrats or in some cases, UKIP.
Perhaps more important is the fact that party membership is in freefall. Every successful left-wing party in history has been based on a large membership made up of people from everyday life. Trade unionists, other workers, the poor or disenfranchised – in other words people with little power on their own who unite in order to have their interests represented in Parliament. Yet trade union membership is also in decline and the average worker feels little empathy with the modern Labour Party who speak a language that rarely communicates with anyone outside the Westminster village. You don’t have to be the world’s greatest cynic to believe that New Labour are more interested in courting millionaire doners than encouraging citizens to join the party.
It all seems so perverse. The hard reality is that this government has actually done more for the poor or the workers than any government since that of Labour legend Clement Attlee. The minimum wage, tax credits targeted at the poor, the Sure Start scheme offering free nursery education for poor children are just some of the impressive anti-poverty measures this government can boast. Much of the extra investment in schools and hospitals has been disproportionately targeted at the communities that need it most. Areas that sunk into mass unemployment during the Thatcher era are slowly but surely on the way up.
But we never hear anything about any of this. Its too easy to simply blame the media for deliberately accentuating the negative, as Alastair Campbell believes. For sure, the Tory press have no interest in talking about Labour successes and most mainstream journalists live in a world where nobody is poor enough to benefit from such policies and therefore tend to overlook them. But the truth is that Blair and his ministers have been too scared to admit the left-wing aspects of their actions. Years of trying to emulate the style of the Tories in order to poach their support and convince those swing voters that they have nothing in common with the desperately unpopular parties of Callaghan, Foot and Kinnock has meant that any hint of socialism has disappeared from the party’s image.
The result is bad for Labour in two ways. Firstly it has meant that the Right totally dominate British political discourse, delegitimising any left-wing activity even further. This can only benefit Labour’s opponents. Secondly, it leaves the government with no cheerleaders whatsoever. The Right can, without any evidence whatsoever, brand the government as a bunch of ultra-liberal (I know - I laughed too at the thought), politically correct, tax and spenders obsessed with extending the tentacles of the nanny state. And where the Left could normally rebut such ludicrous claims, they turn the other way – ashamed of a leader who makes friends with George W Bush and who appears to believe Thatcherism was a good idea.
Equally, the personality cult that surrounds Tony Blair and New Labour is extremely counter-productive. While the effects of politics are largely the result of collective human behaviour, events, historical trends and detailed policy, it is one of the great misconceptions of our time that politics is increasingly portrayed and regarded as the actions of a few powerful individuals. For the Left, whose raison d’etre is the belief that we are stronger as individuals when acting in unity, this is a disaster. Yet Blair has done more to entrench this nonsensical culture than anybody. When the government received a bad press over immigration, No 10’s response was that to state that Tony will be taking personal charge of this issue, as he has in the past over crime and anti-social behaviour. The idea that drunken yobs or highly organised people smuggling gangs will think again just because Blair is chairing a weekly meeting in Downing Street concerning their activities is too laughable for words.
The result of this is that everything the government does, good or bad, becomes personally associated with Tony Blair. So now, as the PM’s reputation takes a nosedive as his deception over the Iraq war unravels, nobody seems to be talking about anything else the government does. In another world, when the pub conversation turns to politics, people might be discussing the pros and cons of the substantial differences between the Labour and Tory parties on tax, wealth distribution, health, education, infrastructure and policing. Instead they are more likely to be discussing the Blair family’s much publicised holiday in the luxurious surroundings of Europe’s first post-WW2 fascist leader, Silvio Berlusconi.
There is one way out for the Labour Party. In Gordon Brown, they have the most successful Chancellor of modern times. Brown has been instrumental in designing the redistributive aspects of New Labour policy. He is a political figure of considerable authority, a serious man who cannot be portrayed as being either vain or a Tory. Opinion polls consistently show him to be a more popular figure than Blair and, in stark contrast, his party loves him. This government desperately needs a new beginning. Personally associated with providing economic stability and attacking poverty and its causes, Brown could easily relaunch the government arguing that the foundations had been laid for a truly radical 3rd term. In that scenario, Labour would be stone-cold certainties to win the next election. He might even develop a narrative that gives those of us on the Left a reason to believe in politics again. And Blair, rather than going down in history as the man who destroyed the party, can secure a place as the man who wrestled power away from the Conservatives and shifted the centre of British politics in a progressive direction.
Yet, in the long term, this is not as implausible as it sounds. Unlike the days when Labour and the Conservatives could be certain of 35% of the vote irrespective of their wider popularity, the electorate is now thoroughly de-aligned and highly likely to shift their allegiance at a stroke. Just as Black Wednesday and other assorted catastrophes turned the Tories from the most successful political party in Europe to an irrelevant minority overnight, New Labour’s time will come. As it stands, despite the massive majorities, there is ample evidence that this government is deeply unpopular even during these prosperous times. Just imagine what the voters would do to Blair if there was a real economic crisis.
If, or should I say when, the moment of Labour’s electoral demise comes, they will need to fall back on their membership and core support. During the party’s darkest hours of the 1980s, they could still count on the rock solid support of at least 30% of the electorate – made up primarily of trade unionists, the poor, liberals, pacifists, socialists and those who just couldn’t stand Margaret Thatcher. Likewise, even as the Tories in opposition lurch from one embarrassing leadership contest to the next, their bottom line of 30% looks rock solid. However, unlike Thatcher and Major, Blair has jeopardised the party’s future by ignoring, provoking and finally completely alienating his party’s support base.
Under our undemocratic first past the post system, it has become the conventional wisdom that, in order to win an election, all you need to do is win over the tiny minority of ‘swing’ voters in marginal seats. Blair and the New Labour hierarchy have swallowed this hook, line and sinker and duly targeted their entire spin offensive at winning over these non-partisan voters. Yet it is pure nonsense. Even in marginal seats, the Labour vote is still primarily made up of people who fit one of the aforementioned categories and can be broadly described as ‘left-wing’. If these people desert Labour, then it won’t make a jot of difference where the swing voters go. And all the evidence suggests this is happening already. Discontent over various issues like privatisation, war, tuition fees or rising inequality is driving millions of lifelong Labour voters into the arms of the Liberal Democrats or in some cases, UKIP.
Perhaps more important is the fact that party membership is in freefall. Every successful left-wing party in history has been based on a large membership made up of people from everyday life. Trade unionists, other workers, the poor or disenfranchised – in other words people with little power on their own who unite in order to have their interests represented in Parliament. Yet trade union membership is also in decline and the average worker feels little empathy with the modern Labour Party who speak a language that rarely communicates with anyone outside the Westminster village. You don’t have to be the world’s greatest cynic to believe that New Labour are more interested in courting millionaire doners than encouraging citizens to join the party.
It all seems so perverse. The hard reality is that this government has actually done more for the poor or the workers than any government since that of Labour legend Clement Attlee. The minimum wage, tax credits targeted at the poor, the Sure Start scheme offering free nursery education for poor children are just some of the impressive anti-poverty measures this government can boast. Much of the extra investment in schools and hospitals has been disproportionately targeted at the communities that need it most. Areas that sunk into mass unemployment during the Thatcher era are slowly but surely on the way up.
But we never hear anything about any of this. Its too easy to simply blame the media for deliberately accentuating the negative, as Alastair Campbell believes. For sure, the Tory press have no interest in talking about Labour successes and most mainstream journalists live in a world where nobody is poor enough to benefit from such policies and therefore tend to overlook them. But the truth is that Blair and his ministers have been too scared to admit the left-wing aspects of their actions. Years of trying to emulate the style of the Tories in order to poach their support and convince those swing voters that they have nothing in common with the desperately unpopular parties of Callaghan, Foot and Kinnock has meant that any hint of socialism has disappeared from the party’s image.
The result is bad for Labour in two ways. Firstly it has meant that the Right totally dominate British political discourse, delegitimising any left-wing activity even further. This can only benefit Labour’s opponents. Secondly, it leaves the government with no cheerleaders whatsoever. The Right can, without any evidence whatsoever, brand the government as a bunch of ultra-liberal (I know - I laughed too at the thought), politically correct, tax and spenders obsessed with extending the tentacles of the nanny state. And where the Left could normally rebut such ludicrous claims, they turn the other way – ashamed of a leader who makes friends with George W Bush and who appears to believe Thatcherism was a good idea.
Equally, the personality cult that surrounds Tony Blair and New Labour is extremely counter-productive. While the effects of politics are largely the result of collective human behaviour, events, historical trends and detailed policy, it is one of the great misconceptions of our time that politics is increasingly portrayed and regarded as the actions of a few powerful individuals. For the Left, whose raison d’etre is the belief that we are stronger as individuals when acting in unity, this is a disaster. Yet Blair has done more to entrench this nonsensical culture than anybody. When the government received a bad press over immigration, No 10’s response was that to state that Tony will be taking personal charge of this issue, as he has in the past over crime and anti-social behaviour. The idea that drunken yobs or highly organised people smuggling gangs will think again just because Blair is chairing a weekly meeting in Downing Street concerning their activities is too laughable for words.
The result of this is that everything the government does, good or bad, becomes personally associated with Tony Blair. So now, as the PM’s reputation takes a nosedive as his deception over the Iraq war unravels, nobody seems to be talking about anything else the government does. In another world, when the pub conversation turns to politics, people might be discussing the pros and cons of the substantial differences between the Labour and Tory parties on tax, wealth distribution, health, education, infrastructure and policing. Instead they are more likely to be discussing the Blair family’s much publicised holiday in the luxurious surroundings of Europe’s first post-WW2 fascist leader, Silvio Berlusconi.
There is one way out for the Labour Party. In Gordon Brown, they have the most successful Chancellor of modern times. Brown has been instrumental in designing the redistributive aspects of New Labour policy. He is a political figure of considerable authority, a serious man who cannot be portrayed as being either vain or a Tory. Opinion polls consistently show him to be a more popular figure than Blair and, in stark contrast, his party loves him. This government desperately needs a new beginning. Personally associated with providing economic stability and attacking poverty and its causes, Brown could easily relaunch the government arguing that the foundations had been laid for a truly radical 3rd term. In that scenario, Labour would be stone-cold certainties to win the next election. He might even develop a narrative that gives those of us on the Left a reason to believe in politics again. And Blair, rather than going down in history as the man who destroyed the party, can secure a place as the man who wrestled power away from the Conservatives and shifted the centre of British politics in a progressive direction.
posted by Paul Krishnamurty at 7:35 AM
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