Earlier this month, the editors of
Renewal
, an influential British quarterly on Labor Party politics, published a scathing assessment of Tony Blair and his leadership of the Labor Party. Renewal Managing Editor Neal Lawson talks about how New Labor panders to the center right and what the party must do to reconnect with its social democratic roots.
After spending 18 years under Tory rule, the social-democratic left had high hopes for Tony Blair. Where did he go wrong?
We thought Blair had the potential to represent a new kind of politics, but one that was still rooted in the traditional values of the left: equality, fraternity, and liberty. At the time, we thought we were swimming in the same sea as Blair. We held a hope that he would usher in a new dawn for social democracy -- and we gave him a lot of license and space to do that. But it slowly became apparent that he wasn't going to capitalize on the opportunity that existed in British politics for a transformative left advance. Our relationship with Blairism devolved into something akin to a marriage breakup. We entered into the relationship quite willingly, and we didn't want to give up on Blair. We gave him the benefit of the doubt time and time again. Only after awhile did it become evident that something was seriously amiss with New Labor.
From where does this failure stem?
Even with a huge parliamentary majority, a very weak opposition, and a very strong economy, the left was failing to make the most of this opportunity to put forth a new social-democratic vision. Perplexed, we began to unravel the reasons why. Most of them are rooted in the belief that Blairism and New Labor is quite happy living in the shadow of Thatcherism. The key difference, though, is that Blair sees a legitimate role for the state. He seeks to use the state actively in terms of education, training, and infrastructure to ensure that Britain can compete effectively in a global economy.
But to us, this has inverted the notion of what social democracy is. Social democracy was always about making markets fit people, not making people fit markets. If our sole purpose is to come up with new policies to ensure that the British workforce is able to win and keep jobs within the global economy, then we have given up on social democracy and an enlightened form of neoliberalism.
In channeling this reformed Thatcherism, does New Labor think it can only win elections by playing to the center right?
Labor was out of national politics for 18 years. We were in the wilderness. We thought the creation of New Labor was a way of reconnecting with what was termed “middle England”-- the swing voters in swing parliamentary seats. If connected with these voters, we thought New Labor could drag them back to a more progressive, more left version of what politics should be about. Britain is not an inherently conservative country; rather, its people have the potential to be progressive, but only if the leadership has the ambition to shift the political center of gravity to the left. For a while we harbored the illusion that Blair could do this. We found, however, that this is not something that he wanted to do. He wanted to stay in the territory of always pandering to center right -- and that's the political difference now.
This all sounds familiar. It seems the “third way” became more an electoral strategy than vision.
I think that's the sad conclusion we have come to: The point of New Labor is to win elections. Winning elections is obviously essential, but it's not sufficient -- you have to win elections for a purpose. We don't think that some people in or around New Labor think this, however. They think neoliberalism and middle England need pandering to and must be treated with kid gloves.
Speaking of elections, what would happen to Labor if Blair remains at the party's helm?
Labor is very likely to win [the May 2005 elections] with Blair as its leader, but it will be a miserable victory. We may just drift on for the foreseeable future with no sense of aspiration, but there is no alternative because the brilliance of Blairism is that it denies the space for conservatives to come back again. He takes their issues, and in a lesson he learned from Bill Clinton and Dick Morris, triangulates. Maybe New Labor will forever remain in power on that basis, but it will always be unfulfilling for the left because we won't do the things that we are in politics to do.
You say Iraq is Tony Blair's “poll tax,” a breach of trust for which Labor may pay a hefty price. Blair may start trying to lower the significance of foreign policy. Do you think the public will let him off the hook?
Well, chickens always come home to roost. New Labor was elected on a tide of a new politics that was built on trust and honesty and transparency. By misleading us into war, he destroyed that wave of optimism. This is his most terrible legacy. Even if Blair wins another election, it would have been done on terribly low turnout and with a public that is not engaged.
Labor Party membership is at an all-time low, the belief that politics can change society is at an all-time low, and until the people who took us to war are no longer at the helm, Labor is bound to pay hefty price for this.
Do you see any possibility of anti-war Labor leaders making a push at the leadership right now?
Those people will only come back when they have a clear alternative to Blairism. Just changing the people at the top and having a more coherent Blairism isn't the answer. The left in both Britain and America have got to come up with the policy ideas that work and will be popular. There is no shortcut to that journey or the hard slog into thinking about [what] we would do if we were in power.
How will Blair do after the American elections?
Blair will ride it either way. If [George W.] Bush gets re-elected, that's an affirmation of the Iraq policy again. If [John] Kerry wins, there are those who think that Blair might become more isolated. But Blair is a very skilled politician, and Kerry isn't going to want to isolate Blair or treat him any differently than [French President Jacques] Chirac or [German Chancellor Gerhard] Schröder.
And the British public?
Overwhelmingly, the British public wants Kerry to win. But over here there is a lot of skepticism about what the hell Kerry stands for. I follow these things reasonably closely, and I haven't a clue what he stands for. And that may be a good electoral strategy to win. But as we found out in Britain, unless you win with a sense of purpose -- with a clear sense of what you are trying to do -- victory can become meaningless fairly soon. That doesn't mean we don't want Labor governments to win, or the Democrats to win in the States, but God, it has to be more than just about winning.
Mark Goldberg is a Prospect writing fellow.
