Blair’s Last Hurrah

A relatively young Tony Blair was elected leader of the Labour party after the untimely death of John Smith. In a short frame of time, he seized the reigns of control and slowly remodelled the party under the brand of “New Labour”. Blair’s affable, embracing personality and his vision for the party and the country were seen as a breath of fresh air in comparison to the grey man of British politics – John Major. In the build-up to the 1997 general elections, Blair made guest appearances on several television programmes, including a satirical comedy show. Whether such an act was impromptu or part of a carefully conceived plan by the party’s spin doctors, the electorate responded warmly. Blair seemed far less removed than politicians before him. One could even say that Blair alone was responsible for garnering the public support that saw ‘New Labour’ catapult into power, overthrowing the dilapidated Conservative party in a landslide victory in the 1997 general elections.

After almost three terms in office, the popularity of both Blair and his party has diminished. The inability to fulfil promises made in the party manifest, the debauched foreign policy and the recent ‘loans for peerages’ scandal, has left voters, the Press, the Opposition and factions within his own party disgruntled and calling for his resignation. As revelations emerged last week of a leaked memo timetabling Blair’s departure from politics, one has to ask what ever happened to the man once dubbed ‘the saviour of British politics?’

With the overwhelming support of a nation happily freed from the constraints of a long Conservative rule, Blair’s first two terms in office went relatively unscathed. As the Conservatives stood helplessly out-numbered in the Commons, an energised New Labour unashamedly overturned their predecessor’s policies and implemented their political agenda with gusto. During the early years, the Labour Party had had nothing but a golden touch. The economy was stronger than ever before and for Blair, after only one year in office, he had accomplished what Prime Ministers before him had failed to do - in 1998, the Northern Ireland peace agreement was struck. Yet for Blair, the period of romanticism was short-lived.

The events of September 11, 2001 signalled a cataclysmic change in global geopolitics. Blair stood shoulder to shoulder with American President George W. Bush in the ensuing War against Terror. Under the blanket of bombs and missiles that pummelled Iraq, Blair’s endorsement of the invasion was the beginning of his own political demise. His popularity in public opinion polls plummeted and he lost much needed support within his own party. It was felt that the attack on a sovereign Muslim state, based on loosely acquired intelligence, had left Britain vulnerable to terrorist attacks. After having put to rest years of living in fear of onslaught from the Irish Republican Army (IRA), no-one in Britain wanted to relive the memories of a bloody past. Protests fell on deaf ears and on July 7, 2005, London’s transport system became the latest casualty in the new era of global terrorism.

Matters for the Prime Minister have not greatly improved since the London bombings. Blair was lambasted for his delay in asking for a ceasefire in Lebanon and the recent thwart of an Al-Qaeda operation to use transatlantic flights as missiles against the United States, has not done much to relieve the pressure mounting on the Prime Minister. Moreover, Blair has been the subject of ridicule for his apparent blind allegiance to George W. Bush.

Unable to recuperate from his foreign policy misadventures and no longer embodying the once great leader of his heyday, Blair’s time at the helm of British politics is numbered. The sad end to the political tenure of a brilliant politician is unfortunately a familiar story in British politics. Not so long ago, Margaret Thatcher - like Edward Heath before her - was unabashedly thrown out from office after a coup was staged by senior members of her cabinet. Reeling from betrayal, her teary exit as leader of the Conservative party has been well documented.

Since Blair announced that he had no intention of serving a fourth term as leader at the Labour Party conference in September 2004 – on hindsight a fatal error - his critics have called for his early removal. However, Blair himself has stood steadfast. In an interview with The Times on September 1, 2006, Blair refused to elaborate on his date of departure as doing so would destroy his remaining authority over the Government and the country. A whirlwind of chaos and madness followed. A letter from a group of fifteen Members of Parliament (MPs) to the Prime Minister was leaked to the Guardian newspaper on September 4, 2006, demanding his immediate resignation. The next day, a memo found its’ way to the tabloid newspaper, The Daily Mirror which laughably detailed a ‘farewell tour’ that would see Blair step down in a ‘blaze of glory,’ making appearances on the children’s show Blue Peter, Songs of Praise and BBC Radio. The revelations prompted factions within the Labour Party to go public with information concerning the timetable for the Prime Minister’s departure. Speaking to BBC Radio 4, the Environment Secretary David Miliband stated that he had no reason to challenge the “conventional wisdom” that Mr Blair would stand down in the next twelve months.

On September 6, 2006 - in an event later described by Blairites as an old-fashioned 1970s trade union putsch and a disgraceful attempt to blackmail the Prime Minister out of office - eight of the signatory MPs to the letter demanding the Prime Minister’s resignation, including the junior defence minister Tom Watson and Khalid Mahmood (the only one of four Asian MPs who had refused to criticise the Government’s policy in Iraq and Lebanon in a letter last month), resigned. Matters spiralled out of control as an all out power struggle erupted between Blair and his Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown. It is understood that Brown demanded Blair relinquish the premiership by Christmas, with an effective joint premiership until a new leader was elected by the party. Mr Brown is further believed to have said that the new leader had to be given ample time to establish himself in the House of Commons against the leader of the Opposition, David Cameron. Such demands have clashed with Blair’s determination to depart with dignity by the middle of next year. Later, the leftwing Labour MP John McDonnell likened the week’s events to an episode from ‘the Sopranos’.

This most recent tryst between Blair and Brown is a far cry from the 1980s when the two heavyweights of the Labour Party enjoyed a solid friendship. The rot began in the summer of 1994 when John Smith, the then leader of the Labour Party died. Over dinner at Granita, a North London restaurant, Gordon Brown apparently agreed to remove himself from the labour leadership race. Tony Blair in return promised to step aside at some future point and let Brown take over. It was a devil’s pact. As the years passed, the Chancellor of the Exchequer waited for his coronation but Blair seemed reluctant to go. The “Granita Pact” created a highly dysfunctional relationship between the two men – the effects of which have now come to a head. As the Prime Minister’s glory fades, Brown’s resolute determination to become party leader seems impossible to derail. Yet Brown should take heed. If he continues on his chosen path and does not silence those supporters who seek to undermine Blair, he will inherit a divided, faltering party. More importantly, once premier, he (or any other successor) can only expect the same degree of loyalty or discipline.

Just as the Labour Party threatened to implode over the date of Blair’s departure, the two men embroiled in the leadership tussle finally came to their senses. In choreographed moves, Blair and Brown made separate public statements on September 7, 2006 to try and calm ranks within their party and present a semblance of control in Government to the public.

Speaking in Glasgow, Brown stated that he “like others” has had “questions”, but it was up to Blair when he should go and that he would support his decision. Moreover, any decision should not be the result of private arrangements but what was in the best interests of the Labour Party and the country.

The Prime Minister used a public appearance at a north London school to finally acknowledge that within a year, he would no longer be serving as the leader of the Labour Party. He insisted that the precise timetable had to be left up to him and had to be done in a proper way. Blair noted that the haggling over party leadership had not been the Labour Party’s finest hour. Echoing the words of his Chancellor, he stated that it was important for the Labour Party to realise that the interests of the country came first. Finally in a move presumably to aggravate Brown, Blair made a veiled endorsement of the leadership credentials of the Education Secretary, Alan Johnson. It is ironic that after a week when Brown and his supporters sought to cement his place as the natural successor to Blair, the turn of events has resulted in talk of possible challengers to Brown. The left-wing MP John McDonnell has already announced his candidacy and the Home Secretary, John Reid, as well as other members of the Cabinet, could also join the race for the leadership and spoil Gordon Brown’s overdue accession.

Electing a new leader will not renew Labour. The party should look hard at the price paid by the Conservatives after the downfall of Thatcher. Division will only lead to electoral catastrophe. Labour needs a resolution. The Party must now re-group, re-strategize and move the debate away from personalities to policy. Otherwise the hard fought struggle from the political abyss of the 1980s and 1990s could well have been for nothing and in a reversal of fortune, the newly revamped Conservative party under the young (and dare I say “new Tony Blair”) David Cameron, could well come to power by the next General elections.