After Prime Minister Tony
Blair's emotional farewell
address to the Labour
Party in September -- he
plans to leave office
within a year -- British politics faced
two key questions: Is the New Labour
project that Blair so successfully used
to transform Britain over the past 10
years dead? And can Labour even hope
to hold on to the government after the
great vote-getter is gone?
The short answer to the first question
is no. Blair's successor, whether
Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon
Brown or another member of Blair's
cabinet, will almost certainly continue
in the progressive spirit of Blair's
reform politics. And the answer to the
second is a qualified yes, as long as
Labour plays its cards well. The British
press has already dubbed the
Conservative Party's youthful and
energetic new leader, David Cameron,
the "heir to Blair." But that's too facile.
Cameron may have the looks and style
of Blair, but he lacks the content. It is
New Labour that has transformed
Britain since 1997, and New Labour
that will have proper claim to continue
the project.
This doesn't mean that Labour has no
problems. There's a reason why Blair is
planning to leave office early. The drag of
the Iraq war, Blair's perceived closeness to
the vilified George W. Bush, and third-term
voter fatigue have all made Blair --
once the greatest vote-getter in Labour
history -- unpopular with much of the
public, and with many in his own party.
That's why a handful of Labourites in and
out of government mounted a coup
attempt in September, hoping to force
Blair out even sooner. Although some
believe the plotters were working at the
behest of Brown, the chancellor vehemently
denies the charge. Either way, it
became apparent that Blair's glory days
were behind him, and so he laid the
groundwork for his succession, probably
in 2007.
Both Britain's liberal left and the newly
energized Conservatives would love to see
Blair gone soon. Yet they will almost certainly
be disappointed. Instead, Blair's
retirement is likely to underline the
degree to which his near-decade in
Downing Street has left a lasting
imprint -- both on the party he still leads
and on its opponents as well. As Blair
noted in his emotional valedictory
speech: "This is a changed country. ...
We have changed the terms of political
debate."
Blair is right. As Alan Milburn, a former
health secretary, noted, Blair created
a "new political orthodoxy in British
politics." This orthodoxy "goes beyond
individual policies to a political
approach that is liberal on economic and
social policy, internationalist in foreign
policy, marries rights with responsibilities,
and makes reform and investment
in public services a modern route to
social justice."
It was the coupling of rights with
responsibilities -- in part inspired by the
New Democrats and the Clinton presidency
in the United States -- that most
fundamentally transformed Labour, and
Britain. The notion of a fundamental
conflict between individual success and
social solidarity -- a hoary pillar of Old
Labour socialism -- was disavowed, and
Blair's years in power proved it wrong.
"We proved that economic efficiency
and social justice are not opposites, but
partners in progress," said Blair.
There are numerous examples that
underscore the point. First, there's New
Labour's stunning economic record.
Under Blair and Brown (the chancellor
of the exchequer is equivalent to the
U.S. treasury secretary), Labour has
presided over the longest sustained
growth in British economic history.
Mass unemployment is gone and there
are virtually no long-term unemployed
young people.
Ten years ago, when many people
harbored doubts about Labour's ability
to manage the economy, Brown pledged
not to raise taxes and to spend wisely to
maintain economic stability. He was so
successful that today, it's the Conservatives
who are forced to forswear tax
cuts to prove they can be trusted to run
the economy.
In addition, a heavy investment in
public services -- especially in education,
health, and training for welfare recipients
-- has generated high voter satisfaction.
Along with Blair's singular
strengths as a political campaigner, these
reforms and the economic recovery
account for Labour's unprecedented success
in three straight general elections.
This gives Labour a strong record to
run on, and it gives New Labour a strong
hand with which to rebuff the onslaught
of its once-powerful leftists and unions.
Indeed, even those who sought to overthrow
the prime minister in September
proclaimed their continuing fealty to the
principles of New Labour.
First among the contenders for new
Labour leader is Brown. Along with
Blair, Brown initiated the New Labour
project in the 1990s. Although they have
often clashed, and even though he is
somewhat damaged by the perception
that he was involved in the failed coup
attempt against Blair, Brown remains
the odds-on favorite to become the
Labour leader and prime minister.
Many have misinterpreted the personal
feuds between Blair and Brown to
mean that Brown's politics are different
from Blair's and that he would take
Labour back to his left-wing losing habits.
They are wrong. Brown walks, talks, and
acts like a man of New Labour. His
speeches are repeatedly peppered with references
to the New Democrat values of
"opportunity, responsibility, and community."
As chancellor, he has embraced the
Clintonian principle of fiscal discipline
(or "prudence" as he calls it) and proclaimed
that "work is the best form of
welfare."
In his speech to this year's Labour
conference, as he made his unofficial bid
to become Labour's next leader, Brown
said: "We can't just be pro-labor; we've
got to be pro-business, too. ... The
renewal of New Labour must and will be
built upon ... a flexible economy,
reformed and personalized public services,
public and private sectors not at
odds but working together."
Brown's approach to welfare was a
"New Deal" of reforms that couple
greater opportunities with the demand
for increased responsibility. He created
tax credits modeled on the U.S. earned
income tax credits "to make work pay."
Greater investment in public services has
been accompanied by the demand that
government must be "reinvented" and
reformed.
In recent years, Brown has also
betrayed little sympathy for anti-globalization
"Luddites." Free trade, open
markets, and greater liberalization --
together with greater investment in education
and training, research and development,
and science -- are, he says, the
best way to expand the circle of winners
at home and abroad.
But what of Brown's approach to foreign
policy, the area that has, more than
any other, divided Labour under Blair's
leadership? The left hopes that Brown's
silence during last summer's Israeli-
Hezbollah conflict revealed his unease
with the prime minister's view of the
world. But they may again find themselves
largely disappointed.
The chancellor's words on the fifth
anniversary of 9/11 could easily have
come straight from the prime minister:
"We face an enemy driven by hatred of
our very existence," he said. "Between
justice and evil, humanity and barbarism,
democracy and tyranny, no one
can afford to be neutral or disengaged."
On Iraq and Afghanistan, Brown has
defended the deployment of British
troops and pledged to maintain them as
"long as is necessary."
As for relations with the United
States, any successor to Blair will probably
put some distance between himself
and Bush. As New Labour foreign policy
analyst Mark Leonard puts it: "Brown's
style might be more similar to the
German chancellor Angela Merkel's
than Blair's: positioning himself as
unambiguous Atlanticist -- but reserving
the right to be critical of American policy
in public."
Besides Brown, there are a handful of
other potential challengers for party
leadership. Education Secretary Alan
Johnson, tough-talking Home Secretary
John Reid, former Health Secretary Alan
Milburn are all among those mentioned.
Yet they, too, are New Labour through
and through and would be likely to continue
Blair's legacy.
The greatest irony for Blair may be
that he so transformed British politics
that he forced, in turn, the reform of the
Conservative Party under Cameron.
Cameron has been ruthlessly following
the lessons of the New Labour playbook,
forcing his party to the center. This has
given Conservatives a boost in the polls,
causing many in Labour to blame Blair
for their mild reversals of fortune -- and
to wish him gone. Thus Blair is indeed
taking leave earlier, and painfully. But in
the long term, a departure on these
grounds may become one of the most
powerful parts of his legacy.
