The balance sheet of Blairism
June 27th, 2007 admin Posted in euro socialist |
As Blair's departure sinks in, I've written my own thoughts on the record of New Labour's first decade in power.In the post-war period, there have been two governments that have transformed the political consensus. Attlee's landslide in 1945 ushered in welfare capitalism, not least by founding the National Health Service; created a mixed economy by nationalising strategic industries; and began the process of decolonisation by withdrawing from India.
Thatcherism represented a equally seismic shift to the right, smashing the postwar political consensus. Thatcher undertook a programme of mass privatisation that ended the mixed economy; broke the manufacturing base of the British economy in favour of a hire-and-fire service sector; dramatically slashed direct taxation on the wealthy; and crippled the power of the once mighty British labour movement.
Despite a landslide victory in 1997, a decade of New Labour has produced no new political consensus of an even comparable magnitude. It boasts no major new institutions or dramatic economic, social or political changes to the old status quo. The British social structure remains much as it was ten years ago. Hyperbolic comparisons with the Thatcherite 1980s are wrong: we haven't suffered a systematic offensive against working people combined with mass unemployment and a whole host of ultra-regressive social reforms. Instead, the past decade has represented both a period of retrenchment and continuity. Its relationship to Thatcherism is similar to that between the council house-building Tory governments of the 1950s and the Attlee government.
During the deputy leadership contest, Alan Johnson suggested that New Labour had shifted the centre ground to the left, which the Tories now wanted to follow. The recent Tory row over grammar schools is often cited as an example of this. In actual fact, on this issue (as on so many others), New Labour has effectively met the Tories halfway by driving through policies which are fragmenting and marketising education.
That is not to say there have not been welcome progressive reforms. Before 1997, workers could be legally paid £2 an hour; in the teeth of Tory and CBI opposition, a minimum wage has been introduced with the support of the entire labour movement. Maternity pay has been increased. Unemployment is down as compared with the Tory years. Billions of pounds have been invested in public services. All three and four year olds are now entitled to free nursery education. Section 28 has been repealed, the age of consent has been equalised and gay men and women now have the right to civil partnerships. Devolution in Scotland and Wales. There is peace in the North of Ireland. All of this shows that the worst Labour government is better than the "best" Tory government (whatever that is...)
Many of these achievements have big "buts" attached. The minimum wage is still poverty pay and, as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation pointed out in 2004, Britain continues to have a "low pay culture." The huge investment in public services has often been disastrously undermined by policies of privatisation and marketisation - often in areas where the Tories had not dared to go. 1.7 million workers are still unemployed - that is, 5.5%, as compared to 4.7% in 1979 when the Tories were able to make it the main issue of the general election campaign. Not only is there still effectively mass unemployment - but millions are trapped in the low wage McJobs of the hire-and-fire service sector. Greater rights for gays are welcome, but in large part these laws were reflections rather than causes of irresistible social changes below: even the Tories lowered the gay age of consent in the early 1990s.
In many areas, policies introduced by New Labour have been outright reactionary. Top-up fees are leaving students in thousands of pounds worth of debt, deterring working-class kids from going to university, and threatening to introduce an internal market to university education. Foundation hospitals are creating a two-tier NHS. Academy schools backed by rich donors have permitted Christian fundamentalist take-overs of certain schools; while trust schools are marketising and fragmenting our education system. Faith schools (i.e. religiously segregated schools) are beginning to flourish under New Labour. Civil liberties have come under systematic attack for a decade. Billions of pounds are to be wasted on nuclear weapons.
In other areas, New Labour have simply maintained the Thatcherite status quo. Despite the Labour party being funded by trade unions to the tune of £100m since 1997, Britain remains - in the words of Tony Blair - the country "most restrictive on trade unions in the western world." That Britain remains in total contravention of its obligations under International Labour Organisation Conventions after a decade of a Labour Government is nothing less than a scandal. Furthermore, New Labour has refused to reverse deeply unpopular Tory policies such as the privatisation of the railways, despite overwhelming support for renationalisation.
There are several statistics which represent damning indictments of the failure of this Government to transform society in any meaningful sense. Inequality is at the same level as it was under Margaret Thatcher - allowing the grotesque sight of a Tory leader being able to posture to the left of a Labour Government on the issue. There are 3.8 million children living in poverty; although that has decreased overall over the past decade, child poverty has begun to increase again. In the first 8 years of New Labour government, homelessness increased by a staggering 100,000 - in other words, more than double the level of 1997. Despite a growing housing crisis, the government has refused to invest in building council housing. The number of people in prison is now at the record high of 80,977 - the highest in Europe.
And, of course, there is what New Labour will above all be remembered for - the invasion and occupation of Iraq in alliance with George W Bush's administration. The Iraq war wasn't a "bad" or a "wrong" policy: it was and is a crime. This war was carried out under false pretences and in defiance of popular opinion, a demonstration of 2 million, and a rebellion of 139 Labour MPs. According to a peer-reviewed report by prestigious medical journal The Lancet last November, over 650,000 Iraqis had died and 1.5 million have been made refugees as a direct result of the invasion and occupation and Iraq has been plunged into a nightmare-ish violent chaos. It will be years before we fully appreciate the scale of the horror of the greatest crime of our age.
Finally, there is the legacy of what Blairism has done to the Labour party. Membership is now (at most) 182,000 - well under half of the 407,000 peak a decade ago. The number of actual activists is much lower. Labour's councillor base has plumetted - mostly because of the refusal of so many natural Labour supporters to vote - leaving millions with Tory or Liberal councils. In many real senses, the Labour party is imploding.
The notion that Tony Blair is singlehandedly responsible for Labour's popularity is a myth. Labour enjoyed a solid lead in the opinion polls from August 1992 and particularly after Black Friday. Under John Smith, Labour enjoyed ratings of up to 49% as compared to 27% for the Tories. Labour's landslide in 1997 can be as much explained by the total discrediting of the Tories as anything else. From then on, Blair had to face a weak, divided opposition led by laughable figures such as William Hague and Iain Duncan-Smith. In the 2005 General Election, Labour won by the smallest majority of any winning party in the history of British democracy; and only one in five of eligible voters voted for it. Indeed, 500,000 more people voted for Labour in 1987 when it lost the election.
As Blair finally leaves Number 10, it is clear that ten years of New Labour represents a combination of some diluted progressive social reforms, a series of regressive and outright reactionary measures, continuity with Thatcherism, and a total failure to transform society in any meaningful sense. The murderous occupation of Iraq will be forever carved on the gravestone of New Labour.
And the real tragedy is that - under the unelected leadership of Gordon Brown - we now face the prospect of Blairism without Blair. Unless there is a change of political direction, the very future of the Labour party has to remain in doubt.
