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How Tony Blair lost the elections

KAZI ANWARUL MASUD
Leo Abse, however, is less sanguine about Blair's comprehension of global turbulence. He thinks that, like Bush, Blair is a great believer that God is on his side, and that despite Pope John Paul's and the Archbishop of Canterbury's condemnation of the Iraq war, Blair's "personal communion with the Lord has left Blair confident that when the day comes for him to appear before God, the Lord's judgment and his own will coincide."***
THOUGH the Labour Party won, Tony Blair lost the British elections. This can be the only conclusion one can draw from the results of the last general elections. Singlehandedly, he brought down the 161seat majority in parliament to 60 seats. The voters dealt him a "bloody nose" mainly because, as former Labourite and Respect Party member elected from East London George Galloway put it, of Iraq, described by former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook as "an unpopular war based on false intelligence and launched on doubtful legality."
Nullifying Blair's call for unity by leaving the Iraq war behind, Cook points out that the Iraq war was universally perceived as Blair's personal responsibility and joins the chorus contemplating whether Blair "should not make way for a new leader who does not have close identification with the war in Iraq and therefore has a better prospect of rebuilding unity." Senior Labour leaders have already called on Tony Blair to abandon his presidential style of governance and declare his date of departure.
Blair's style of government had been denounced by Robin Cook and ex-Minister Clare Short while resigning from the cabinet as one of non-collegiate Cabinet "consensus" where decisions taken by Blair (and perhaps by Bush) was presented to parliament as the British government's unwavering policy.
Cook has called upon Blair "to reflect whether he can successfully modify his way of working and cut with the grain of values, ethos and priorities of the Labour Party." Blair will need the skills of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan in constructing a cabinet reflecting different segments of the Labour party.
Labour won the first two elections because of the popularity of Blair, writes Cook, but won the third despite Blair's loss of popularity. So, advises Blairite former Minister Stephen Byers, it would be a big mistake to conduct the state and party affairs on a business as usual basis. The hard left has already called for Blair to resign immediately while Compass, one of the faster growing constituency pressure groups within the Labour Party, finds it clearly impossible to renew the Labour mission in a government led by Tony Blair, and calls for a leadership change in favour of the Chancellor of Exchequer Gordon Brown.
If Tony Blair is to be credited with transforming an unelectable Labour Party into one which has created history by wining three successive general elections, many are left wondering (some traditional Labourites accusing Blair of betrayal of core Labour values) whether Tony Blair has not left behind the true spirit of the Labour Party. The Blair government has transited in the years in power from relinquishment of the Bank of England, which after years of struggle Labor nationalized in 1945, to privatization of the air, to proposing the creation of "foundation hospitals" which are to be given the right to raise their own financing.
The Blair revolution of the soul of the Labour Party has been criticized by the former deputy leader of the party Roy Hattersley as "pure gibberish . . . wanting
Labour to be a synthesis which unites Left and Center rejects ideology and replaces it with banalities."
Long time Labour MP (1958-87) Leo Abse sees Blair's penchant for "synthesis" as analogous to Marquis de Sade's idealization of his doctrine of "mixture." While Sade ended up in a mental asylum, Blair's fudging took him to the premiership of Britain. Leo Abse's psychoanalytic scrutiny of Blair as an emotionally immature man, scarred by his traumatic childhood, fearful of confrontation, and seeking refuge in evasiveness may appear harsh to many. But one cannot deny his argument that Blair's public suggestion of Labourites dissenting from his modernizing project to have their heads examined "can develop into a dangerous assault upon parliamentary democracy; opposition denied expression in Westminister is incitement to democrats to turn to extra-parliamentary actions."
Blair's post-election contrition expressed on the steps of 10 Downing Street is unlikely to appease the Labour Party. Many are asking for his head to roll. Robin Cook found it odd that Tony Blair's response to the election results was to spend the weekend reshuffling his cabinet while a more fitting response "might have been to take time out to reflect on the implications of the results for how long he stays in his own job." Despite Downing Street's disavowal of any suggestion of Blair resignation, speculation is rife about the timing of his departure. It is speculated that (a) Blair may resign after hosting the G-8 summit in July, (b) after the British referendum on EU Constitution in the spring of next year, or (c) at the Labour Party Conference in the autumn of 2006.
The two major parties are poles apart on Europe. While Labour advocates a yes-vote on EU Constitution and the euro, the Conservative Party is opposed to both and a host of other European regulations. The Britons, by and large, do not appear to be keen on surrendering sovereignty to a "suspect" group of people in Brussels, though they do consider themselves as part of Europe. One could be sailing in uncharted water by citing the German example, who despite their love and devotion to the deutschemark, have now embraced the euro. Perhaps the Germans, their devotion to democratic way of life notwithstanding, look upon their leaders with a "father knows best" attitude, coupled with the German leaders' incessant efforts to totally immerse themselves in everything European.
Therefore Vladimir Putin's 60th Victory anniversary speech on May 9, particularly mentioning that "we will not forget the German antifascists who suffered for the idea of a democratic progressive future for Germany," must have brought the fragrance of spring flowers to Gerhard Schroeder. As opposed to Teutonic discipline, the British, their natural civility notwithstanding, have often shown the mutinous traits of Fletcher Christian (of HMS Bounty fame), by beheading King Charles I and throwing Churchill out of office after he brought victory over Nazi Germany to the Britons, as two examples among many. The British are unlikely to agree with running with the hare and hunting with the hound. Being more discerning, the British are more likely to undertake forensic investigation with unrelaxed vigil into Blair's conduct of affairs.
One of Tony Blair's closest supporters Lord Falconer has admitted that Iraq has been the single biggest factor in Labour's reverses. Michael Howard, the Conservative Party leader who backed military action in Iraq had accused Blair of dishonesty about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction. But the Conservative Party's policies on exit strategy and terror control orders are not significantly different from those of the Labour Party.
The moot question remains as to whether Tony Blair could, even if he had differed with President Bush, afford to oppose American determination to wage an unjust war on Iraq. Perhaps not. If Robert Kagan's thesis on Europe losing its centrality with the end of the cold war and decolonization signaling the most massive retrenchment of European power in the history of the world, coupled with unparalleled American military power dwarfing all other powers in the world, is to be given credence then Tony Blair had no other option but to join to Bush camp.
But one could fault Blair for not joining the Sino-Russian-French-German efforts to bring about some semblance of multi-polarity in the aftermath of the cold war to arrest the emergence of unipolarity which saw trans-Atlanticism's transition to post-Atlanticism.
Under the old system the Europeans and the Americans used to consult one another, were sensitive to each other's concerns, and were respectful to international laws and institutions.
Under the new system, the US decides unilaterally, often without prior consultation with the European allies who are expected to obey. Perhaps Tony Blair had realized what Professor Michael Glennon had theorized about the incompatibility of the new global configuration, as a result of the towering pre-eminence of American power, with the way the UNSC was framed to work. Leo Abse, however, is less sanguine about Blair's comprehension of global turbulence. He thinks that, like Bush, Blair is a great believer that God is on his side, and that despite Pope John Paul's and the Archbishop of Canterbury's condemnation of the Iraq war, Blair's "personal communion with the Lord has left Blair confident that when the day comes for him to appear before God, the Lord's judgment and his own will coincide."
In this communion between God and Blair, the British Prime Minister ignored not only the Europeans, who were angered at the new definition of "sovereignty" as meaning freedom of US action anywhere and the concept of noninterference in the territory of others subordinated to the need by the US to act against perceived threats, but also Britain's long standing tradition of fairness and justice. That Saddam Hussein could have been disposed of in other ways without inflicting terrible damage to a people who had already been transported to a preindustrial society by the first Gulf War seems to have escaped Blair's imagination.
In short, the young Tony Blair (he just turned 52 years of age) will be remembered by posterity as a leader lacking the charisma of Hugh Gaitskell or Aneurin Bevan, suffering from ambivalence, but successful in bringing about a historical milestone of three successive Labour victories. Participation in an unjust war will, perhaps, wash away his remarkable achievements (credit appropriately should go to Gordon Brown) in presenting the British people with a robust economy. One hopes his successor will bring back the values for which post-colonial Britain has been worshipped around the world as the quintessential temple of democracy. Kazi Anwarul Masud is a former Secretary and Ambassador.