Blair?s legacy: Militarism abroad, social devastation at home
Statement by the Socialist Equality Party (Britain)
11 May 2007
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On Thursday, Tony Blair announced the timetable for his departure as 
leader of the Labour Party and therefore as prime minister. He will not 
formally leave office until the end of June so as to enable the party 
to select his successor, which will almost certainly be Chancellor 
Gordon Brown.

Blair?s announcement is probably the most long-awaited resignation in 
living memory. Ever since the 2005 general election there has been much 
talk that Blair?s departure was imminent.

For a man who has made so much of the ?hand of history? being on his 
shoulder and of his ?legacy??a word now being bandied about by Downing 
Street and the media?there was no good time to announce he would stand 
aside.

Even more detested in Britain than his mentor Margaret Thatcher?
officially the most hated prime minister in recent history?opinion 
polls record that his legacy is one soaked in the blood of the 
preemptive war and occupation of Iraq. Some 50 percent of the 
population believe it is for this ignominious reason that Blair will 
find his place in the history books. The next highest numbers believe 
it will be due to his alliance with President George W. Bush.

Blair leaves office as an unindicted war criminal and the first 
sitting prime minister in history to be interviewed as part of a police 
investigation (the ?cash for honours? scandal). It is no coincidence 
that Lord Levy had earlier announced that he would stand down as the 
prime minister?s special Middle East envoy. In his capacity as Blair?s 
chief fundraiser, Levy has been arrested and questioned under caution 
by police investigating the alleged sale of peerages in return for 
party loans.

The prime minister has reportedly been planning his retirement for 
some time in discussions with the likes of Rupert Murdoch and the then-
chief executive of British Petroleum, Lord Browne. It has been 
suggested that out of concern that he not be seen to be cashing in too 
quickly, his first project will be to establish a global foundation to 
foster ?greater understanding? between the three ?Abrahamic faiths? of 
Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

This is an obscene conceit in itself, considering his role in the 
Middle East. But no doubt Blair will once again be able to utilise his 
skills in soliciting donations from rich benefactors. His real money-
making venture is expected to be speaking tours of the United States. 
Estimates as to what he can expect to earn in his first year out of 
office range between a conservative £5 million and £10 million, and a 
book deal is estimated to be worth between £5 million and £8 million.

There is no question that Blair will be feted in right-wing circles, 
especially in the US. This is first of all for his record of unbridled 
militarism in alliance with Washington. He is also valued in these 
circles because, just as in the US, his ?war on terror? rhetoric has 
been used to justify the most antidemocratic and authoritarian 
measures.

Just as importantly, his reputation has been built on the huge 
transfer of wealth from working people to the global financial 
corporations and the super-rich that he helped engineer in the UK.

Last month?s Sunday Times Rich List recorded that the richest 1,000 
people in Britain more than trebled their wealth under Blair. Their 
fortunes grew by 20 percent last year alone, to a combined £360 
billion.

London has been described as a ?magnet for billionaires,? attracted by 
the UK?s reputation as an ?on-shore tax-haven? in which the wealthy?
many of whom earned their fortunes through asset-stripping, 
privatization and financial speculation?pay next to nothing on their 
incomes.

In contrast, the number of people living in poverty in Britain last 
year rose from 12.1 million to 12.7 million, a rise of 600,000 people, 
whilst the number of poor children increased by 200,000 to 3.8 million 
between 2005 and 2006.

It is his role in enriching a small minority of the population that 
has also earned him kudos from Britain?s media, including the nominally 
liberal press. The Observer editorialised April 29, ?Britain is better 
off after a decade with Tony Blair in charge. Wealth has been created, 
and wealth has been redistributed. That is what Labour governments have 
always hoped to do. It has happened without a brake on global 
competitiveness.?

To the extent that commentators have been forced to acknowledge Blair?
s role in Iraq, it is portrayed as a tragic and isolated mistake that 
mars an otherwise enviable record. This conceals the fact that Iraq is 
part of a resurgence of imperialist militarism that has included 
sending Britain to war in Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan, and 
which continues with the current provocations against Iran.

That the media should reduce Iraq to a mere detail is bad enough. That 
it does so in the aftermath of the devastating losses suffered by 
Labour in the elections on May 3?in which the war played a key role?is 
testament to the gulf between the ruling elite and their political 
apologists and the mass of working people.

The elections saw Labour lose control in Scotland for the first time 
in 50 years, and delivered the party its worst result in Wales since 
1918. In England, where Labour was already at an unprecedented low, it 
was wiped out in 90 local authorities and lost almost 500 councillors. 
Overall, its share of the vote stands at just 27 percent, under 
conditions in which turnout never went much beyond 50 percent.

There has been much discussion on the elections revealing the extent 
to which the coalition that brought Blair to power in 1997?between 
Labour?s traditional support in the major cities and towns and a layer 
of former Conservative voters in marginal constituencies?has broken 
down.

Andrew Rawnsley in the Observer May 6 noted that ?to non-tribal 
voters, his detachment from his party was always central to his 
electoral appeal. It was his ability to reach out to parts of the 
country not touched by previous Labour leaders that has kept him in 
Number 10 for such a remarkably long span.... Tony Blair has proved 
that an UnLabour prime minister leading a Labour government can be 
electorally very potent.?

Like Margaret Thatcher, Rawnsley continued, ?he won by creating a 
coalition that gathered support from beyond his party?s core vote. Like 
her, his electoral triumphs at Westminster were accompanied by a 
hollowing-out of the party beyond it. And as with her, his coalition 
has eventually fractured.?

Rawnsley?s reference to the ?hollowing-out? of Labour is telling, but 
it is one that he skips over and other commentators completely ignore. 
This is because, like much of the pro-Labour media, the Observer is 
involved in a concerted effort to rescue New Labour from oblivion under 
a Brown leadership. The lesson, Rawnsley continues, is that ?the 
chancellor must remember that New Labour won power in the first place 
by appealing to affluent and aspirational middle-class voters.?

The excited chatter about New Labour?s ?coalition? is bogus. In the 
final analysis, all parliamentary majorities depend on such 
combinations, including Labour?s landslide victory in 1945 that was 
secured on the basis of a programme of significant social reforms. In 
New Labour?s case, however, its electoral victory was built on the 
monumental fiction that it was possible to marry the concerns of 
working people with an unbridled big business agenda.

No amount of repackaging can conceal the fact that this perspective 
has been proven to be little more than a smokescreen behind which the 
rich have become even richer while the vast majority have been reduced 
to a precarious and debt-ridden existence.

The real pro-Blair coalition?the one that dare not speak its name?was 
between big business and the super-rich and the Labour and trade union 
bureaucracy.

It was because of its past association with the working class that 
Labour was able to complete Thatcher?s abandonment of the welfare state 
model?the ?mixed economy? of nationalised industries and public service 
provision?and, with it, all the gradualist notions that were essential 
to securing social peace in the postwar period.

The trade unions not only played an essential political role in 
fashioning New Labour?s right-wing agenda, but also in preventing any 
resistance to it, whilst the government cut public spending, held down 
wages and privatised health and educational provision.

Nothing epitomises the invidious character of the trade union 
bureaucracy more than its refusal to back the mass protests against the 
Iraq war, on the grounds that to do so would jeopardise a Labour 
government. Indeed, the fact that Blair can expect to make a graceful 
exit from Downing Street at a time of his own choosing, rather than 
being forced out of office as he deserves, is primarily the 
responsibility of the Trades Union Congress.

At the same time, the manner of Blair?s departure is eloquent 
testimony to the absence of any principled opposition to Blair within 
the Labour Party itself. He never faced a serious challenge on the 
left. Rather the party?s official left wing dwindled to a rump, while 
Blair?s inner coterie was staffed by a host of former ?lefts??many with 
a Stalinist pedigree.

Big business and the trade unions are now attempting to build support 
for a continuation of this alliance under Brown. In an effort to 
salvage Labour, even the bitter hostilities between the Blair and Brown 
factions of the party have been temporarily set aside, with the 
chancellor?s succession to leadership more of a coronation than a 
contest.

The fundamental problem they face, however, is that Blair?s ?success? 
was built on the corpse of the Labour Party. With big business having 
monopolised all the official parties, in the process transforming 
Labour into a neo-conservative rump, any possibility of social tensions 
finding safe release has also been eliminated.

Brown?the joint architect of New Labour?can no more turn back the 
clock than he can jump out of his own skin. Much of Brown?s claims to 
be setting out a different agenda to Blair?s are about presentation and 
securing the support of Parliament?something made necessary by Labour?s 
dwindling majority and the widespread belief that parliamentary 
democracy has been eviscerated by a sleazy, corrupt and unaccountable 
clique. Of the agenda of militarism and war, he has nothing to say 
other than an indication that he will allow Parliament a vote when a 
future war is declared.

There can be no return to the old political setup, when millions of 
workers looked to Labour as ?their party.? It is a party of the 
financial oligarchy, bitterly hostile to any measures that encroach on 
the interests of capital and the rich?a fact made plain by the derision 
within its ranks at the prospect of a ?left? leadership bid by Michael 
Meacher or John McDonnell. So antithetical is the Labour Party to even 
the tamest support for social reforms that it is questionable if the 
chosen ?left? candidate will be able to muster the backing of 45 
members of Parliament necessary to make such a bid.

The disenfranchising of the working class is a European and 
international phenomenon. Across the continent, the former social 
democratic parties have adopted the policies of the right. Their names 
are the only remaining vestiges of their origins as mass organisations 
of the working class, retained only in order to sow political confusion 
in an attempt to impose their deeply unpopular policies on a hostile 
electorate.

This presages enormous class and political conflicts. But, as recent 
elections here and in France and Germany have shown, if right-wing 
social democrats are not to be simply replaced by right-wing 
Conservatives, and social inequality and the dangers of new wars are to 
be overcome, workers and youth must establish their political 
independence from the bourgeoisie and its ?left? appendages through the 
building of a genuine international socialist party.

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