New Labour’s language may cease, but its concept goes on, says Mandelson

By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982

Peter Mandelson has written a frank and revealing article in the Times today, in which he says he regrets that he opposed a contest between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in 1994 for the Labour leadership.

Mandelson says:

“After John Smith died I was mistaken in arguing so hard that the two modernising candidates should not oppose each other. I did so from the best motives. I did not want two friends to hurt each other. I did not want the modernisers’ cause damaged with the risk that a split vote might let in someone else. But if we had resolved the matter there and then, we would have avoided so much of the soap opera that followed.”

And he says that although he will not support any candidate in 2010’s leadership election, he still believes fundamentally in – and will apparently campaign for – his life’s work, New Labour, even if the language that frames it is no longer appropriate:

“So while I understand why the term new Labour may cease to be used by a new generation of potential Labour leaders who rightly wish to move on from the past, the concept that New Labour represents should not be cast aside so easily.

“New Labour is not an affectation or a marketing tool that enabled us simply to win elections. It is more fundamental than that….It is about Labour not being a party of class or sectional interest, but about being a broad-based party of conscience and reform…Open, not tribal. Pluralist, not statist…But it is also a mindset that is, above all, governmental.

“I am not arguing for the new Labour of Blair, Brown and Mandelson to be preserved in aspic – that would be the opposite of the revisionist instincts that lay at the root of our project. This phase of new Labour is now over and died on May 6, 2010. But the cast of mind that new Labour represents – aspirational, reforming, in touch and that faces up to the choices power demands – must not die with it if our party is to be a serious party of government again.

Mandelson may say that he will not endorse any leadership candidate: to do so would be akin to friendly fire in many eyes. But his theme is, evidently most similar to David Miliband’s calls for “Next Labour“.

Peter Mandelson is currently writing his memoirs, Life at the Heart of New Labour. Iain Dale has said that he considered whether to bid for them for his publishing company, Biteback. The book will instead be published by HarperPress.