What Ed can learn from Blair

By Emma Burnell / @scarletstand

When Tony Blair won the leadership contest in 1994, his style was like a breath of fresh air. While politically I had more in common with his predecessors, Kinnock – and to an extent the late, great John Smith – had both been beaten down by the infighting of the 80s and the devastating loss of the 1992 election. Blair had taken those lessons on board, and whether or not you had voted for him, his taking the helm seemed to turn the page for the party, and bring in a new era, one that felt optimistic.

This was in part due to external factors over which Blair had no control. Black Wednesday and John Major’s disastrous time in office were gifts to the Labour leadership, and would have been so whoever was there to exploit them. As ‘back to basics’ went from bad to worse the Labour Party went from strength to strength. It was a good time to be an activist.

But Blair did add something that was essential to the mix. He truly, totally, utterly believed in himself and his ideas about what the Labour Party had to do to be re-elected. His self-confidence was what gave him the strength to face up to the vested interests and old guard and recreate the Labour Party into the electoral juggernaut of 1997 and 2001.

I’ve written often that I believe Blair went off course in his second term, and I am hardly alone in this analysis. I have no intention of rehashing that here.

What I believe Ed can and should learn from Blair is that he must stick with the determination that led him to stand for Labour leader (under what were far from ideal circumstances) and maintain his levels of self-belief.

However I would like add a strong caveat and a warning.

The caveat is that self belief is just that, belief in the self. There is a lazy assumption in politics and the media that a self confident politician fits a particular mould of macho swagger, and that anyone who doesn’t follow this model cannot be self confident. I can’t imagine a word that suits Ed less than swagger, but I’ve always seen him as a supremely confident man. Ed’s is a quieter more considered confidence and while that doesn’t often inspire messianic fervour, it can both inspire loyalty, and inspire people to be better than they are. As long as Ed can hang on to his confidence in himself and his vision for Labour he will continue to bring the party with and to him. If his ill-advisedly tries to ape the macho posturing that was right for Blair it would both ill suit him personally and be obviously wrong for the public mood.

Please let me be absolutely categorically clear. There is a world of difference between confidence and complacency. Labour has a mountain to climb, and the way is going to be tough. We cannot believe we are going to win, but we must believe that we have the chance to win. If our response to every poll lead is worry and every by-election win a warning we will not convince the public that we believe we should win. We need to balance humility with self belief. It’s a difficult act, but an essential one.

Now to the warning: Blair’s confidence ruined him in the end. It has certainly ruined those in the party who believed in him rather than in the party itself. For those who followed Blair, not Labour, there can be only one model of leadership and Ed’s deviation from the Blair model of defining oneself against the party, of talking up our more right wing policies rather than making an argument for the more left wing things we were doing is anathema to them.

I don’t believe that in most cases, this is because they do not share the values of the Labour Party and the wider Labour movement. But I do believe they have lost faith in our ability to make and win an argument. A lot of the people who are advocating either that Ed take a more macho line (or even less likely that Labour adopt another more macho leader) have never got over losing in 1992. I understand how they feel, but I simply won’t abandon my party to their mistaken and dated narrative. Labour has successfully shed the toxicity of our 1980s brand, but are yet to fully shake of the toxic legacy of the Blair/Brown years. To win again we need to grow beyond our past and change our image again.

I believe Ed’s thoughtful personality and considered centre left position are the right leadership for our party, for our country and for the times we live in and challenges we face. I understand that making our values overt and central to our offer will raise nerves from those who advocate doing good by stealth. But if they share our values- as I believe they do – I urge them to share our self confidence.