Dealing with the Tony Blair problem: Post-Blairism?

What most if not all of the post-election post-mortems implicitly highlight is the Labour party’s unhealthy relationship with Tony Blair. That is because he and his legacy are both the solution and the source of the Labour party’s problems.

It was ever thus – unlike the Tories who have clear goodies and baddies (Thatcher – goodie, Heath baddie) the Labour party seemingly loathes success. The civil war that Tony Benn led in the Labour party from 1978-1983 was in part about Harold Wilson and decisions taken by the Labour leadership. Wilson won four elections but ended up with large chunks of the party utterly loathing him. To avoid becoming tied up in knots about the party’s future there is a need to develop Post-Blairism – a political approach that separates what Blair said, and his prescriptions for political success, from what he did, and his actions in office.

Blair advocated the construction of a mass membership party in the 1980s and 1990s but spent large parts of the 2000s believing that attacking the membership was a virtue. After returning from the US in 1992 he advocated the need to build a winning coalition among voters rather simply launch a party platform. However the 2005 election victory was predicated on Labour voters ‘having nowhere else to go’. Labour reaped the whirlwind of this in Scotland first in 2011 in the Scottish Parliamentary elections and then in 2015 where years of systemic neglect destroyed the Scottish party.

Then there is the Iraq war – not since Vietnam has a military conflict completely annihilated the credibility of a political movement – and for many that four-letter word precludes consideration of Blair. Iraq should preclude Blair’s personal involvement in politics and the authoritarian lurches indulged in by the party during the New Labour era (ID cards, votes on 90 day detention) represent a dark chapter in the party’s 115-year history. But Blair’s early thinking can still be examined to develop a template for political renewal.

In 1995 Blair recognised that the UK had changed massively since 1979 –for example in 1988 the number of credit card holders exceeded the number of people who were trade union members – accordingly Labour needed to offer an adapted vision. Blair’s solutions to this dilemma in the mid-1990s are not going be those of the 2010s but the approach can be the same. For example there has been a huge rise in self-employment and a growth in economic interactions taking place via smartphone apps rather than physically. This could be cemented into Britain’s socio-economic fabric by 2020 and Labour’s offer will need to be shaped to respond to this new world.

Owen Jones is right when he criticises Mandelson and other old Blairite critics for offering nothing in terms of fresh ideas. Post-Blairism cannot be about reheating Blair’s policy platform but using his political strategy to craft a new political vision. Too often Labour’s offer focuses on investment or the repeal of Tory measures. This has the bizarre effect of making Labour appear conservative, as the party seems more concerned with persevering a range of specific state provisions rather than building the next New Jerusalem.

A core problem in Blair’s approach was that he began to confuse attacking the left with representing the centre – Alistair Campbell’s diaries date this beginning in July 2001. The post-Blairite will have to bring the left with them to shape the future. A massive failing of the Labour government in the 2000s was to ignore inequality, something Blair himself acknowledges. This allowed inequality to become intertwined with nationalist arguments from UKIP and the SNP at different ends of the political spectrum. Post-Blairism will have develop radical mechanisms for tackling inequality but frame this in terms of representing a social consensus.

The name ‘Blair’ is either talisman or a dirty word for the Labour party. But this unhealthy for the party’s future and if by mentioning Blair’s name this article causes you to post a comment in anger – ask yourself how is your relationship with Tony Blair?

Frederick Cowell is a Labour Councillor in Lambeth and a Lecturer in law