Blair Says He’ll Quit within a Year

Yesterday, British Prime Minister Tony Blair stated, “The next party conference in a couple of weeks will be my last party conference as party leader. The next TUC conference next week will be my last TUC, probably to the relief of both of us. But I am not going to set a precise date now. I don’t think that's right.” He was trying to put down a rebellion in the Labour Party, and he appears to have failed. For the next several months, Whitehall and the rest of Britain will be playing a new game, “When’s Tony leaving?”

To understand how Mr. Blair came to this pass, it is necessary to review a bit of recent British political history. After the sudden death of Labour’s leader, John Smith, in 1994, Mr. Blair and the current Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, arranged to take turns running Labour. When the general election of May 1997 rolled around, Mr. Blair became the first Labour PM since 1979 on the understanding that Mr. Brown would get his chance after a few years.

All was fine in the garden of New Labour until Mr. Blair took the UK into the war on Iraq, relying on Conservative MP votes to do it. A large portion of the parliamentary Labour Party opposed the war from the beginning, and most of the British electorate has always opposed it. Many of them have wanted him out since March 2003, as his poll numbers show. Add to that his relative disdain for the unions that founded Labour, and one has a recipe for trouble. Mr. Brown, on the other hand, is not-so-New Labour, able to trot out sound bites like, the Labour crew are “best when we are boldest, best when we are united, best when we are Labour,” rather than Mr. Blair’s Tory-lite.

On Wednesday, 8 junior members of the government resigned to protest Mr. Blair’s continued occupation of 10 Downing Street. Mr. Blair’s statement reiterates that he has a deal to leave, but he keeps putting off the date by not setting a date. Saying he’ll be gone a year from now doesn’t help matters. There are local elections in May, and Labour could take a beating. Moreover, a long good-bye merely makes him a lame duck. Just how much can he lead the party and the nation knowing he’s on the clock?

This journal has long thought Mr. Blair has outlived his usefulness to the Labour Party and his country. If Mr. Brown is to be anointed by the party or whether a real leadership contest ensues, Mr. Blair needs to leave soon. The Labour Party conference would have been the ideal time, and failing that the Christmas-New Year’s break would work. Even waiting until Mr. Brown’s next budget is presented is waiting too long. Every day now is a day the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats can spend driving wedges into the Labour Party. A paralyzed ruling party is good for no one, but that is what Mr. Blair has delivered. The party the next leader inherits may be too wounded to be worth leading, and worst, it will be self-inflicted.

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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