LONDON, 20 September 2003 — As Tony Blair digests his party’s first by-election defeat in 15 years, analysts wonder whether the once-infallible premier has squandered the groundswell of popular support that gave him a historic opportunity to change Britain.
After years of Conservative government, Blair’s Labour Party stormed to power in 1997 with a mandate to make big decisions.
But Thursday’s north London by-election — which dealt a crushing blow to Labour in a rock-solid seat — suggests the party’s huge parliamentary majority could shrink in the next nationwide election, putting his legacy at risk.
Blair’s dream to take Britain into the euro is in tatters and the messy aftermath of the Iraq war has stained what most analysts regard as an impressive foreign policy record. Labour rebels are already threatening to block radical health and education reforms and if Blair loses his status as the party’s biggest electoral asset, the number of dissenters could grow.
Few commentators doubt Blair will win a third term but he could be in danger of facing an insult once hurled at former Conservative Party Prime Minister John Major: “In government but not in power.”
Labour loyalists will be hoping that Thursday’s defeat will drive home the message that Blair needs to change tack if he wants to make something of Labour’s opportunity of a lifetime.
“With a big majority, a weak opposition and a benign economy, we should have been doing more to transform Britain,” said Neal Lawson, one of the driving forces behind Compass, a recently formed pressure group of Labour enthusiasts that believes the party “needs to rejuvenate its sense of purpose”.
Blair knows he can no longer rely on the “Trust me, I’m Tony” approach to win the next general election, due by 2006 but expected in 2005.
Allegations that the government hyped the threat from Iraq to justify conflict have sent Blair’s public trust ratings plummeting. Voters have yet to feel much-promised improvements to public services and the trade unions are grumbling.
Blair has already brought fresh faces into his Downing Street office, charged with drawing up an agenda that will reunite his divided party and reconnect with disenchanted Labour voters. But is it too little too late to salvage his legacy?
To his credit, Blair succeeded in convincing the public that the economy was not Labour’s perpetual Achilles heel.
Economic mismanagement had been the nail in the coffin of Labour prime ministers in the past and it played a key role in exiling the party to the political wilderness for 18 years.
Giving the Bank of England its independence from the Treasury was just one of a raft of radical and widely approved changes that marked the start of Blair’s time in office.
In his early years, Blair strode the world stage, giving Britain a louder voice in the European Union and playing a leading role in conflicts in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Sierra Leone.
But analysts say the Iraq crisis, which split Europe, has left a blot on his foreign policy record. It has undermined Britain’s influence in Europe and left Blair struggling to rescue his cherished role as the bridge between Washington and the EU.
He is widely expected to fail in his ambition to hold a euro referendum in this Parliament, making a mockery out of his aspiration to put Britain at the heart of Europe.
Heather Grabbe, an analyst at the Center for European Reform, said Iraq and the euro have overshadowed Blair’s other important achievements in Europe, such as launching Europe’s own defense capability with France. As one former European prime minister recently said to Grabbe, “Tony Blair used to be thought of as a potentially great European leader, now he is seen as an interesting British prime minister.”
Analysts say Blair should have been bolder from the outset. He could have taken advantage of the post-1997 honeymoon to call a euro referendum, for example.
“Many people would argue the first few years were marked with timidity, borne of a wish to ensure a second term,” said John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University.
Or as Compass’s Lawson put it: “We were always going to win the 2001 election, we had a mandate for eight years but we didn’t use it. We behaved like gatecrashers at a party rather than people elected with a big majority for eight to 10 years.”
Still, despite the apparent loss of political momentum, there are many things working in Blair’s favor, most importantly the fact that his chief opponents, the Conservatives, have failed spectacularly to get their act together. As long as Labour is convinced Blair is an election winner, the party will stick with him, analysts say. “If and when the moment comes when that assumption is being questioned....his power will be much more limited,” added Curtice.
