Beyond Left and Right: Examining the evolution of New Labour.
In British Politics, few movements have been as transformative as the emergence of New Labour. “Tony Blair came to power aiming to break the hold of the Right on power and open up a new path to modernity for Britain.” (Gray, John, 2004.) Blair’s plan to modernise the Labour Party and British Politics in general, saw the formation of New Labour. In the spring of 1994, Blair became leader of the Labour Party (Applebaum, Annie, 1997,) representing a dramatic shift in the identity of the former Labour Party.
Origins of New Labour
“The party’s landslide victory in the 1997 general election was based on a Downsian-style strategy, having lost four successive elections, Labour finally reoriented its programmatic outlook to meet popular desires, with consequential success at the polls.” (Wickham-Jones, Mark, 2005.) Blairs vision for the party, centred around a contemporary image, that would appeal to a wider variety of voters. As Labour was consistently at loss in elections, this new identity was detrimental to the success of New Labour. Beech defines the party as “a revisionist social democratic government that believes in positives as well as a negative conception of liberty, holds to non-strict prioritarian and generous sufficiency conceptions of equality, and advocates a belief in state-level, regional-level and local-level community in the form of a communitarian social philosophy.” (Beech and Beech, 2003.) Moreover, a key principle of New Labour’s ideology was the ‘Third way,’ which offered a modern alternative to the conservative and socialist ideologies. “It is argued that the third way is best summarised by a new acronym- PAP- pragmatic and populism.” (Powell, M, 2000.)
Success or Failure?
“In this moment at which globalisation became simultaneously the watchword of age and New Labour’s signature, it seemed as if Blair’s project was contributing to, if not serving as the vanguard for, a historic intellectual and political realignment.” (Krieger, Joel,2007.) Immediate success was prevalent;
- Unprecedented electoral success, that cast Labour as the natural party of government.
- The longest unbroken streak of economic growth since before the industrial revolution.
- Constitutional reform.
- An apparent end to centuries-old conflict in Northern Ireland.
- Welfare reform.
- Improvement in public service. (Krieger, Joel,2007.)
“New Labour as a brand was successful in part because of its ambiguity, it represented values with which large swathes of the population could identify, such as personal opportunity flowing out of strong communities.” (De Chenatony and White, Jon, 2002.)
However, despite these successes, New Labour, “was an easy target for Criticism.” (De Chenatony and White, Jon, 2002.) The modern ideology of the party faced significant criticism from both the Left and the Right. As pointed out by Coates in (Jackson.B, 2006.)
- UK wage rates remain low and unequal by Western standards.
- The length of the UK working week remains long.
- Levels of stress in UK offices and factories remain high.
- Skills levels, by contrast, remain inadequate.
- British CEOs meanwhile are the highest paid in Europe.
- The New Labour dream of a high wage, high skill Britain therefore remains unfulfilled, in spite of some non-negligible moves in the right direction.
The mid 2000’s the cracks in the New Labour party were coming to light. “The brand was discredited by internal disputes within the party, and a perceived inability on the part of the government to take control of current issues, where the brand once stood for modernity, integrity and competence, it now seemed to represent elitism, spin and drift.” (De Chenatony and White, Jon, 2002.) Moreover, Blairs decision to support the Iraq war in 2003, was a definitive factor, in both his downfall, and the downfall of New Labour. “Blair cynically misled the British public in order to conceal his real reasons for intervention behind a screen of liberal rhetoric, concocting evidence to support decisions and undertakings that have already been agreed.” (Hoggett, P., 2005). This deceitful undertaking, at the hands of Blair, created further divisive stances within the Labour party, and arguably tarnished the reputation of New Labour entirely.
The Legacy of New Labour
Undoubtedly the New Labour Party, revolutionised British Politics, introducing a new progressive era and challenging the traditional scope. The electoral success of the party was prevalent and its policies, both social and political can certainly be deemed as successful. However, the aforementioned failures of New Labour, were pertinent, with many voters disapproving of New Labours abandonment of its core social policies. Divisions within the party, aided the eventual downfall of the Labour Party, but does not undermine the positive impact of progression in British Politics.
Reference List
- Applebaum, A. (1997). Tony Blair and the New Left. Foreign Affairs, 76(2), 45–60.
- Beech, M.A. and Beech, M.A. (2003). The political philosophy of New Labour. [online] eprints.soton.ac.uk. Available at: https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/465151/.
- De Chenatony and White, Jon (2002). New Labour, Journal of Political Marketing, 1:2-3, 45-52
- Gray, J. (2004). Blair’s Project in Retrospect. International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-), 80(1), 39–48.
- Hoggett, P. (2005). Iraq: Blair’s Mission Impossible. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 7(3), 418-428.
- Jackson, B. (2006). New Labour: A Critique. By Mark Bevir. * Prolonged Labour: The Slow Birth of New Labour Britain. By David Coates. Twentieth Century British History, 18(3), pp.402–406
- Krieger, Joel. (2007) The Political Economy of New Labour: The Failure of a Success Story?, New Political Economy, 12:3, 421-432, DOI: 10.1080/13563460701485664
- Powell, M. (2000). New Labour and the third way in the British welfare state: a new and distinctive approach? Critical Social Policy, 20(1), 39-60.
- Wickham-Jones, M. (2005). Signaling Credibility: Electoral Strategy and New Labour in Britain. Political Science Quarterly, 120(4), 653–673.
This blog post presents a solid and thorough overview of the evolution and timeline of ‘New Labour’ under the leadership of Tony Blair. The use of bullet points in a number of sections is effective for efficiently communicating a number of related points, but could potentially be better presented (e.g. introduced more fluidly by the preceding sentence and paragraph). This piece could also be further elevated by focusing more on rephrasing points taken from articles rather than overly relying on repeated longer quotes. Overall, however, this is both an excellent and interesting read.
I feel like this is an interesting topic to talk about when looking at political parties in the UK, therefore providing a captivating read from the get-go. New labour was the point of modernisation for the party due to Blairs new ‘third way’ image; therefore, I like that this has been covered nicely in the blog, with a breakdown of the successes and failures to truly analyse the position of new labour. I also like that a legacy of the party was included, however I feel like this piece could have done with a more detailed conclusion to finish it off, nevertheless an interesting read!
The author does a good job of explaining the history and relevance of New Labour in British Politics. In particular, the author does a good job of separating the blog post into interesting sections relevant to the original subject. as well as this, the use of bullet points in the way they are used makes the blog post an easy read and benefits from that format. As well as this in terms of content, the explanation of Blair’s vision is an engaging one and gives a greater insight with great analytical points on their successes and failures until their eventual downfall in the late 2000s. However, the blog could go into more detail about the other architects of New Labour such as Alistair Campbell and Peter Mandelson. Furthermore, the piece could also benefit from the use of images to make the blog post more engaging.
The blog piece offers an in-depth evaluation of the ideological shift inside the Labour Party under the New Labour banner, showing the trend away from conventional left-wing ideas and towards the centre of British politics. However, the issue might be enlarged to include the influence of this ideological shift on the party’s base as well as the long-term electoral ramifications. Traditional Labour supporters felt left behind by the party’s shift towards centrist, market-friendly policies during Tony Blair’s tenure.
For example, in the North of England, many longstanding Labour voters believed that New Labour’s policies failed to tackle their issues, notably those related to jobs and the consequences of globalisation on local towns. This increasing dissatisfaction can be directly attributed to the unexpected shifts in voter behaviour observed during the Brexit referendum, when numerous traditional Labour constituencies cast votes to leave the EU, motivated by their hunger for change and in reaction to what they considered neglect by the political party.
Furthermore, the post may benefit from an examination of how New Labour’s revolution affected future leaders and their strategies. For example, Jeremy Corbyn’s ascension constituted a strong pushback inside the party against New Labour’s legacy, as he called for a return to more conventional socialist ideas, underlining continued internal discord about the party’s direction.
Integrating these factors would improve the analysis by offering an additional viewpoint on the long-term implications of New Labour’s ideological shift, both within the Labour Party and across the UK’s political landscape.
This is a good summary of the rise of New Labour and at least some of their time in government and the blog provides an interesting read into Blair’s Labour party and what made it such a new, different and successful approach by Labour but also why it actually alienated people on both sides of the political spectrum. The blog itself is engaging and easy to read, providing a clear narrative of the leadership and reasoning as to why it did not last at the popularity. The particular focus on examples as with the Iraq war and the negative effect that had was interesting to see. The blog could have however benefitted from a bit of pretext about the rise of Labour’s popularity and its change in image before Blair under the leadership of John Smith, who was actually the architect behind much of the change in the Labour Party https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/john-smith-and-path-britain-did-not-take/.
Additionally when exploring the legacy of New Labour, i think that Gordon Brown, as the other New Labour Prime Minister was not included enough, particularly as he suffered with much of the negative effects of Blair’s tenure.
This is a thorough summary of New Labour. The post successfully mentions key policies and their impact on the UK, and the author provides a sound balance between the positive and negative legacies of New Labour government.
Perhaps the author could have provided more detail about their arguments, which would have added clarity and depth. In addition, the post would have benefited from less bullet points and long quotations.
Overall, a sound blog post and an interesting read.