Britain without Blair

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/42829

Tajudeen Abdul Raheem (2007-07-27)

Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem reflects on the political processes in Britain after
Blair and looks the fall of Thatcher and the origins of New Labour. Can you
imagine, he asks, a similar situation in Africa?

In the past two weeks I have been in countries with a 'new' head. I left
Yar'Adua's Nigeria for Gordon Brown's Britain. For the first time in ten
years one entered Britain without having to put up with the arrogant and
sanctimonious Blair and his spin doctors. The Long Good Bye is finally over.
For those who think it is only African leaders who are desperate not to
leave office just look at how long it took the Labour Party to get rid of
their Savior-turned-Judas of a leader. Unfortunately for the Palestinians,
this fraudulent prophet has been made their interlocutor. How a second-hand
leader parceled by Bush could be their savior I do not know.

I must confess that I have not made the transition from Blairism to Brownism
properly. Seeing Brown on television in Britain I was still looking at him
like the Chancellor he had been for the past decade. But being in Britain
got me thinking about the many years that I have spent in that country.

It is a big shame that Africans do not write about Westerners the way they
write about us; but we keep complaining about their prejudices, inaccuracies
and false knowledge about the African condition.

Two weeks safari in the Masai Mara and someone becomes an expert on our
foods, lifestyles, culture, history, geography or whatever. Millions of
Africans have been in the West from time immemorial, but we do not lay claim
to being 'Europeanists'!

It is one of those vicarious 'benefits' of the British imperial past that as
'commonwealth ' citizens, British-resident citizens, immigrants and settlers
from former British colonies (except the USA which has its own uncommon
wealth in which Britain shares!) can vote and even be voted for in British
elections. Being voted for has been relatively easier for citizens from the
old White Commonwealth of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa,
though second generation descendants of the non-white Commonwealth from
Asia, the Caribbean and Africa are also beginning to break into the system
(though they are more successful at the local levels than in the British
Parliament in Westminster).

The visibility of black MPs both in parliament and government positions
including the Cabinet only serves to show how uncommon it is. They are so
few that we know them all; they become instantly famous just for being
black! One of the ironies of uncommon wealth politics is that many Africans
have probably had more opportunity to vote and be involved in democratic
politics in Britain than in their own countries. I have voted more often in
Britain than in Nigeria. And this is not just because I have been away for
'too long', my peer group who did not live outside have never had many
opportunities to vote since the military had been in power for most of their
lives. Until recently, military rule with civilian interludes has been the
order of the day. Thankfully that is now more or less over and we are now in
the era of 'voting without choosing' or choosing without making any
difference.

It can be argued though that even in more stable societies elections do not
change much because there is too much public contentment or governing
consensus among the ruling classes, and between their main political
parties. Consequently, politics has become more commercialized, money and
media driven, with no disagreement on fundamentals therefore reducing
politics to forms of presentation largely devoid of substance. Hence the
increasing democratic deficit in many Western democracies of voter apathy,
especially among the young.

All that taken into consideration, and despite obvious Americanization,
British politics in the 1980s and early 1990s still inspired great
ideological disputes and debates, essentially because of the Thatcherite
Conservative counter-revolution that tore apart the old consensus within the
British political establishment. She shifted the politics to the extreme
right, provoking moderates, the 'noblese oblige' type Tories in her own
party, and all kinds of leftist opposition in the Labour Party, the Labour
movement and eventually the whole country.

The main opposition Labour Party swung between left and right for many
years, even provoking a split that led to the walkout by more openly
right-wing elements who felt that the militant left had taken over the party
and made it unelectable. They formed the SDP which initially attracted a lot
of support from across the board among people who wanted a different kind of
politics from the tribal war between the Tories and Labour. Unfortunately
for David Owen and his tiny bunch, the two party system (and its ethnic,
provincial and regional voting patterns) is so embedded in Britain that the
room for a third party (let alone a fourth one) is extremely limited. They
merged with the Liberal Party which had always operated as the halfway
lounge between the Tories and Labour. Their hopes of becoming a powerful
third force, holding the balance of power in a 'hung parliament', evaporated
as Labour became more and more moderate and electable.

What really happened in the Labour Party was that the smarter right-wingers
did not leave the party but bided their time and embarked on a long term
right-wing counter revolution inside the party, involving a reform of old
ideological positions and a loosening of the traditional Labourite,
socialist and egalitarian conscience. The emergence of Neil Kinnock as the
Party Leader facilitated the right-wing coup. He came from a staunch Labour
background, solidly in the left of the party and a credible working-class
hero. He sold moderation to the party and the movement and helped to begin
the process of Labour recovery and electability by facing down the hard left
and Labour militants. Still, he lost two elections to Margaret Thatcher but
held Labour votes and increased it as the Conservatives took lower votes.
Unfortunately Kinnock did not make it and lost the 1992 elections to a
little known John Major after the Conservatives had committed political
matricide by getting rid of Margaret Thatcher. That was the last time I was
most passionately involved in British partisan politics.

I was there on the foot steps of the Old Labour Party Headquarters on
Woolworth Rd in South London when Kinnock conceded victory to Major and
announced his resignation to crying party supporters. The second day you
could not find many people who would admit that they had voted Tory. If it
was in Africa opposition supporters would have cried 'rigging' because the
media and popular opinion widely predicted a Labour Victory. From then
onwards I never really bothered about being active in British politics
anymore even though I remained a passive supporter of the anti-Tory
movement. After Kinnock it was John Smith who unfortunately died very early
in his leadership. His sudden death made it possible for the brewing
right-wing coup to be brought forward with Blair emerging as the Leader. Had
Smith lived longer who knows if Blair would have been that fortunate? Smith
was very much to Kinnock in opposition as Gordon was to Blair in power. One
does the politics and the other the economics.

The party was hungry for power and in Blair they found a winner even if it
was at the expense of their ideological souls. Brown continued Smith's
number-crunching that made business interests to begin to take Labour
seriously as managers of British capitalism. The Labour party became more
middle class.

In power Mr. Blair was more of an adopted political son of Margaret
Thatcher, more at home when battling the Labour party and so called OLD
Labour values. The Thatcherites used to sing: 'If it is not hurting it is
not working' to justify their assault on the poor and to subsidise the greed
of the rich and powerful. In Blair's Britain it was punned to mean: If the
Labour Party is not complaining, it cannot be right. Even when he seemed to
have conquered every tendency, save for a small group of non- conformists,
he would deliberately pick quarrels with the Party. He was the closest
Britain got to having a truly Presidential PM and the Peoples' Party became
the Leader's Party. For a few years it seemed he could walk on air and
water. He took on the party and won, took on the Government and won, and
then he took on the British people on many issues- but Iraq was to be his
Waterloo from which his authority never quite recovered. In politics, as in
real life, once an elephantine problem knocks you down then all kinds of
crawling crawlers will climb on to you. Like Thatcher he was kicked out
after 'winning' a consecutive third-term electoral victory.

Blair's fall from grace is proof, yet again, that whatever goes up will come
down; but politicians like other human beings never learn. When they are up
they never think they will come down and they always do. However there are
important lessons. One, a politician is the servant of the people not their
master, no matter how popular he or she may be. In a genuine democracy, as
in a real consumer driven society, the citizen (i.e. customer) is always
right. Two, political parties, parliament, judiciary, the media and other
autonomous institutions are necessary for democracy to take root and
democratic culture to be nurtured. Strong leaders influence people and
institutions and sometimes destroy them. But for sustainable democracy these
institutions must endure. It was not the electorate that threw out Blair or
Thatcher before him, but their own political parties on whose behalf they
were acting.

Can you imagine a similar situation in many African countries? The President
will dissolve the party and dissolve the Parliament! Three, there must be
credible alternative leaders, whether within the ruling party or outside of
it, deliberately nurtured without being considered traitors or disloyal. Can
you imagine if Gordon Brown had been a Cabinet Minister in some African
country? Would he have retained his post breathing down the President's neck
for so long? In the worst of cases he would probably be dead by now or
hounded out of cabinet or politics or be in exile.

However, there are encouraging signs in some countries like Ghana, Botswana
and Tanzania. The immediate Foreign Minister of Ghana, Nana Akuffo Ado had
never hidden the fact that he wanted Kuffour's job, having been beaten to
second place by him in 2002. Similarly, the current President of Tanzania,
Jakaya Kikwete, was a runner up to his predecessor and remained Foreign
Minister for ten years before becoming President. However in many countries
up to now even mere suspicion of the ambition can land you in 'hot soup'.
These are countries where the people are not supposed to even imagine life
without the current occupant of state house. However, no matter how long it
takes they will all become 'former current chairman' as Idi Amin famously
said of himself!

Blair's exit also shows that sometimes people may just want a change for the
sake of it. I am not sure there is much ideological difference between Blair
and Brown, but there is a difference in style and presentation. In the end
people just got fed up with Blair and his lectures, his missionary
strictures and braggadocio. The truth though is that Brown even takes
himself more seriously as an intellectual politician than Blair. Both
domestically and internationally there may be more action than words, and
probably less of the razzmatazz and media obsession of the Blair years. But
it may well be the same difference on many issues.

With huge apologies to the Indian writer, Arundhati Roy, It's the God of
Small Changes. The Conservatives remain unelectable because thanks to Blair
and Brown all their clothes have been stolen by New Labour. Just like the
Tories prevented a Labour victory in 1992 by having a change within with
John Major. Labour may have guaranteed itself a fourth term by being rid of
Blair. Unfortunately, David Cameron sounds more like a Blair clone. May be
he should just vacate his post and give it to the real Blair, currently
wandering like Moses in the Middle East as Cameron is getting lost in
Rwandan villages in the name of showing Africa he cares. Blair did the care
for Africa, and this never led him or those Africans naïve enough to trust
him, anywhere.

* Dr. Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the Deputy Director for the UN Millennium
Campaign in Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He writes this article in his
personal capacity as a concerned Pan-Africanist.
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