Some of Tony Blair's oldest and closest ideological allies in the Labour party abandon their support for his leadership today, saying he is endangering the viability of the party, eroding trust in politics and embracing a market ideology largely indistinguishable from the Conservatives'. The vehement assessment is made by Renewal, an influential quarterly Labour journal which has long advocated the modernisers' cause and for which ministers and Labour MPs regularly write. The editorial, marking a new disillusionment with Mr Blair on the part of hitherto sympathetic party intellectuals, is bound to cause concern in Downing Street, if only because of its impact on party morale. There is no serious threat to Mr Blair's leadership and the bulk of the unions have, at least for now, buried the hatchet. But the authors reject the recent optimism from No 10, saying: "The party hierarchy just does not realise what a large hole it resides in. The European results demonstrate the dealignment of political loyalties that has been accelerating under New Labour."
They say: "The dominant feeling in the electorate is not so much that there are no differences between the parties. Rather it is that two terms of office with massive majorities has not made enough of a difference and that the parties don't behave any differently when in power. "Worse, our democracy has been eroded, there is no new politics and trust in politicians is at an all time low."
Reminding its readers that the journal was set up in 1993 in the wake of the fourth election defeat, the editorial states: "We did genuinely think that Blair would open up spaces to reshape and renew social democracy. "We were wrong. Gradually that early promise of a new politics has receded and it is blatantly obvious that there is no point waiting for or wanting a better Blair." They say the stakes are too high for the party to leave Mr Blair unchallenged, and urge the chancellor, Gordon Brown, to say more about how he would govern.
The authors acknowledge that Mr Blair has divided and weakened the opposition in a way that a decade ago looked impossible.
"At every turn the strategy is to keep the Tories out of the ring. But the cost to social democrats is debilitating. Sure we have power, but are denied the means to do anything purposeful with it. This is the Blair Catch 22." They also give a withering picture of the damage inflicted on the party by Mr Blair's decisions on Iraq. They write that New Labour has burnt so much political capital that it looks as if the second term will be remembered primarily for Iraq.
They say: "As it stands, none of the major rationales for the war stand up. There are no weapons of mass destruction, the country, the region and the world are not safer places, the lives of the Iraqi people are not safer and it remains an open question whether they are or will be much better."And the debris has inevitably fallen primarily on Blair, given that he took an unwilling and unenthusiastic party and people into the conflict. "Tragically, Blair still appears to believe that if he can only explain it one more time, we will get it. But Tony, we get the message - we just don't accept it. "Iraq is Blair's poll tax, a fundamental breach of trust, demonstration of arrogance and strategic blunder for which the party as a whole is paying the price."
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,9061,1279153,00.html
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