New Statesman & Society, 28 April 1995
Tony Blair is heading for an overwhelming victory at
Labour's special conference on Clause Four this weekend. He talks to Paul
Anderson about the ideas behind the new clause and about where Labour goes from
here
It's early Monday evening, and Tony Blair, travelling first
class on the 16.20 non-stop from Preston to London Huston, watches the countryside
of Middle England flash by the window as he talks.
The Labour leader is obviously tired – hardly surprising
after a six-week nationwide speaking tour in support of changing Clause Four
of the party's constitution, which has involved adding 30 extra meetings (and
hours more on trains) to an already busy schedule. But he's also clearly
jubilant. He is on his way back from the last of the speaking engagements, at
the annual conference of the shopworkers' union Usdaw in Blackpool, and he
knows he has won a famous victory, not just in Usdaw but throughout the Labour
Party. On Saturday, a special conference in London will vote overwhelmingly in
favour of the new Clause Four. So far, only a single constituency party that
has held a ballot has come out against change. There's even a chance, according
to transport workers' leader Bill Morris, that the TGWU delegation will ignore
its executive's advice and vote for the new wording.
The speech Blair has just given in Blackpool was carefully
drafted to maximise his appeal among those trade unions that have yet to make
up their minds. There was even a coded reference to class struggle, when he
warned against being "Utopian about the potential for conflict between
employees and management". "There is a divergence of interests at
some points inherent in the relationship," he said. "There can be a
clash on the balance between profits and wages or on how far and fast
restructuring should go, never mind disagreements over the individual problems
of employees."
Not that Blair has suddenly turned Marxist in his pursuit of
votes. "There's no doubt that there are massive social divisions," he
says. "But to analyse society today in terms of Marxist definitions of
class is unhelpful. It's possible to do it, but it just doesn't tell you very
much about society."
Blair would much rather talk about community and solidarity,
as he has since long before becoming Labour leader: like John Smith before him,
he is an austere Christian socialist for whom such ideas are at the very heart
of socialism. Echoing the language of the new Clause Four, he explains:
"What distinguishes the left from the right is the belief on the left
that to advance individually we need to act collectively. Community is an
expression of that. It means to me principally the notion of interdependence.
But it also implies that we are prepared to act together to provide those
benefits that we are unable to provide for ourselves as individuals. The notion
of community for me is less a geographical concept than a belief in the social
nature of human beings."
If the rhetoric of community is an alternative to that of class,
it is also a way of talking socialism without embracing bureaucratic statism.
"The definition of socialism as more and more power accruing to the state
has had its day," says Blair, leaning back in his seat, arms folded.
"In the early part of the century, it was perfectly easy: when people
wanted the very basic things in life, the state was the way to achieve that.
But there's more diversity and choice nowadays. That doesn't exclude a role for
the state: the state is going to have to act on all sorts of questions. It
does mean that power, wherever it is exercised, should be accountable and that
we should have a plurality of centres of power."
But perhaps the most important function of the language of
community for Blair is that it allows him to talk of responsibilities of
citizens towards one another, as well as of their rights. "I think it was
a mistake of Labour politicians to stop talking that language," he says
as the train streaks through Milton Keynes. "It's the purest drivel to
claim that because you believe that rights and responsibilities go together
you're in some sense authoritarian. The purpose of social action was never to
substitute itself for individual responsibility. It was to make it more easily
realisable."
Blair dismisses critics who claim that his emphasis on
responsibility is a ploy to win support from middle-class voters – being tough
on crime and making it clear that Labour supports the family appeals to the
party's traditional voters, he argues – and he is scathing about the refusal of
many on the left to embrace his approach. "The single biggest mistake of
the left in the 19603 and 19705 was that its essential political philosophy got
intermarried with, and at points almost dominated by, a crude form of Marxism
– by which I mean not that people in the Labour Party ever particularly
believed in the abolition of all forms of private enterprise, but that they
became heavily influenced by a strain of thinking that is almost determinist in
its view of social conditions and their impact on individual behaviour. Many
Labour people thought that to talk about punishing people for crime was wicked
or wrong – all we needed to do was talk about ameliorating the social
conditions. Any sensible person would have been talking about both." The
elderly couple at the table opposite, who are taking a great interest in the
conversation, nod in agreement.
There are striking parallels here with the thinking of
American communitarians like Amitai Etzioni, but Blair plays down any
transatlantic influences. "I've read Etzioni with interest," he says.
"But what he's saying is part of what's happening all over the world. The
left is trying to recapture the spirit of its belief in solidarity while
distinguishing it from the form that collective action took – which in many
cases was bureaucratic state control. That's the task of the left the whole
world over: finding a new relationship between society and individual that
moves beyond either old-style collectivism or the crude market dogma of the
right."
Changing Clause Four is only the first step towards this
goal for Labour: what comes next is serious policy work. Of course, there's
already plenty of policy. "If Labour were to implement all the policy we
have at the moment, it would be one of the most radical governments we have
ever seen," says Blair. There's also a strong case for taking things
slowly: "People forget that it took the Tories a second term before they
got into ballots before strikes or privatisation. You've got to pace yourself,
and I make no apologies for that."
Above all, it's necessary to avoid making specific
commitments too long before the election. "In 1992, we ended up committing
ourselves to tax and spending plans in a period of boom and found that there
were different priorities in the run-up to the election. The same goes for tax
and spending now – and in other areas. On the minimum wage, for example, it's
important to commit ourselves to a certain floor that no one falls below. But
to get ourselves into a tangle over what precise level it should be now, when
we're two years off an election – what's the point?"
Nevertheless, Labour does need to push on with policy,
"generating a much greater excitement and openness of thinking".
"We often argue about the wrong things," he says. "What we need
to do instead is identify the new issues that the country faces – for example,
the global marketplace, the challenge of technology, the changing nature of
the labour market, the reshaping of Europe, the existence of large numbers of
elderly people who find their savings eaten away by the need for nursing care
at the end of their lives" – once again the elderly couple opposite nod in
agreement – " and the requirement for a quite different commitment
to education in society. We need to identify and describe much more clearly how
we would tackle these problems."
This means casting the net wide for ideas. Blair is keen on
the Institute for Public Policy Research's new Commission on Public Policy and
British Business, and does not rule out talking to the Liberal Democrats.
"There are no proposals for anything institutionalised, but there are
clear areas of overlap and agreement, for example in relation to the constitution.
I don't see anything wrong with that. I don't take a tribal attitude to
left-of-centre politics. The problem for the Liberal Democrats is that the
position of equidistance is not seriously tenable. It makes life difficult for
those of us who recognise that there should be a proper dialogue of
ideas."
He is easy about the involvement of Labour backbenchers in
plans for a parliamentary Lib-Lab discussion group – "It doesn't trouble
me at all: it's sensible" – and is warm about the prospect of cooperation
with the Lib Dems in government: "The most important thing is that we
have a government that doesn't just say 'We're the masters now, things have
changed', but is deliberately trying to change the politics of the country – and
that requires working to achieve the broadest possible basis of consent."
And consent, he insists, does not mean that he wants no one
to disagree with him inside the Labour Party. "I don't mind people
disagreeing with me at all as long as it's a genuine debate and is democratically
conducted," he says. "A lot of the recent criticism of Labour – not
least in the pages of New Statesman – has been either full of bile or plain
feeble. What I ask of those who criticise is to deal with the argument. The
left is never going to be a place where there' s going to be a unanimity of
view, and neither should it be. Take Europe and the debates over Maastricht. I am
strongly pro-European although I think that Europe must be greatly reformed.
But there's a perfectly justifiable intellectual argument against it. I don't
merely not disapprove of having that debate, I positively welcome it."
By now, we've reached London's inner suburbs. Blair has been
talking animatedly for the best part of an hour and is losing his voice. The
elderly couple, who can no longer hear what he is saying, have lost interest.
One of the two young aides travelling with him, who has said nothing
throughout, tells his boss that he's being too defensive about the whole Clause
Four exercise: it has been a great triumph, he says, and he should make that
clear. Blair grins. "It's not over yet," he protests, but there's
something about his demeanour that shows – for once – he doesn't really mean
what he says.
