The battle to dismantle Blair’s Britain

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A former Conservative MP tells how he once saw Margaret Thatcher ask what she considered her greatest political achievement. She replied: “Tony Blair and New Labor.” “We forced our opponents to change their minds.” She may have given other answers over the years, but this one has always been correct. Thatcher saw politics as an ideological war.

Now, fifty years after she won the leadership of the Conservative Party, her followers see things differently. Blairism was not her greatest achievement but when the country took a wrong turn. The battle to unravel that era is now a galvanizing agenda for both the current Conservative leadership and Nigel Farage’s UK Reform Party.

For many years, the Blair administration was seen as much as a government changing the consensus as one simply entrenching and watering down Thatcher’s compromise by investing in public services and social policy goals such as reducing child poverty and getting more women into the workplace.

But today the right has changed its mind. Blairism is believed to have defined politics for two decades with Conservative Party leaders, from David Cameron to Theresa May, and partly even Boris Johnson, accepting much of his social agenda. In the mind of the New Right (UK reform is included in this category despite its economic interventionism), the New Labor era has shifted powers away from the executive, expanded welfare and imposed values, regulations and social protections that the Right believes stifle enterprise and usher in a so-called “woke” culture.

Brexit and then the immigration debate may have masked the breadth of the right’s ambition, but this year’s party conferences made clear what may have seemed fragmented. Smashing the pro-European dream was just the beginning, an end in itself and a means to topple the administrative and social pillars of Blair’s Britain.

Legislation that one or both parties intend to repeal or rewrite includes a series of New Labor laws; the Climate change lawThe incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law, and the Constitutional Reform Act established the Supreme Court and enacted the Act Power to appoint judges From the Lord Chancellor to a new independent commission. The Equality Act and hate crime laws are also in the firing line. Reform said it would review the independence of the Bank of England, in an echo of Donald Trump’s attacks on the Federal Reserve and broader populist antipathy to independent regulators. The transfer of power remains uncontested at the moment.

Blair’s dream of 50 per cent of students entering higher education is now seen as a mistake, As is the doctrine of multiculturalism, belief in multinational institutions and globalization in general. Of course, Blair is also blamed for the wave of immigration coming from Eastern Europe. New Labor’s social welfare policies are seen by the Conservatives and Reform as the catalyst for the current high levels of work benefit payments.

The increasing prominence of religious Christianity and nativism in parts of both parties has left some women afraid to take a more traditional approach to their rights. Nigel Farage has already backed stricter abortion rules, describing the UK’s 24-week limit as “completely outdated”.

In many areas there is legitimate criticism here. Even Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer accepts that the UK suffers from over-regulation, with unaccountable and recalcitrant officials creating a democratic deficit. There is a problem with judicial activism. Social welfare bills are very high. But the right’s agenda also reflects a broader desire to reduce the state’s social functions.

The new right wants to return to Thatcher’s original compromise (and may forget her early support for climate action or the single market). They claim that the biggest mistake made by the Conservatives was their admiration for Blair and the willingness of Cameron and others to sign up to what they saw as his liberal agenda.

This is not without risks for the Conservatives, who need to rebuild their coalition and who are now wisely focused on restoring their economic credibility. There is no way back unless they can regain the southern seats they lost to the Liberal Democrats. Many former Tory voters greatly admired the Blair era.

Blair’s social democracy offered a vision of a market economy in which growth could be tailored to global challenges and social justice, a middle way between the harshest version of the free market and socialist interventionism. There is a condition that has stopped performing in a low-growth economy, but without it the only alternative to the New Right will be left-wing populism.

Right-wing politics is now a battlefield that should be seen as the primary alternative to Labour. Reform clearly has the upper hand, but to retain it, the party must destroy the Conservatives as a viable option. Even a modest Tory recovery would quickly change the calculus. But whoever wins, this is the new right’s agenda.

There are counter-arguments to the criticisms of Blair’s compromise. Not all regulation is bad. Despite all the legitimate questions about judicial activism and its abuses, do we really want to return to judges appointed by ministers? You may feel good when you are in power; In opposition not so much.

But both parties have sniffed the electoral winds and sense that the country is seeking a change in direction. Even Labor has begun to reconsider Blair’s agenda, whether it is regarding university numbers or immigration policies.

Politics is a never-ending battle of ideas, and the struggle to dismantle the Blair settlement is gaining momentum. Things can only get bitter.

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