The
New Labour project has always involved a slavish emulation of American models,
and in this case Bill Clinton can take a bow. He really pioneered how to make
a left-of-centre party conservative despite its members and supporters.
Both Blair and Brown were totally bowled over by Clinton's ability to win
elections when the then-inseparable pair visited the US while John Smith was
still the apparently healthy and eminently elected leader of the opposition.
As Blair and Clinton jointly pioneered the "third way" as a means of
passing off conservative policies as modernisation of reformist parties,
Clinton showed Blair the way.
Fairly
sure they had nowhere else to go, Clinton scorned the Democratic party's
hardcore electoral base of unionised workers and minorities, deriding them as
"special interests". He could do so largely because he ran away with
much of the old Republican funding base, attracting donors from Wall Street.
Oh, those were the best of days for the real special interest groups, who came
bearing cheques. A quick drop in the hat from America's biggest banana
importer brought a Worlad Trade Organisation case against the EU and the West
Indian banana producers.
A
small fundraiser from Cuban-American exiled sugar barons ensured that there
would be tighter embargoes against Castro, and continuing tariffs against
developing-world sugar. For a sufficient fee, a night in the White House was
the reward.
With none of the ideological baggage of the new Republicans, Clinton's
policies were up for sale - and all that was without a House of Lords to rent
or lease!
On the other hand, it was easier for Clinton than for Blair because the
Democratic party was already on the way to being a PO box for corporate
donors, helped because in the US's rigid two-party system, most Democratic
voters felt they had nowhere else to go.
Blair and New Labour had a bigger challenge, the comparative advantages of
saleable peerages notwithstanding. The unions founded the Labour party and,
mostly, paid for it. It had a membership-based structure, policy conferences
and a national executive committee. But Blair rose to the occasion.
The unions became special interests; then we had peerages (a bow to Lloyd
George) dodgy loans, proxy donors and the assiduous courting of business
interests, not to mention a succession of funders who seem to think it would
be good for Israel to fund Blair. This was Blair's creative adaptation of
Clintonian funding principles.
The structure of the party was ignored or dismantled, and membership was
converted from being actively concerned in policy formation and candidate
selection to being part of a leader's fan club run by a coterie of New Labour
infiltrators who in truth probably had a smaller support base than did
Militant of old. Many ordinary members took the hint and left.
One should point out that, just as in the primary elections in the US, (only
millionaires or billionaire-backed candidates need apply). The Labour party's
own leadership elections seem to have been the chink through which the real
special interests grabbed Blair by the wallet, confident that his heart and
mind would follow. The now ennobled Lord Levy helped bankroll his campaign for
that as well.
The US is not always a bad example to follow, but in this case it is
disastrous and undemocratic. American politicians follow money more than the
voters. So far in this election cycle, one in 600 US voters donated the
minimum $200 or more that candidates have to declare.
And
you can be sure that most of the money came from far, far fewer voters than
that. The leading contenders have already spent nearly $100m each - and that
is just on the party primaries, not the general election. And voters will stay
away in droves as they are increasingly doing in Britain.
Gordon Brown can extricate himself in one bound: disavow Blair's and Clinton's
political and financial heritage and rebuild his party as one based on an
active membership representing working people. That is, after all, a large
part of the reason why so many were happy to see him take over from Blair of
Baghdad.
