Mandelson tells Labour: we're all Thatcherites (Labour Turns Conservative in UK?)

The Times of London ^ | June 10, 2002 | David Charter

[Timesink]

June 10, 2002

Party must crack down on illegal immigration and crime

Mandelson tells Labour: we're all Thatcherites

By David Charter, Chief Political Correspondent

PETER MANDELSON warns Labour today not to throw away its grip on power as the European centre-left parties have by losing its nerve and failing to crack down on immigration, antisocial behaviour and crime.

The man who remains one of Tony Blair’s closest advisers insists that the Third Way he helped to create to underpin new Labour is not doomed despite European election losses in France, The Netherlands and Italy.

In an outspoken article in The Times, he risks inflaming backbench Labour MPs by declaring that, in purely economic terms, “we are all Thatcherite now”.

New Labour had successfully added fairness and opportunity to this Thatcherite economic prudence, he says, but must now move into traditional right-wing territory on immigration and welfare with tough policies rather than pandering to prejudice. In a veiled message to Labour rebels in the week the controversial Asylum and Immigration Bill returns to the Commons, he says that the European Left was only defeated by a resurgent Right because of disunity, weak leadership and a lack of courage.

Mr Mandelson’s article, coming weeks after his admission that Labour just “tinkered” with social inequality in its first term, will be seen as a prescription for Labour to win a third successive general election. As if to demonstrate his central role in the party’s thinking, major speeches today by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, will pick up on his key themes.

Mr Blair will spell out his plans to encourage the disabled and single parents back into work while Mr Brown will tell a trade union audience of his desire to invest in education and science in the three-year spending review.

The tough stance Mr Mandelson advocates on immigration will be demonstrated tomorrow by David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, who has promised to face down Labour rebels who oppose his plans for asylum-seekers’ children to be segregated from local schools.

Mr Mandelson was the main organiser of a weekend retreat of centre-left thinkers from the United States and Europe at Hartwell House in Buckinghamshire, which aimed to renew the Third Way, the name given to new Labour’s blend of “progressive” left-of-centre policies.

The gathering included key Cabinet modernisers such as Patricia Hewitt, the Trade Secretary, and Alan Milburn, the Health Secretary, but excluded Cabinet members perceived as old Labour, such as John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister.

It was attacked by some left-wing Labour MPs as irrelevant and for showing that the party leadership was out of touch with its grassroots supporters. Alan Simpson, a member of the Campaign Group of left-wing MPs, said: “The Third Way was only ever going to retain credibility within the bunkers of the rich and powerful. The world outside the retreat is characterised by widening gaps between rich and poor, and an attempted corporate takeover of everything in public hands.”

Mr Mandelson turns on his critics today by saying that the conference was aimed at reconnecting new Labour with voters’ deepest concerns — on the economy, antisocial behaviour and immigration. The former Northern Ireland Secretary says that new Labour must tackle head-on the issues that create an opening for right-wing populism.

“Fundamentally, we must connect with issues that are disturbing voters and not vacate space to be occupied by the Right,” he states. “This does not mean pandering to prejudice or headline-grabbing; it means advancing workable policies that reflect the essentially tolerant values of the majority.”

Mr Mandelson also insists: “No serious challenge on the Left exists to Third Way thinking anywhere in the world. This is hardly surprising as globalisation punishes hard any country that tries to run its economy by ignoring the realities of the market or prudent public finances. In this strictly narrow sense, and in the urgent need to remove rigidities and incorporate flexibility in capital, product and labour markets, we are all ‘Thatcherite’ now.”

[Timesink]

Hey, it's a start...

[claptrap]

A start of what? The europeans are hopelessly communistic, they are spiraling into total government control of everything that happens, thankfully the U.S. Government is so mired down in greed and corruption it stands little chance of becoming a "big brother" like its european counterparts. This is a strong argument for keeping pathetically incompetent George in office for a second term rather than electing a shrewd Stalinist like Hillary or Algore!

[weikel]

England has some hope. The ultimate legal authority in England is still the monarch who doesn't have to worry about crooked liberal interest groups. We have no such luck here. Hopefully the royal perogative will be brought back in England and used in a conservative way.

[GCSmith]

This is hardly news. The whole point of New Labour was that it ousted the Tories by adopting their economic policies wholesale, and keeping some of the social policies (social justice, not letting people starve, not letting people get stuck on welfare, equal rights for women and gays, acceptance of ethnic minorities, not blaming every government foul-up on single mothers and the homeless) of the left, and not being a bunch of money-grabbing sexual deviants. So, the Thatcherites, but with a smiley face.

This is why the Tories lost the last two elections - it's impossible to provide an economic right-wing opposition to New Labour, and irrelevant to provide a social one since the avergae voter's primary concern is monetary and they don't really care one way or the other on multi-culturalism, or if gays have equal rights and women equal pay (certainly, the majority of voters in the UK seem to have no strong opposition to those things, except when the tabloids manage to generate a bit of temporary hysteria). The only hope for the Tories is that there's some sort of global economic meltdown that devastates Britain's economy, or that the government become as mired in sleaze as the Tories were in the mid-90s so the same trick (hey, we've got the same policies, but we aren't corrupt) can be pulled on Blair et al.

This is also why voter turnout at the last general election was the lowest since WWI. The left don't have anyone to vote for anymore. Same thing happened in France last week. Since coming to power, Blair has pursued Thatcherite policies with more vigour than even she managed, and cut public spending more than any Prime Minister in history. Thatcher won years ago, Tone is a Tory.