Magic Gone? Tony Blair's problems.

National Review Online ^ | June 25, 2002 | John O'Sullivan

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LONDON — Water used to be something on which British Prime Minister Tony Blair walked; today he has trouble keeping his head above it.

Blair returned to London on Sunday from a Seville Summit of European Union leaders that had rejected his advertised solution to the pressing problem of illegal migration to be greeted by headlines announcing that New Labor's opinion poll lead over the opposition Tories had been cut from double digits to a statistically shaky 3 percent.

That might not matter much since he need not hold an election for another four years. Besides the British economy is still strong — and it is hard for even an unpopular government to lose an election during an economic boom. And New Labor was still ahead even if the trend was against them.

But the YouGov survey in the London Sunday Times had much more unsettling news for Blair than Tory/Labor headline figure. It showed that three times as many people trusted Labor Finance Minister Gordon Brown "to take the right decision" on entering the European single currency as trusted Blair.

As poll-watcher Peter Kellner pointed out, moreover, this result followed a series of polls showing that voters generally had a higher opinion of Brown than of Blair. Still more significant, Tory voters were especially respectful of Brown despite his long-standing reputation as a puritan stalwart of Old Labor with a penchant for higher taxes.

Kellner did not need to stress what everyone knew — that this removed the strongest prop underpinning Blair's prime ministerial leadership.

Until now Middle England has regarded Mr. Blair as the one man standing between them and a Labor government. Without him Labor looked unelectable. So he seemed an indispensable vote-getter to backbench Labor members of parliament — the Moses who had led them back into office after 18 years in the wilderness of opposition.

In return for that service they were willing to overlook the fact that his New Labor policies often bore no relationship to what they believed or to the egalitarian and redistributive policies of their party's tradition.

If, however, Blair's personal magic was gone, they might well consider switching their support to the far more amenable and slightly more leftist Brown. Nor would they need to wait for an election in two year's time to do so. As Lady Thatcher found to her cost, prime ministers can be ditched by their parliamentary supporters in midterm.

Of course, Blair is not in any immediate danger. There would have to be a crisis of some sort to provide the excuse for Labor MPs to rebel and the scenario for Brown to effect a prime ministerial defenestration. Such crises cannot be ordered up like a bombe surprise. But there are two candidate-crises looming.

The first is the U.S. invasion of Iraq that everyone expects in early Spring. Most Labor MPs and some Ministers want the Labor government to oppose such an invasion. If Brown were lead a cabinet and backbench rebellion against a British role in the U.S.-led attack, it would precipitate a leadership election. What then?

It is hard to predict the result of such an election — and thus whether a British government would help invade Iraq afterwards. It is even conceivable that New and Old Labor would split into two separate parties as a result. But both Blair and Brown are cautious politicians who know that such a split could well leave them both out of power. So Brown will almost certainly discourage any rebellion over Iraq.

The EU is a different matter.

Blair entered office claiming that would place Britain "at the heart of Europe" and work harmoniously with other European leaders. The hollowness of this claim was exposed this weekend at the Seville Summit when Blair advanced a plan to penalize nations that failed to stem illegal immigration from their territory into Europe by cutting the amount of EU aid they receive. Not only did EU leaders reject his plan outright, but they also overrode his objections and established a joint European border police force to control immigration.

These decisions represent the essence of European cooperation: The EU insists that it should take over control of immigration from individual member-states but it then refuses to adopt policies that would actually control immigration as their voters wish. Seeing this, British voters are likely to resist the further level of European integration that membership of the Euro would involve. They are already hostile to the euro by margins of 20 percent in opinion polls, the Seville decisions will harden this resistance.

Blair, however, is publicly committed to a referendum next year. Admittedly, before a referendum can be held, Brown must certify that five economic tests have been met to ensure that the euro suits the British economy.

But Brown can issue this certification without enthusiasm and campaign tepidly in the subsequent referendum. If the euro wins, Blair triumphs and Brown does not lose. If the euro goes down to defeat, however, Blair would almost certainly have to resign in favor of his shrewd and punctilious Chancellor.

And Europe would have claimed the scalp of a third British prime minister in succession.

— John O'Sullivan is editor-at-large of National Review. This first appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times and is reprinted with the author's permission.

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