The Price of Power

Presented to the Department of Politics

Loras College

Franz Becker

May 17th, 2018

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INTRODUCTION

As long as there have been politicians, there has been a belief that they will do or say

anything to get elected. The price of political power can be costly, at the expense of personal

values or party platform. To what extent will a person go to serve in government, to achieve a

life’s ambition? Will they change their beliefs to appease the masses? Will they change their

personality? Will they fundamentally change who they are as a person? This thesis seeks to

answer these questions by undertaking a comprehensive case study of the British Labour Party

between 1971-1997, examining Labour’s time in opposition and Tony Blair’s rise to power.

It’s important to understand why politicians act the way they do. During this time period

the Labour Party faced an intra-party civil war, a break away by moderates to form their own

party, the loss of four straight general elections, and the rise of Tony Blair and “New Labour.”

The shift between the Labour Party of the 1980s and the New Labour of the 1990s shows a clear

shift from the left to the center, and in doing so the party abandoned many of its core principles

in an attempt to achieve power.

Understanding why politicians act the way they do and what their true motives are is vital

for the endurance of a true democracy. Understanding to what extent a politician is willing to go

helps people understand what to look out for when deciding who to vote for and how politicians

evolve during their time in politics. Changing to achieve success at the ballot box is not

something new. From the days of ancient Greece and Rome, to Machiavelli, to today, politicians

have long sought to maneuver for power. In examining these questions I chose to undertake a

case study of the British Labour Party due to the time in history, accumulation of sources on the

topic, and relevance in world politics. The immense resources and literature which has been
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written about this time period in the Labour party provides a plethora of sources to properly

analyze the shift the party went through.

On the 5th of May, 1997, Tony Blair walked onto Downing Street, the youngest Prime

Minister in two centuries; his path to power had been paved with compromise and concession,

navigating the intra-party politics of the Labour Party and appealing to the masses of the general

public. The trek through the political wilderness of 18 years in opposition had been a long one

for Labour, losing general elections in 1979, 1983, 1987, and 1992. Blair’s New Labour policies

had promised a fresh take from the socialism of the left, offering a third way approach to British

politics. The walk to the front door of Downing Street had been paved with an abandonment of

party philosophy and socialist doctrine, which may have won the general election, but left many

in the party asking: At what cost?

This case study reveals a number of dangers out our chosen form of government.

Examining a single party shows specific cases of how democracy can fail to live up to its

promise of representation for all. When parties change by shifting from their long held political

doctrine in an attempt to please the masses, it creates a fallacy of choice where there is a false

belief that there is a major difference between the parties. This study shows the dangerous of two

party systems. When there are only two parties to choose from and each establish similar policies

it leaves many people feeling underrepresented in a democracy, with little means to express their

grievances. Labour’s adoption of similar policies and eventual continuation of Thatcherism

shows the dangers within a two party system which leaves many without any form of

representation. A few democracies like the United Kingdom and the United States still adhere to

a first past the post system of elections, which means no matter how large the minority of a

constituency, their votes do not count like they would with proportional representation. This case
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study also shows the dangers of authoritarian rulers in a democracy who consolidate power

within their leadership and leave little room for dissent among with parties elected

representatives. This case study can tell us a number of things about the nature of democracy and

the dangers present within it.

The Labour Party

Formed in 1900 as the Labour Representation Committee, from the start the Labour

Party’s prospects were unclear. By the early 1920s, however, it had surpassed the Liberal Party

as the main opposition party to the Conservatives. Periods in government would come, but they

were often followed by long spells of opposition and even predictions of demise. While its

periods in government were episodic, its dominance of the British left has been solidified since

the 1920s.1 The Labour party quickly became a central pillar of British politics, gaining seats at

the general elections of 1906, 1910, and 1914, and it became the main opposition party in

parliament in 1922. They formed minority governments in 1924 and 1929, each of which

collapsed after a few months. The continued rise in the success of the Labour Party was due to its

outreach to working class and poor voters. It was founded as a socialist party, with Clause IV of

its 1918 Constitution dictating that the Labour Party:

“Seeks to secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and

the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common

ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system

of popular administration and control of each industry or service.”2

Clause IV would be at the center of debate during Blair’s push to the center with its

eventual change in 1995. The socialist party continued to appeal to the masses with the Labour

1
Thorpe, Andrew. A History of the British Labour Party: Third Edition. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008) 8
2
Malcolm Pearce. British Political History, 1867-2001 Democracy and Decline. (Florence: Taylor and
Francis, 2013)
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Party’s shock victory during the 1945 general election over Winston Churchill’s Conservative

Party; Labour Leader Clement Attlee declared that while Britain had won the war, Labour would

now “Win the peace.” During the six years of Atlee’s rule, the Labour Party drastically changed

the face of modern Britain, creating a free at the point of access National Health Service and

welfare state which provided pensions, sickness benefits, unemployment benefits, and funeral

benefits. Even, after instituting sweeping social reform, Labour would lose to the Conservatives,

still led by Churchill, in 1951 and remain in opposition for thirteen years. Labour would return to

power in 1964 under Harold Wilson for six years and in 1974 for five years (under Wilson again

for the first two and James Callaghan for the last three). Labour continued to fail in its bids for

reelection, being forced into long spells of opposition. After Margaret Thatcher’s victory in the

1979 general election, Labour would endure an 18-year trek through the political wilderness,

during which time the party would be engulfed in a civil war and see the rise of the modern

Labour Party.

Labour Civil War

On a cold February day in 1984, a young Labour Member of Parliament took the train

from London to Chesterfield to campaign for an old friend of his father-in-law. It was perhaps

the only political favor this young man would ever do for the career of the candidate. The young

man was Tony Blair, and the candidate was Tony Benn. The story of the Labour party during the

1980s and 1990s can best be described as a tale of two Tonys. Labour entered the 1980s a left

swing, socialist party, a party of miners and trade unionists, dedicated to the preservation and

advancement of the working class. It would emerge at the turn of the century as a center-left

party which made concessions on many of its core principles, and tracking how the party got to

this point is vital to understanding how and why politicians change.

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Labour faced an internal struggle during the 1980s. During the period after the general

election defeat of 1979, the party saw a bitter conflict erupt within its ranks. The party became

increasingly divided between its left wing, led by Michael Foot and Tony Benn, and the right

wing led by Denis Healey. During the Labour leadership election of 1980, Michael Foot

narrowly defeated Denis Healey by a vote of 139 to 129 among Labour Members of Parliament,

taking control of the party and becoming leader of the opposition.3 This vote highlighted how

Foot and Benn's supporters controlled the party at a grassroots level. The divide stemmed from a

clear difference in political doctrine which manifested itself in several events within the party

during the 70s and 80s.

The most important of these events was the culmination of the civil war within the labour

when Tony Benn challenged Denis Healey for the Deputy Leadership of the party. The deputy

leadership election of 1981 can be seen as the most important contest in labour history because it

represented a battle for the soul of the party. The conflict between Benn and Healey, or more

precisely the labour left and the labour right, dates back to the early 1970s and its roots

highlighted the overall strife within the party by separate factions. During Edward Heath’s

conservative government, both men served as members of the Shadow Cabinet; Healey as

Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Benn as Shadow Secretary of State for Trade

and Industry.

During this time a debate arose surrounding Britain’s entrance into the European

Economic Community, an early precursor of the European Union. Benn became a leading

opponent of the UK joining the Council and early proponent of a national referendum on the

issue, which became Labour’s policy, instituted by Wilson in an attempt to prevent aggravating

3
Heppell, Timothy. Choosing the Labour Leader Labour Party Leadership Elections from Wilson to Brown.
(London: Tauris Academic Studies, 2010) 65
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the split in the party on the issue. Those on the left believed joining the EEC, with its free trade

principles, would lead to the loss of jobs and a decimation of the steel and coal industries due to

imports from Europe. Members wishing to remain, like Healey and Wilson, believed that free

trade in Europe was vital for Britain to remain an industrial power. While the membership would

vote by a 2-1 margin to leave the EEC, when the question was put to the British people in 1975

the country voted to stay in the common market.4 This schism within the labour party would only

continue to worsen as those on the Anti-EEC wing of the party sought to take control of Labour.

This split over which political direction the Labour party would take created this civil

war. Labour was, as defined even by its constitution, a socialist party. Yet, the Britain of the

1980s was moving farther to the right. Fears over globalism, free trade with Europe, and

immigration came to the forefront of political strife. The last labour government under James

Callaghan, whose premiership last three years, had been mired in strife with trade unions and

culminated in the "Winter of Discontent," which saw massive strikes due to his governments pay

caps on public employees in an attempt to control inflation, all during the coldest winter in a

generation. There were those on the left who felt Callaghan had betrayed their socialist values

and whose policies paved the way for conservative Thatcherism. Much of these grievances

spurred from the economic policies of the government which were contradictory to the socialist

beliefs of the manifesto. Healey, who at the time was serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer,

would have been responsible for the brief covering these policies. The run on the pound in 1976,

which caused a subsequent bailout by the International Monetary Fund of nearly four billion

dollars, the largest in its history, the austerity measures the government was forced to adopted to

4
Matt Beech. The Struggle for Labour's Soul: Understanding Labour's Political Thought Since 1945. (London:
Routledge, 2018) 76-78
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receive the loan, and the crisis caused by the Winter of Discontent were seen as a betrayal of

Labour policy.

The party conference in 1979, shortly after its electoral defeat, highlighted the factions

which had come to define the party and can be seen as a watershed moment for the Labour party.

The membership of the party was heavily aligned with Tony Benn and the left of the party. Benn

and the trade unions had come to understand that they would never take control of the party and

return it to what they viewed as its trade union socialist traditions if the Parliamentary Labour

Party (Elected MPs) was allowed to continue to choose the leadership of the party. In the view of

those on the left there had been a continued indifference by successive Labour governments to

party manifestos. They felt that if the rules had failed to protect democracy that the rules had to

be changed. At conference in 1979, the fight for constitutional reform within the party was led by

the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (CLPD), an organization of grassroots activists. It

sought three main reforms: (i) the mandatory reselection of Labour MPS so they would have no

automatic right to remain as Labour representatives beyond the life of one parliament, (ii)

placing the the party manifesto in the hands of the party National Executive Committee instead

of the parliamentary leadership, and (iii) extending the election of the leader beyond the

parliamentary party.5 Underlying these constitutional objectives were three aims: to weaken the

rights hold on the party, to redistribute power from PLP to rank and file members, and to end the

independence of the PLP upon which right-wing control of the Party was seen to rest.

The policies of a victorious left-led National Executive Committee swept through

conferences from 1979 to 1981. The campaign for electoral reform had been a success and an

electoral college was selected as a new means of choosing the Labour leadership. It would be

split into a proportion of 40:30:30, giving forty percent to the unions, thirty percent to
5
Eric Shaw. The Labour Party Since 1979 Crisis and Transformation. (Hoboken: Taylor and Francis, 2002) 15-18
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constituency labour parties, and 30 percent to the PLP.6 The unilateralism which the left was

instituting with its socialist policies in the manifesto of extending pubic ownership and

withdrawal from the European Community concerned many on the right and led them to believe

that Labour was heading for electoral disaster.

This goes back to the original question of what price many in the party wanted to pay for

power. In the spring of 1981, what would be seen at the time as the most catastrophic event in

the party's history, but prove to be ineffective in the long term, transpired when four former

cabinet members: Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Shirley Williams, and Bill Rodgers, disillusioned

with the direction labour was headed under the leadership of the left, defected and formed the

Social Democratic Party. The “Gang of Four” as they were collectively known, sought to

establish a centrist party free from the socialist ideology they saw as sending labour to its

electoral grave. Twelve labour MPs would join them and it caused devastating electoral results in

the 1983 General Election, when the SDP won 25% of the vote to Labour’s 27%. Yet, because

Britain uses the first past the post system, instead of proportional representation, Labour won 209

seats to the SDP’s 23. Members within the party viewed this as a wake up call, while the left

refused to be fazed by those who wished to leave.

The split within the Labour party came to a head with the Deputy Leadership Election of

1981 when Tony Benn challenged the incumbent Denis Healey at the party conference. It was a

manifestation of the left vs right which had plagued the party for two years. In Benn’s mind and

those of the left it is was a question of once and for all establishing labour as a socialist party and

in Healey’s and those on the right it was adapting to the times and facing the demands of the

British people. Perhaps what’s most shocking about the leadership election is how personal it

6
Bill Jones. Dictionary of British Politics. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010) 81
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became. Benn and Healey had a mutual disdain for each other which constantly boils over. In

1976 both men were candidates in the heavily contested battle for the Labour leadership. On the

first ballot Benn came in fourth to Healey’s fifth receiving thirty-seven votes. Benn would drop

out and on the second ballot in a narrower field Healey would receive thirty-eight. In his diary

that evening Benn would write “I must say the fact that Denis only got one more vote in the

second ballot than I got in the first gave me great pleasure; he was utterly rejected really.”7 On

April 1st 1981, Benn announced he would challenge Healey, later that same afternoon Denis

Healey was offered the post of Secretary-General of NATO, a far more powerful and prestigious

role than the mostly honorific title of Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. Healey would write

that “It was essential to deny it to Benn. If he had become Deputy Leader there would have been

a haemorrhage of Labour defections to the SDP… I do not believe the Labour Party could have

survived.”8 On September 27th, 1981 Denis Healey defeated Tony Benn by less than one percent

to win the deputy leadership:

Candidate MPs Local Labour Parties Trade Union Votes Electoral college vote

Healey 137 118 3,969 50.43%

Benn 71 506 2,383 49.57%

Total 208 624 6,352 100.00%

7
Tony Benn. The Benn Diaries. (London: Hutchinson, 2017) 241
8
Liam Hill. Two Tribes: Healey, Benn and The Battle For the Soul of the Labour Party. ( Broxton. September 27,
2017.) 13-15
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Benn lost by the narrowest of margins in an election which made it clear Labour would

now shift toward the center in order to appeal to the masses and rejected his socialist doctrine.

Benniets would continue to maintain power within the party in drafting manifestos including that

of the 1983 General Election dubbed by an MP within the party as the “Longest suicide note in

history” because of its socialist policies seen as out of touch with reality.10

What the Deputy Leadership Election of 1981 signified was a shift in the Labour party

where they will now sacrifice their core principles if it means being successful at the ballot box.

While it could be seen as just a slight movement, this election is the start of a long migration to

the centre which would culminate with Tony Blair’s New Labour.

The Design of the Architect

Labour entered the nineteen eighties a socialist party, and it would enter the new

millennium a centrist one. No single person bore a greater responsibility for changing Labour

than Tony Blair. The decision of what price the party will pay ultimately comes down to the

decisions of individual politicians. It’s important to examine how Tony Blair changed over the

course of his life to understand how his politics and indeed the politics of the labour party

changed. There was no single event in Tony Blair’s life that caused him to change his principles

from socialist to centrist, rather it was a slow transition over a lifetime.

Examining Tony Blair’s life is vital to understanding the price he paid for power with the

creation of “New Labour,” casting out the old socialist traditions in favor of a centrist party.

9
Heppell. Choosing the Labour Leader Labour Party Leadership Elections from Wilson to Brown. 97
10
Daniel Blythe.X Marks the Box. (London: Icon Books, 2010) 78
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Blair had been a public school boy, attending Fettes College as a child where he was seen by

teachers as exceptionally bright, but rebellious. He dreamed of being a rockstar and spent his gap

year between Fettes and Oxford as a rock promoter in London. 11 In 1972 Blair started at St.

John’s College, Oxford studying law. Oxford for Blair was a deeply informative period of his

life which would shape his politics. While many prominent British politicians who studied at

Oxford spent their time at the university climbing the political rungs of the Oxford Union, the

University's prestigious debating society, Blair was not particularly political there. In his first

year Blair would meet two friends, both Australian, who would profoundly influence him. Geoff

Gallop, a Rhodes Scholar studying politics, and Peter Thompson, a thirty-six year old Anglican

priest who was studying theology at St. John’s. It was after meeting Thompson that Blair would

become a confirmed member of the Anglican Church. He would one day call Thompson “the

person who influenced me most.”12 Blair identified with Thompson’s Christian Socialist

philosophy, showing him a form of Christianity which was not entrenched in theological

doctrine, but social action. The importance of Blair’s confirmation cannot be overstated when

talking about his political development. If it wasn’t for God, Tony Blair would have quite likely

have been a Tory, after all he came from a well-off family, the son of an atheist Tory barrister.

There is a striking theme that people around Blair continue to bring up throughout his

life: a constant desire to be liked and famous. His contemporaries at Fettes often comment that

he was keen on being noticed and relished attention.13 When he was young he desired to be a

rockstar. At University he seriously discerns on entering the priesthood, but his friends at Oxford

believe he didn’t because it would not have satisfied his desire to be famous. Instead, he chooses

11
John Rentoul. Tony Blair: Prime Minister. Lancaster: Little, Brown, 2001.
12
Keith Dovkants. London Evening Standard, 18th July 1994
13
John Rentoul. Tony Blair: Prime Minister. Lancaster: Little, Brown, 2001. 16
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politics as a means to satisfy both his desire to be famous and a vehicle for his moral

commitments. Blair was a young man who wanted to be somebody and do something.

By understanding Blair’s background at the time he leaves Oxford as a staunch Christian

Socialist one can better map how his beliefs changed over the time from his youth to his

premiership. Blair spends his years after university working as Barrister in London. He meets

Cherie Booth, whom he marries and both become active members of the Labour party. It would

have been natural to think of Blair as a Bennite. Tony Benn had a very similar background to

Blair. He was born into privilege, the eldest son of a Viscount, who was molded by his parents

nonconformist tradition of radical christian socialism. Benn and Blair shared a christian

socialism ideology in the late nineteen seventies that could have influenced Blair’s doctrine, but

didn’t.

Blair enters Labour party politics at the height of its civil war, having to navigate in party

party fighting. His views on the civil war and his own political development during the eighties

are shown in a lecture he gave in 1982 at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia where his

friend Geoff Gallop taught politics. In the lecture Blair lays out his views on the Labour civil

war, the SDP breakaway, and the recent Deputy Leadership election. Yet, the greatest theme one

is left with from the lecture is Blair’s pragmatism. Blair chastised the Social Democrats party as

bland and out of touch. They were not seeking to “break the mould” as they promised, but were

“Representatives of the old mould.” In his view they had grown “too fat and affluent to feel

comfortable with Labour and their lingering social consciousness prevent them from voting

Tory.” Blair gives two reasons for opposing the SDP. First was their support of the Tebbit Bill,

which cut trade union rights, and the second was his pragmatism.14 Blair felt that the SDP would

never tap into working class voting block which would continuously returned Labour with at
14
Rentoul. Tony Blair: Prime Minister. 78-81
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least 200 seats to the House of Commons. Blair had reluctantly backed Healey in the Deputy

Leadership election, but when questioned about who he was supporting he would only say

“Definitely not Benn.” In his lecture Blair pushes for a heal in the divide between the left and

right of the party with the right adapting to the economic reality the country was facing and the

left understanding that it must modernize. Blair concludes by pushing for pragmatism in the

party through the “exercise of political judgment– which means knowing when to fight and when

to accept defeat. It acknowledges that not every compromise is a sell-out. Above all, it means an

appreciation that there must be some system of priorities.”15

Tony Blair’s political beliefs can be defined in one word: pragmatic. The Australia

lecture supports this as do his actions during the time period. He constantly plays both sides of

the fence, joining intra party organizations in both the left and right wings of the party, not fully

knowing which wing would take over the party. He contests a special election in 1982 and is

elected a Member of Parliament in 1983. Blair continues to tout a socialist line once elected. In

his maiden speech to the House he declares

“I am a Socialist not through reading a textbook that has caught my intellectual fancy, nor

through unthinking tradition, but because I believe that, at its best, Socialism corresponds

most closely to an existence that is both rational and moral. It stands for cooperation, not

confrontation; for fellowship, not fear. It stands for equality, not because it wants people

to be the same but because only through equality in our economic circumstances can our

individuality develop properly.”16

15
Rentoul. Tony Blair: Prime Minister. 93-94
16
House of Commons. Parliamentary Debates: Official Report. Vol. 45. HM Stationery Office. 1984
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The problem, however, is that Blair was not a socialist, he was a pragmatist. He would

never advocate socialist principles unless they furthered his own career. After his election, Blair

had a meteoric political rise under Neil Kinnock’s leadership, being appointed to the front-bench

in 1984. He shared an office with Gordon Brown, who was elected the same year. Brown and

Blair would rise together and create what would be known as New Labour.

In understanding the early political career of Tony Blair, with its early days of Christian

doctrine and then a turn toward pragmatic careerism, it helps answer the question of what price

Blair and Labour were willing to pay. Blair would make compromises because, as he said in his

Australian lecture, doing so wasn’t selling out. One can justify his actions as saying his

pragmatism was not merely wielded in search of power, but in understanding that only by

achieving power could he seek to bring about the social change which had led him to politics in

the first place.

New Labour

In 1992 Labour lost its fourth consecutive general election. It had now spent thirteen

years in opposition and there was no end in sight. John Smith became leader of the Labour party

and Blair, Brown and other members of the new generation of Labour joined his shadow cabinet.

The fourth loss was a clear wake up call and John Smith began to campaign on a message that

shifted from hard socialist doctrine to a mixed economy approach. Labour was on the move,

over-taking the conservatives in the opinion polls and began positioning to win the next general

election, as infighting began to consume the Conservative party. 17 During local elections in May

1994, Labour won over 40 percent of the vote and the Conservatives suffered huge losses. It

signaled a shift in the national political scene.

17
Andrew Thorpe. History of the British Labour Party. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
 15

Yet, just a week after this sign of electoral hope that the years in the wilderness would be

coming to an end, the leader of the Labour party, John Smith, died of a massive heart attack at

age 55. His death triggered an ensuing leadership election. Again Blair’s pragmatism came in to

play. Gordon Brown who was older and considered even by Blair to be the superior politician,

was persuaded by Blair to step-aside. The “Blair-Brown” pact was one of the most infamous

backroom deals in British political history. Blair persuaded Brown to step aside in exchange for

several concessions. Brown would be granted wide powers over domestic policy in any Blair

government, Blair would only serve two terms if elected then step aside for Brown to become

leader, and Brown would become Chancellor of the Exchequer and be answerable only to

Blair.18 Brown put party before himself here, he more than likely could have defeated Blair, but

decided to be de facto deputy for the good of the party and the implementation of Labour’s ideas

in government.

After his election as leader of the party Blair quickly began to implement what would be

known as “New Labour.” Blair felt the party was seen as too socialistic and would never reach

beyond its base of working class families, trade unions, and residents of council estates. He

wanted to tap into the middle class voting block which the conservatives had controlled for the

better part of two decades. He felt Labour had outdated policies which the public perceived in

terms of higher taxes and interest rates that would hold them back from success. Blair

surrounded himself with men who would implement his agenda, tapping the prominent political

journalist turned spin doctor Alastair Campbell as his director of communications and his close

political ally within the House, Peter Mandelson, who would be dubbed the “Prince of Darkness”

18
Robert Peston. Brown's Britain. (London: Short Books, 2005) 66-68
 16

for his unyielding ambition to take Labour to power. These three men would be the architects of

New Labour, turning Labour from a socialist party into a centrist “Third Way Party.”19

The biggest change Blair made came early in his leadership at party conference in 1994.

Blair announced in his speech to the party membership that he intended to replace Clause IV of

Labour’s constitution, which advocated for the common ownership of the means of production,

for a mellower “Democratic Socialist” clause. The move away from the old socialist traditions

made many on the left of the party feel that Blair was throwing away the core principles of

Labour which had been at the center of party's policy for nearly a century in order to create New

Labour.20

In the run up to the 1997 General Election, Blair didn’t make the social issues of the old

Labour guard the central ones of his campaign. He campaigned on lowering crime rates, the

acceptance of free markets, and said in his conference speech in 1996 that his top three priorities

were “Education, Education, Education.” Blair laid out five specific pledges which sought to cut

class sizes to thirty students or under, introduce a fast track punishment scheme for young

offenders, cut medical waiting lists, and get two hundred and fifty thousand people off benefits

and into the workforce.21 Blair promised the British people that Labour had “modernized” and

the old guard was gone. New Labour came to be known as a “Third Way.” This was a bridge

between socialism and capitalism, which would push Labour to the center in an attempt to appeal

to the greatest amount of voters.22 The plan worked. On May 1st, 1997 Labour swept into power,

winning an overwhelming majority with 418 seats, to the Conservatives 165, and Liberal

Democrats 46.

19
Donald Macintyre. Peter Mandelson: The Biography. (London: Biteback, 2011) 39
20
Brian Brivati. The Labour Party: A Centenary History. (Basingstoke: MacMillan, 2000) 321
21
John Hills. More Equal Society?: New Labour, Poverty, Inequality and Exclusion (Bristol: The University of
Bristol Press. 2005) 47
22
Philipp Kramp. The British Labour Party and The Third Way. (Berlin: University of Potsdam Press, 2010) 118
 17

Results of the 1997 General Election

Party Seats Gain

Labour 418 +147

Conservative 165 -171

Liberal Democrat 46 +30

23

It was the largest majority in Labour history and the largest Britain had seen since the

turn of the century. Tony Blair had achieved his dream of becoming Prime Minister of the

United Kingdom. He was now someone and had the chance to do something.

The Problem of Paying for Power

The answer to what political parties will do for power is clear: anything to get elected.

The answer to the question, however, shows a number of problems in democracy. At the heart of

democracy is the concept of choice. Democracy is about choosing a direction for society and

choosing leaders whose vision you wish to see enacted. By understanding why political parties

23
Denver, D. T. British Elections and Parties Review. (London: Frank Cass, 1998)
 18

change and how they do so, by understanding what they are willing to do to achieve government,

one can better see the motives of elected officials. A case study of the British Labour party

between 1971-1997 might sound like a boring history lesson, but it can tell us a number of things

about the nature of democracy.

The Labour party in 1997 was unrecognizable to the party of 1983. It had abandoned its

core principles, rebranded itself in an attempt to modernize, and become a centre-left party.

There is a danger which comes with such change, by 1997 Labour had shifted so far to the right

that they had started to adopt similar policies as the conservative party. New Labour embraced

Thatcherism with its market driven economic strategy.24 It professed free trade, getting tough on

crime, and cutting welfare. The problem with Labour adopting neoliberal policies that were

similar to the conservative party lies in Britain's two party system. Labour had controlled the

British left for nearly eighty years by the time Tony Blair abolished clause IV. It was founded for

the very purpose of being a leftist party that championed the demands of the working class,

which the Liberal party of the day was not doing. Until the 1980s Britain had a clear two party

system and even in 1997, while the Liberal Democrats had become a serious third party, two

parties still won the overwhelming majority of seats in Parliament, due to the first past the post

system instead of proportional representation. Labour was the only major party of the left. When

it began to adopt policies like free trade and chose not to renationalize the industries which had

been privatized under the Conservative government, it signaled a continuity of Thatcherism.25 By

tracing Labour from a socialist party to a centrist one, it's clear that a fallacy of choice developed

in British elections, where both parties had similar neoliberal policies and there weren’t major

24
Chole Campen. "Change Within the Conservative and Labour Parties." JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL
AFFAIRS, 1997.
25
Hesmondhalgh, David, Melissa Nisbett, Kate Oakley, and David Lee. "Were New Labour’s Cultural Policies
Neoliberal?" International Journal of Cultural Policy, 2014. 1-18.
 19

political differences between them. This meant that the membership of the Labour party and

those who identified as members of the left had no political party to represent them. Labour’s

pragmatic approach to politics shows how a major part of the electorate can be left without

representation when a party abandons its core principles.

An unexpected finding which arose from the case study was the inequality of first past

the post systems. Looking at the returns from the 1983 general election Labour won 27% of the

vote to the Social Democratic Party’s 25% percent. Yet, when it came to seats in the House of

Commons Labour won 209 seats to the SDP’s 23. Had Britain used proportional representation

instead of a first past the post system Labour would have won 174 seats and the SDP would have

won 162 seats.26 Labour was able to use first past the post to go further to the center, because

while it may have alienated working class voters, they had no option, but to vote for Labour in

constituencies where the only other choice was a Conservative candidate. While 87 of the

world’s democracies use proportional representation, Britain, France, and the United States are

three notable exceptions. The main reason these countries don’t institute the change is that the

party in control of the legislatures would have to amend the electoral process and would risk

losing their majority if proportional representation was implemented. First past the post

legislature elections are inherently unfair because they leave the minority, no matter how large,

without representation in a constituency. Legislatures with proportional representation make

countries more democratic and allow people to feel represented in the national conversation.

The case study reveals a number of serious problems with political parties themselves. A

clear theme in the study of the Labour party is how New Labour’s leadership were able to

consolidate power and implement the reforms without the consent of the membership and many

26
Thomas Lundberg. Proportional Representation and the Constituency Role in Britain. (London: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2014) 12-13
 20

back bench members. Professor Reuven Hazan of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem explored

this idea in his book The Uneasy Relationships Between Parliamentary Members and Leaders. In

the 1997 General Election when Labour achieved a majority of 179 seats, a third of its members

were new. Dr. Hazan contends that this made it easy to whip the new members into voting for

the party line because they did not know any other regime. When Blair began proposing policies

that went against traditional party doctrine it became harder for MPs to object. This was seen in

December 1997 when only forty seven members of party broke the whip and voted against

Blair’s proposed cuts to single parent welfare benefits, breaking with long held Labour policy.27

Consolidation of party control by a single authoritarian leader allows for the abandonment of

principles and the stifling of dissent. There was no course of action for Labour MPs to dissent

without being reprimanded, labeled deserters, or threatened with deselection by the party at the

next general election. This was clearly seen in 2003 when Blair used a three-line whip, a strict

order to follow leadership instructions when voting on a bill, breach of which has serious

consequences, to coerce members into voting for the Iraq war.28 Labour’s move towards a

consolidation of control by party leadership shows how politicians can take over political parties

and enact their own agenda, even if it is contrary to the core values of the party.

The dangers of such autocratic rule are clear from this case study. Tony Blair had

incredible control over the Labour party and used it as a tool to get elected and remain in power.

This shows one of the dangers at the heart of parliamentary democracy. Tom Bower explores this

idea in his book Broken Vows: Tony Blair: The Tragedy of Power, examining Blair’s leadership

of the party and premiership, Bower finds that Blair is responsible for all the major policies of

27
Reuven Y. Hazan. The Uneasy Relationships between Parliamentary Members and Leaders. (London: Frank
Cass, 2000) 171-180
28
Steven Kettell. Dirty Politics?: New Labour, British Democracy and the Invasion of Iraq. (London: Zed Books,
2013)
 21

the Labour government. In his analysis of Blair’s personality he comes to the conclusion that

Blair intentionally deceived his party of the circumstances which led to the Iraq War and

continually undermined his party in an attempt to enact his own policies which would make him

more powerful.29 Bower came to many of the same conclusions reached in this case study,

arguing that Blair’s need for the limelight drove many of Labour’s policies including the war.

While it would have been hard for the British people to know Blair’s motivation during the

campaign, this shows that voters must be weary of all politicians who seek high office.

The alarming theme of Blair’s almost narcissistic tendencies raises red flags throughout

his life and shows the dangers of allowing one leader to amass complete control. In her book The

Psychology of Politicians Ashley Weinberg explores the psychology behind political leaders and

why they act the way they do. Weinberg finds in conducting case studies of numerous political

personalities, such as former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, that politicians are

pragmatic creatures. They use their personality to propel them to power and often morph into

beings other than their true selves in order to pander to the widest possible audience. 30 This

becomes dangerous in parliamentary democracies when leaders are given broad control of their

parties and therefore broad control of countries once in Government. Leaders become

unaccountable to members because they control members and when politicians are allowed to

amass as much power as they can, as was evident with Blair, then this unaccountability leads to

things catastrophes like the Iraq war.

Dr. Cristian Tileaga, professor of Social Psychology at Loughborough University,

examines the psychology of politicians like Blair in his book Political Psychology: Critical

Perspectives. He finds that politicians, citing Blair as an example, are driven by a desire to

29
Tom Bower. Broken Vows: Tony Blair: The Tragedy of Power. (London: Faber & Faber, 2016) 91-93
30
Weinberg, Ashley. The Psychology of Politicians. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
 22

maintain positive face and to be approved by others. The analysis highlights two of the most

important features in Blair's discourse. The first is that in order to show political continuity and

change, Blair makes extensive use of the term "modernization," while never criticizing "Old

Labour." Second, "Changes" which he made to the Labour policy like the repeal of Clause IV are

presented as principled. By presenting change as a natural political progression Blair was able to

avoid being labeled a "Flip-flopper" who reneged on core party doctrine.31 This case study shows

the dangers of politicians who seek to change their parties beliefs and consolidate power in an

attempt to further their own personal goals, which are often at odds with interests of the people

they lead.

Conclusion

Studying politics brings us to a deeper understanding of our world. By studying political

parties and politicians we learn a great deal about the people who lead us. Taking a

micropolitical approach by analysing a specific political party can tell us a number of things

about the nature of democracy. Looking at Labour’s struggles through the 1980s and the rise of

Tony Blair’s New Labour shows the price politicians and parties are willing to pay for power.

Labour’s sacrifice of core beliefs, transforming from a socialist party to a centrist one shows that

politicians will be as pragmatic as they feel they need to be in order to get elected. Their push to

the right shows the fallacy of choice that can develop in a democracy when both parties adopt

similar policies, leaving those who disagree with no representation. It highlights the need for

proportional representation, instead of a first past the post system, where all votes are counted

equally and the minority is not silenced. It shows the dangers of an authoritarian ruler, which

even in a democracy can consolidate power and silence dissent. The pragmatism shown by Blair

in his attempt to reach power underlines the need for people to always be cautious of those who
31
Tileagă, Cristian. Political Psychology: Critical Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
 23

seek to hold public office. Democracy is humanity's greatest experiment, it gives us the promise

of equality and the basic belief that all voices are equal. Studying politics gives us the ability to

identify the problems with our chosen system of government and in doing so find ways to

improve the social contract between a people and their leaders.

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