‘Critical friends’

In 1997 I was a callow youth of 16. I spent my spare time canvassing and leafleting for the then opposition Labour Party. I can still remember the euphoria of election night that year; it was the closest liberal democracies come to a social revolution as the decrepit Conservative government was swept from power by a landslide of red.

Ten years on I find myself out of the Labour Party and on balance disaffected with the political process in general and I am not alone. Tens of thousands have flooded out of the Labour Party; equally as disaffected and disenchanted. My heart still belongs to Labour over the Conservative’s but the waters are far too muddied for me to even consider rejoining as yet. Certainly I wouldn’t be able to recapture the zest I had in earlier days.

Why?? Well excepting my youthful flush of leftish wanderings, Iraq was the straw that broke the camels back. In my mind there is little doubt that Tony Blair had the courage of his convictions but they ultimately were the wrong convictions. The West’s Iraqi adventure will be recorded in history as one of the most ill-advised interventions of all time; it may yet lead to an even more drastic worsening of the situation and certainly has imposed too high a price on the Iraqi people.

What is more, the manner in which Blair garnered public support for this ‘democracy at the end of a barrell’ crusade cheapened politics with it’s lies and bare-faced deceit. Blair could well have been remembered as a truly great Prime Minister but now his reputation is the ash of broken promises.

Opponents of the war, who were smeared as the aiders and abetters of terrorism, can now rightly claim that it is the crusading zeal of Blair and, of course, George W Bush that have given terrorist’s the most succour as hearts and minds rile against the double standards of the West and the outright hypocrisy of it’s foreign policy.

At home; Labour has pushed forward some traffic social gains like the minimum wage and at least an attempt at a more liberal social agenda. However, even that has it’s counterweight in the erosion of civil liberties. Democracy has not flourished; in fact it has withered as New Labour gut’s politics of hope and inspiration. Fundamental changes to the way the country is run were abandoned in the favour of tinkering and half-hearted measures (the mealy-mouthed reform of the House of Lords being a prime example of this). Social progress has been limited by the conflict between a reform agenda and the lack of real will.

So, where does that leave us in 2007? It leaves us with Gordon Brown promising a ‘new politics’ (which will probably equate to a replacement of the crusader ethic with that of ‘business management’) and the Conservative’s falling back on scaremongering about ‘social collapse Britain’. Labour remains the best hope for progressives but with inner party life and debate stunted it is little more than a glimmer at best.

Dissent is viewed as disloyalty (a view that the Labour leadership shares in common with Stalin and all other dictators) but the need for ‘critical friends’ has never been greater for a Labour Party that claims government on a minority of the popular vote. This blog aims to be the home and mouthpiece of those critical friends and indeed a forum for wider debate.