By Ralph A. Kuiper
 Political science professor Mark Bevir discusses the challenges facing Tony Blair’s New Labour Party. |
The Peninsula Chapter of the World Affairs Council and the Los Altos Library sponsored a talk May 18 by Mark Bevir titled “How will Tony Blair’s New Labour government lead, and will it lean toward the U.S. or Europe?”
Approximately 90 people heard Bevir discuss the shift in political parties in Britain and how the New Labour Party, led by Prime Minister Tony Blair, first came into power in 1997. His remarks included assessments of which way the recently re-elected parliamentary government would direct its interests and the close relationship between Blair and President Bush.
Bevir, who received his doctorate at Oxford University, has been a political science professor at UC Berkeley since 2000. Prior to that, the London native held positions in the United Kingdom, Australia, Finland, France and the United States.
Although Blair’s New Labour Party won the majority of seats in the May 5 British elections for an unprecedented third time, its total dropped by 47 seats. The opposing Conservative Party won 197 seats, a gain of 36 seats, and the Liberal Democrats also gained to a total of 56. Despite these gains, Bevir did not think the Conservatives should be optimistic about gaining control in the foreseeable future.
According to Bevir, Blair’s emergence as the prime minister and the return to power of the Labour Party resulted from a declaration that they were “new in their means and old in their values.” This was a reaffirmation of being socially liberal but also fiscally conservative. They attempted to effect this through “networks and partnerships” rather than an autocratic governmental imposition.
During the election campaign, the Conservative Party, led by Michael Howard, accused Blair of entering the war based on lies. It was clear that these accusations resonated with the public and resulted in the loss of New Labour seats, Bevir said. However, the British public was more concerned about social policy issues. Bevir noted that before the war, less than 50 percent of the public and almost 75 percent of Blair’s own party did not support his actions on Iraq.
Bevir felt that in the future most young British people would prefer moving toward a closer relationship with Europe. There is dissatisfaction with British relations with the United States and its policies, Bevir said. There are still some conflicts with moving toward Europe in that Britain has a broader range of trading links around the world. This raises concerns about floating currencies of the European Union, he said. The United Kingdom also wants to maintain the British identity, and the public has a history of antipathy for those “across the channel.”
On Blair’s decision to join the United States in the Iraq war, Bevir said that Blair stated he had come to the realization that he had a moral obligation to remove the evil dictator. After the weapons of mass destruction arguments had been disproved, this moral basis to remove Saddam Hussein remained as an enduring rationale for both the British and U.S. leaderships.
Ralph A. Kuiper is the chairperson of the Peninsula Chapter of the World Affairs Council.
