Former prime minister Tony Blair. Photo: Stefan Rousseau / PA Wire/Press Association Images. All rights reserved.There is an irretrievable weakness in the UK Labour party. This is not the obvious weakness, that since the 2015 General Election the party is indulging in insularity and its own abject implosion. Rather, it’s that Labour is not concerned with strength, courage and the acquisition of power, and the consequent use of power to make material improvements in the world. What unites Labour at the moment is that the so called ‘Blairites’ and ‘Corbynites’ do not take power seriously. In contrast, The Conservative party is very serious about power and its maintenance. Power is instrumental and to be used to command the resources of capital, media and finance. The Tories most certainly do not attain power for power’s sake. The most obvious example of this is the ‘first past the post’ electoral system. Much of the Left want to abolish FPTP in favour of more representative proportional systems like AV or STV. However, the Tories are simply not going to abolish this, not now, not ever, since it serves them exceptionally well, consistently delivering over decade-long majorities. With these majorities they attain power, and implement far-reaching societal changes. Ask the miners, or anyone in the North of England who can remember prior to when Tony Blair’s proto-millennials were born.
Political power is never ever power for power’s sake: power is always wielded. It cannot but be weilded. In power, Blair, the great bête noire of the left (it must be nice to have your own personal bête noire) and his government, continued this tradition. Blair built a coalition around public sector workers, union support, and by injecting just the right smidge of solidarity into enough aspiring politicians in marginal constituencies to make them feel relaxed with the targeted redistribution of social benefits. (Yes, that was done in your name). Notwithstanding the Iraq war, student fees and augmenting Tory-inaugurated Private Finance Initiatives, some of those far-reaching achievements include increased NHS funding, Sure Start Nurseries, Working Tax Credits, the intervention in Kosovo, the brokering of the Northern Ireland peace accord, and lifting hundreds of thousands of children out of child poverty. How these have not contributed to improved material conditions of those living in Britain and abroad is difficult to see. The point is the Labour party does use power from time to time, in the material war of political governance. The compromises of parliamentary power, and the management of an ever-fractious Labour party limits the capacity to extend the use of power widely. The problem with the new incarnation of Labour is that its principles do not coincide with the productive capacities of power. Seeing politics as not power-laden is a problem. Therefore, whether power produces injustice or justice is down to which party wields it. Power enables good things to happen. Power, as Michel Foucault showed, is neither good nor bad in and of itself – but productive.
The compromises of parliamentary power, and the management of an ever-fractious Labour party limits the capacity to extend the use of power widely.
