The Utopian

By Yascha Mounk.

In 1997, Tony Blair promised that “things can only get better.” Did they?

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If you switched on a British TV in the spring of 1997, you would probably have heard a catchy, optimistic tune: Things Can Only Get Better. Puzzled, you would have watched the back of an unidentifiable man. Leaving his stylish apartment, he walks through a multi-colored and multi-cultural London where the sun is shining more brightly than usual. Bystanders of all ages and races greet our protagonist ecstatically as he enters a polling station and votes “Labour.” At long last, the camera pans around — the man is Tony Blair.

Back in 1997, this ad had an immediate resonance with voters. The soundtrack expressed most Brits’ hope of liberating themselves from Conservative rule after seventeen long years. Fed up with the free-market zeal of Margaret Thatcher and the dreariness of John Major, her successor, they really did think that under Labour, things could only get better.

Meanwhile, the ad’s imagery brilliantly captured Blair’s promise of a “Cool Britannia.” Voters hoped that, under Blair’s leadership, politics would finally catch up with the country’s transformation over the last twenty years. It would become more cosmopolitan, more tolerant, and more caring. Crucial public services — like education, health, and transport — would be improved. Legislation hostile to homosexuality would be abolished. Remaining social obstacles to the success of immigrants would be demolished.

In some ways, Blair and his successor Gordon Brown did deliver on these promises. From improvements for single mothers to the introduction of same-sex civil unions, the laws no longer discriminate in favor of traditional lifestyles. Schools and hospitals are much better funded. And the new Britain has become an increasingly welcoming place for immigrants, whether they be from India or Italy.

Yet if the same ad were shown on TV today, it would provoke bitter tears or cynical laughter. Despite the government’s limited successes, it is now painfully clear that the New Labour project has failed.

It all started in 2003 when Blair dragged Britain into the Iraq War. The war was unpopular from the start. But as the lies on which the intervention was based have come to light, the mood has turned even sourer. The ensuing debate not only discredited the origins of the war, but it also showed that Blair and his acolytes, who had seemed to capture the public mood so well in the 1997 and 2001 election campaigns, had rather different values from their voters.

Under both Blair and Brown, Britain, which prides itself on its age-old civil liberties, adopted the most restrictive anti-terror legislation in Europe. On issues like the detention of terrorist suspects without trial Britain has become the only major country in the EU where the centre-right, not the centre-left, is defending individual rights.

As the so-called “Anti-Social Behavioral Orders” show, New Labour’s approach to social problems is characterized by a penchant for excessive control. If you annoy your neighbours, a court can now invent an ad-hoc law applicable only to you. If you break this law on three occasions, you can go to prison for up to six months. Late last year, a particularly passionate couple has committed such an offence: they now face a draconian punishment for having had loud sex.

Blair’s and Brown’s most lasting inheritance from “Old Labour” may be their authoritarian streak. Unlike the Social Democratic parties of the continent, Labour has never defined itself as a socially liberal party. Suave sound bites like the 1997 election promise to be “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” may at one level have been aimed at winning over centrist voters; at another level, they signaled continuity, not change, with the party’s past.

But there is also a more prosaic reason why Blair and Brown have ratcheted up coercion in recent years: their failure to make real economic improvements. Under Labour, Britain’s GDP at first outpaced the European average. But this growth was heavily centered on the financial industry. It was achieved at the price of ever-new presents to bankers and the superrich. Hence it barely translated into increases of real income for average families, or even tax revenue.

When the recession hit in 2007, Britain was arguably more seriously affected than any other EU country. Though Thatcher’s language of indifference for the poor has now vanished from political discourse, Britain’s abject underclass has actually continued to grow. Many of the poorest Brits, who had once hoped that Blair and Brown would improve their financial lot, have now drifted away from the polling booths — or, worse, embraced the increasingly successful British National Party (BNP). Labour’s populism is a desperate attempt to win back this milieu, which strategists have identified as the “disaffected white working class.” This explains the ever-tougher policies for dealing with rowdy youths; it is also what motivates a recent proposal to allow whistle-blowers who report on “benefit cheats” to keep a portion of the saved money for themselves. In short, Labour, in the eyes of the poor, has failed to deliver economically. As a result, the government has resorted to desperate pandering.

The Labour government is now visibly in its dying days. In fact, it is strangely reminiscent of the last days of Tory rule. Like Major, Brown is woefully out of touch with voters. As was the case in 1997, the government’s legislative program has ground to a virtual halt. Brown simply seems out of ideas. Meanwhile, his ministers have spent the recent past ineptly plotting to get rid of him, and will spend the foreseeable future fighting for his succession.

In the upcoming election campaign, David Cameron — the charismatic, moderate and vacuous leader of the opposition — could do worse than to produce a re-make of the 1997 ad. Though the Tories’ lead in opinion polls has perilously narrowed of late, most Brits once again believe that, if Brown is voted out of office sometime in May, things can only get better.

So do some on the British left. They think that it’s high time to give New Labour the mercy shot. Only after its failure will there be some chance that it can turn into a centre-left party that defends the liberties and economic interests of average citizens.

Yascha Mounk, co-founder of The Utopian, is a political theorist. A shorter version of this article appeared in the March 5 issue of l’Unita.