No. 28/2004
Blair and Bush: The ‘New-Neo’ Synthesisi
By Joelien Pretorius
In politics dichotomies can seldom be maintained. In countries where the two-party
system dominates, this reality is often overlooked. On the spectrum between right and
left (that archaic political science yardstick to categorise party ideology)1 the ruling
parties of the world’s most prominent two-party systems-the United States and the
United Kingdom-make awkward bedfellows.
The Republican Party is on the right (or conservative end) of this spectrum. Parties on
this end pursue a liberal economic agenda that reduces corporate regulation and
strives to keep government out of business. They favour tax cuts, privatisation and
decreased public spending and promote social policies, which are pro-life, anti-same
sex marriages, against gun control and for introducing religion in schools as well as
maintaining law and order through maximum punishment, including the death penalty.
On foreign policy, conservative parties are seen to favour strength above negotiation
and consequently, they promote greater military spending. But most importantly,
conservatives are traditionally characterised as change averse. As Michael Oakeshott
said: 'The man of conservative temperament believes that a known good is not lightly
to be surrendered for an unknown better ... What others plausibly identify as timidity,
he recognises in himself as rational prudence.'
1
The right-left distinction was established for the seating arrangement of the French National Assembly of 1789!
On the other hand, the Labour Party is traditionally on the left-end of the spectrum.
Leftist parties characteristically favour socialist economic policies that would include
high levels of taxation, greater government spending, corporate regulation and worker
protection. This explains the traditional link between the Labour Party and trade
unions in the UK. Their social policies are liberal and in this sense almost the direct
opposite of those of conservative parties. As for foreign policy, liberal parties are seen
to favour negotiation and maintenance or reductions in military spending. In contrast to
conservatives, liberals are most often characterised as advocating change, new
philosophies, and new ideas.
Why then is it so remarkably easy for the leaders of the Republican Party in the US
and the Labour Party in the UK to sit around the same fire over the issue of Iraq?
Three reasons are invoked to explain this oddity. Firstly, Tony Blair is the poodle (or
‘lap dog’) of the Bush Administration. He slavishly follows the lead of the American
Administration without question. In the wake of the Iraq War, he was being ‘led by the
nose’ and his choice to go ahead without UN backing for the War was in essence a
choice against (‘old’) Europe. Secondly and correspondingly, the Prime Minister has
no choice, but to follow the US. Dating back to Post World War II foreign policy, the
UK has historically maintained a special relationship with the US, some would argue in
light of its declining influence as a major and imperial power. By aligning himself with
the US in its War on Iraq, Blair, like the prime ministers who preceded him and those
that will succeed him, is following a historical prerogative that awards a central
position to the US (even if it means breaking with Europe). The third reason and the
one that the Labour Party finds more acceptable is that Blair’s relationship with Bush
is an attempt to ‘temper’ US unilateralism and to encourage Bush to ‘follow the UN
route’. In this sense the UK is seen to play a mediator role between the US on the one
hand and Europe (and indeed the rest of the international community) on the other.
But, many would argue that Blair’s support and participation in the Iraq War served to
legitimise US unilateralism rather than tempering it.
Although these reasons plausibly explain aspects of the Blair-Bush relationship and do
so in terms of British interests, they do not quite get to the heart of the normativecultural dimension at play. For this we have to look for points of ideological
convergence, which have been in the making since the birth of New Labour and the
rise of neoconservatism in the Republican Party since the 9/11 attacks in the US.
New Labour
In light of the Labour defeats in the elections of 1983 and 1987, and in association
with the post-industrial transformations in Britain, which brought about a shrinking
working class, a growing middle class and relaxed party identification, the Labour
Party set out to reform its policies and change its image, in order to be more electable
by the majority of Britons. The major changes were economical, i.e. the acceptance of
liberal economic practices. This shift in economic terms to the right of the spectrum
was not unique to Britain’s Labour. Many other leftist parties in the world made similar
efforts to adapt to the Post Cold War environment and what seemed like the victory of
liberal economics. Of more significance is Blair’s personal contribution to Labour’s
reform agenda, encapsulated by his idea of ‘stakeholding’.2 This idea holds that
everyone has a stake in society and should be given an equal opportunity to
contribute to society – this is the key to a strong economy. If given an equal chance
people will work for society and succeed economically and socially. Although this is a
key premise of traditional socialism, Blair’s stakeholder idea discards the idea of
wealth redistribution. Universal welfare is traded for ‘active’ welfare where duties and
responsibilities are placed on those who receive welfare. In conceptualising the idea of
stakeholding, Blair is clearly influenced by Christian socialism. He adds a moral
dimension to New Labour – a belief in the politics of virtue and along with Labour’s
abandonment of their pre-1992 policy of unilateral UK nuclear disarmament, signals
the endorsement of pragmatism.
Neoconservatism
The neoconservatives originated from the Democratic Party in the late 1960s during
the Vietnam War when they broke with the liberal democrats, who were against the
War. In the words of Irving Kristol (often referred to as the godfather of
neoconservatism): “A neoconservative is a liberal that has been mugged by reality.”
As a persuasion within the Republican Party, “the historical task and political purpose
of neoconservatism would seem to be to convert the Republican party, and American
conservatism in general, against their respective wills, into a new kind of conservative
2
Benjamin Holst Kjeldsen, New Labour, new leader? Seminar Paper. Copenhagen Business School. (1999)
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/9841/TBLA.HTM
politics suitable to governing a modern democracy” (Kristol3 again). As such,
Neocons, as they are called, shed the aversion to change of traditional conservatives
and follow a progressive politics to save US democracy from increasing decadence
personified by the likes of the Clinton Administration. There is thus an alignment with
religious traditionalists in the US, an alignment that manifests in agreement that
government should intervene on issues such as the quality of education, the relations
of church and state and Kristol adds, the regulation of pornography – thus a politics of
virtue, informed by values of community.4
The ‘New-Neo’ synthesis
It is then in their commitment to a politics of virtue (informed by religious undertones)
and through the shift to increased pragmatism by Labour and increased
progressiveness by the Neocons, that a point of ideological convergence is reached,
which makes it possible for Blair and Bush to see eye to eye on Iraq. And when
looking at Iraq before the war, they recognised an enemy in Saddam comparable to
the likes of Hitler that needed to be removed. If he did not have weapons of mass
destruction, it was only a matter of time until he would get them and wreck havoc. For
them, any further UN Resolutions can be likened to the 1938 Munich agreement,
under which Britain and France permitted Hitler to take over Czechoslovakia. The
historical misguidedness of appeasement would undoubtedly have played itself out
again. Whether this construction of the Iraqi situation corresponded with reality, is
irrelevant. The point was to export the virtues of modern democracy, which makes the
US and the UK great nations, to do so without excuses and in order to induce a
virtuous circle in world affairs. This is the responsibility of great democracies, even if it
takes military force. In fact, Kristol argues history has endowed the US with the most
superior military in the world… “And it is a fact that if you have the kind of power we
[the US] now have, either you will find opportunities to use it, or the world will discover
them for you.”
Moderation in both Labour and the Republican Party has systematically been stifled.
Blair, through a strict disciplinary code and the use of spin-doctors to create an image
of unity within Labour, and Bush through a ‘with us (the Administration) or against
America’ attitude have been able to silence factions and differing views in their parties.
3
Irving Kristol, The Neoconservative Persuasion. The Weekly Standard, Volume 008, Issue 47 (August, 2003)
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/000tzmlw.asp.
4
Michael Williams, What is the National Interest? Neoconservativism, Political Realism, and the Politics of
Virtue. Seminar presented at the University of Cambridge, 13 May 2004.
Some argue that the Abu Ghraib photographs and the allegations of British atrocities
(such as the killing of Iraqi civilians) signal a turning point as elements in both Labour
and the Republican Party are publicly starting to question the wisdom of a politics of
virtue that is increasingly looking like imperialist hypocrisy. Even Boris Johnson, a
Conservative Party member of Britain's Parliament had to ask: "Was this really the
operation I had voted for? Did I really think, when the House of Commons voted to
support the American action on March 18, 2003, that it would be carried out with such
boneheaded stupidity?"
However, the resilience of a politics of virtue as an ideology that draws on socialist
concern for the poor and downtrodden in a way that transcends ‘bleeding heart’
libertarianism and frames political action in nationalism and sincere leadership should
not be underestimated. The powerful narratives that were these past weeks used to
minimize the Abu Ghraib fall-out for Blair and Bush, illustrate the point. The abuses, it
was said, are not comparable to the systematic use of torture by Saddam Hussein's
regime. The coalition soldiers are in very difficult circumstances and being shot at
daily by combatants in civilian clothing – they should be the focus of public sympathy.
And, the temporary woes of Abu Ghraib and Faluja should be seen against the vision
of a democratic Iraq five years down the line. Blair and Bush cannot be judged until
that day. And so, the leaders, their relationship, their ideological appeal and their Iraq
policy survived yet again.
i
The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Centre
for International Political Studies (CIPS)