Tony Blair’s military and diplomatic disaster did not end in Iraq. He broke the trust of voters and, so many years later, in this broken Britain, we are still paying the price
OUR COLUMNIST ON CHILCOT AND A CONTINENT IN CHAOS
When has British politics ever been in such a state of flux?
The Tories, UKIP and English and Welsh Greens in leadership contests; the Labour Party in a series of convulsions from top to bottom; Brexit; and now, 13 years after the UK went to war in Iraq, comes the publication of Chilcot.
The Tories know how to utilise a crisis. It is one of the reasons they are one of the most successful electoral parties in the democratic world.
Labour have never grasped the need in a crisis for decisive action – and seem to be stuck in the worst of all worlds. The Labour anti- Corbyn rebels have wounded the party leader but have failed to depose or force him to resign.
Post- Brexit and in the week of Chilcot, the British political classes have never been more ill-thought of, yet the Tory show goes on as if nothing has changed.
“Take Back Control”, the slogan of the Leave campaign, turns out to mean little more than fewer than 150,000 aging members deciding who the next prime minister is – Theresa May or Andrea Leadsom.
Britain, as we know it, is over. Even the Tories cannot ignore this for too long but the Westminster consensus have little to say – irrespective of party – about the multiple crises that affect the country.
This is particularly damning of Corbyn’s Labour where, for all their supposed radicalism, they – along with the anti- Corbynistas – have no original suggestions about tackling the many malaises of modern Britain – economically, socially, democratically or constitutionally.
Yes, the Corbyn leadership are against austerity but that is nothing more than a slogan. We’re constantly told that this is an age of change and uncertainty but it is also one of profound groupthink. This was on show in the recent EU referendum, where a huge segment of centre-left and centre-right opinion had never given any serious thought about how to present the merits of Europe or understand the growing discontent with the Union.
Most fundamentally, the collective groupthink of Britain’s elites – from pol itics to corporate business and London media – advance the argument that globalisation has been unquestionably good. This is the world view that spawned both Blair’s New Labour and Cameron’s “compassionate Conservatism”.
This perspective, grounded in metropolitan, l iberal circles, celebrates the winners of the world and the economic and social changes of recent decades.
It is – for all its claims of diversity and pluralism – rather intolerant of people who question its logic and not that compassionate about the many losers and those left behind.
This is most obvious in relation to economic realities. The conventional wisdom of the last 30 years – deregulation, privatisation, the state needs to be kept out of all sort of strategic national areas – hasn’t delivered the goods it promised. UK living standards are lower per head compared withh pre-crash eight years ago, while pub li cub li cs pending is increasingly skewed towards the supposed winners. For example, 44 percent of infrastructure a structure investment occurs in London, compared with one per cent inn north-east England.
The power of groupthink can be seen in the vice-ice- like grip of the Westminster bubble. Despite devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, how British politics is fought, portrayed and understood has become ever more narrow and distant from the realities most people live.
Planet Westminster minster is a stage on which others such as Scotland and some great English cities sometimes get a walk-on partart but with whom the centre has little care for or interest in.
The strand of Britain that is championed by Westminster is a tiny, unrepresentative sent at ive country.
The capacity of political elites to delude and deceive themselves, let alone the country, was on full display with the Chilcot inquiry on Iraq.
After 9/11, thehe UK experience in Afghanistan and Iraq was one of humiliation and, ultimately, military defeat, whichh sti llll hasn’t fully been factored into political calculations. There is a direct line from Blair’s military and diplomatic atic disaster in Iraq and his failure to convince the public that the UK should be a European country at the heart of the EU project to the rising sore of Euroscepticism and the Brexit vote two weeks ago.
Britain may be broken politically and over as we know it but that doesn’t mean the future is clear.
In England, UKIP rail against Labour in the north and political correctness but, so far, they have shown both the appeal and limits of populism – winning a mere one parliamentary seat.
The SNP are playing a more subtle game, incrementally building the case for Scottish independence on the grounds that the UK the population voted for in 2014 is now over.
But that still requires answers on big questions that the Nationalists have shown no inclination to answer.
Mainstream politicsitics may be discredited but there is now a huge challenge to overthrow the economic and social orthodoxies of recent times.
Just being against austerity, blaming Thatcher for everything or the glib slogan socialism of Corbyn is not enough. It never was. It never will be.
Britain, as we know it, is over. Even the Tories cannot ignore this for too long