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| Blair’s end | | |
- By Inder Malhotra
It is a measure of the plummeting power and prestige of both Britain and him that few in this country have taken notice of Tony Blair’s far from voluntary commitment to step down as British Prime Minister within the next 12 months. He might not last even that long; at best he can drag on until May when he would complete 10 years at 10 Downing Street. By contrast, the sudden departure in November 1990 of Margaret Thatcher, who had won three consecutive general elections long before he did, had created sensation around the world.
More importantly, she hadn’t gone in anything like the disgrace in which Tony has been forced to depart. On the contrary, even after she had fallen on unpopular times, the joke at Westminster was that when party elders in grey flannel suits would arrive — bringing with them the customary bottle of whisky and a pistol — to suggest that it was time to leave, Maggie would drink the whisky and coolly shoot each one of them. Unfortunately for her, when the elders did come, there were too many of them even for the Iron Lady.
However, the key difference between Blair’s exit and the premature departure of other post-war British Prime Ministers is that no one else — not even Anthony Eden after the fiasco of the Suez misadventure half a century ago — had to go in such ignominy as is being showered on him. Deservedly, one might add. For, a majority of his countrymen and a large number of his erstwhile supporters and followers are appalled by the manner in which he led his country into the exceptionally disastrous Iraq War at a time when other European powers — France and Germany, in particular — were opposed to this folly. Moreover, he mustered the parliamentary vote in support of this war on the basis of half-truths and downright falsehoods. Today, he has to admit shamefacedly that allegations of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and links with Al Qaeda were a farrago of lies. But there are those who are reminding him that he was the source of the frightening claim, made by the United States at the UN Security Council, that Saddam could make his nuclear arsenal operational at "45 minutes’ notice." His failure or refusal even to concede the ghastliness of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo has evoked contempt.
In any case, what has turned the anger against him into revulsion and cooked his goose is his patent and pathetic subservience to the United States President George W. Bush he has tried to explain away as "intimate friendship" between "two statesmen." According to the Economist, which describes Bush as the "much-loathed American President," the sight of Blair at the G-8 meeting of rich countries in St. Petersburg in July "playing the fawning courtier to George Bush was too much for many Labour MPs." They saw it as an affront to their dignity and self-respect, a feeling widely shared by the public.
In all fairness, Britain’s notion of a "special relationship" with the US, the mightiest nation since 1945, is strong and goes back a long time. Churchill used to talk of "three concentric circles" — Anglo-American alliance, the Commonwealth and Europe — as the bedrock of Britain’s strength. The belief that the Americans were their "trans-Atlantic cousins" persisted among the British elite even during the interludes when the so-called special relationship was largely one-sided. Margaret Thatcher did earn the sobriquet "Reagan in a skirt," but several of her predecessors cut no ice in Washington. However, it was left to bumbling Blair to so degrade and demean Britain as to make it America’s servile camp-follower.
The Britons’ popular pejorative for Blair is "Bush’s poodle," which the canine might find insulting. More pertinent in relation to him is the Guardian’s memorable phrase, used in a different context some years ago, about the "impulse" of some British politicians to "follow America nose to bum." Remarkably, the new and charismatic British Conservative leader, David Cameron — who will, in all probability, be Prime Minister after the next election, whenever it is held — has skilfully turned the knife into the wound. He has eloquently spoken of the need of "rebalancing" of the special relationship with the US that would be "solid but not slavish."
However, notwithstanding the high dudgeon that Blair’s brazenness has aroused, it is not the only reason that has sealed his fate. Apart from his arrogance and self-cultivated isolation — he consults only a handful of favourites — there is his failure, shared by far too many successful men and women in far too many countries, to go while the going is good. In some ways, his confidence that he could not quit because he was needed reminds one of Ibsen’s play Master Builder. On top of it, there is the malodorous business of financial scandal attaching to him. Even in this country, with its mind-boggling tolerance of corruption, some MPs have been expelled from the House for taking cash for asking parliamentary questions. Britain’s disgraced Premier is accused of selling peerages for money. The British police are conducting an investigation into this.
It was in this collective context that the last straw on the backs of his supporters was his defiant and culpable refusal to join other European Union leaders in calling for an early ceasefire when Israel’s barbaric bombing was raining death and destruction on the civilian population of Lebanon. His reason was that Israel’s inexperienced and apparently incompetent Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, twice asked America for "a week to 10 days more" to "complete the job," and Bush was only too willing to grant the Israeli wish.
No wonder the demand for Blair’s removal snowballed. Fifteen Labour MPs wrote a rude letter to him demanding that he should name the date of his departure, seven of them resigned from junior ministerial jobs and Blair asked for a year’s time. At the annual Trade Union Congress recently he was heckled and asked why he did not quit immediately. What might happen at his "last party conference" next month remains to be seen. But one thing is certain. Someone who had hoped to go in glory as the "most successful" Labour Prime Minister of Britain in 50 years is being ousted most humiliatingly.
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