Labour backbenchers in revolt over Iraq, Europe

http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=275663

The Independent (London), 18 March 2002

The rumours are swirling, the war drums beating - rebellion is in the air
by Mark Seddon

Just before the director general of the BBC, Greg Dyke, takes his pruning
shears to hard-hitting political programmes such as On the Record, convinced
as he is that audiences are turning off from politics, he should pay a visit
to the House of Commons strangers bar. If he has time, he could wander along
to the press gallery, or if he really feels like roughing it, pick up some
lunch on a laminated tray in one of the innumerable cafeterias dotted around
the Palace of Westminster. For Parliament and politics is becoming
interesting again. A whiff of rebellion is in the air ­ and this time it
isn't just coming from the usual suspects. Mr Dyke's viewers ­ of whatever
social class ­ might just be interested.

Over 100 Labour MPs, including former ministers Glenda Jackson and Peter
Kilfoyle, have signed an early day motion demanding restraint over Iraq.
They have been joined by serial loyalists Oona King and Jon Trickett. During
a visit to the Commons tearoom last week, the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw,
was assailed by the uber-Blairista backbencher and MP for Stourbridge, Debra
Shipley. She wasn't going to support any American backed venture in Iraq,
she told him, and what's more "the army doesn't seem to want to either".

Whether Ms Shipley is privy to the mood of the top military brass is a moot
point, and it may be said in Mr Straw's favour that he visits the Commons
tea rooms, unlike the Prime Minister, who is one of the worst attendees in
the House. But Tony Blair could do no worse than take the temperature of his
own top brass ­ the Cabinet ­ who have precious little appetite for whatever
the Pentagon might be cooking up for Iraq. Only yesterday, Clare Short said
(to On The Record as it happens): "Blind military action doesn't deal with
Iraq. To open up a military flank on Iraq would be very unwise." The three
Bs ­ Blunkett, Brown and Beckett ­ are also reportedly sceptical, as is the
former foreign secretary, Robin Cook. Labour MPs will confirm this, for a
number of them have held snatched conversations in office corridors and
lifts with ministers.

And perhaps most intriguingly of all, we have Mo Mowlam writing in the
Sunday Mirror that she finds it harder and harder to defend what the Labour
Government is doing and that "We have a prime minister who has thrown away
the British constitution and seems to see himself as our president". Even Mr
Blair should be able to hear that war drum.

That a sense of drift infects the Government post-Byers, post-Enron,
post-Mittal, is beyond doubt. But, in normal circumstances, the professional
crisis managers at Number 10 would have ensured that these temporary blips
were swiftly ironed out. The economy is in good shape, the Opposition is
nowhere, New Labour still rides high in the polls and evidence suggests that
the Government is making an impact in one of the areas that most concerns
voters ­ education.

But that drift, combined with a heady sense of revolt over Iraq and deep
concerns about the direction of Mr Blair's public sector reforms have
combined to make for a heady cocktail. John Monks ­ usually viewed as a
force for calm and moderation ­ attacked the Prime Minister last week for
his "bloody stupid" alliance with the Italian leader, Silvio Berlusconi, and
the Spanish Prime Minister, Jose Maria Aznar. This triple alliance of free
marketers is now ranged against Germany's Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and
France's Prime Minister Lionel Jospin ­ both concerned to maintain something
of their European social and welfare model. For some years now, Mr Blair has
been anxious to at best water down or at worst block European legislation
that extends the rights of workers ­ but now the Blair-Berlusconi-Aznar
alliance is formalised and the pretence peeled away, Labour's real loyalists
­ the unions ­ have had enough.

I have been approached over recent weeks by a number of MPs ­ mostly the
usual suspects, it must be said ­ who have wanted to know what rules would
govern a Labour leadership election. Ever since the immutable Margaret
McDonagh informed one of my NEC colleagues apropos of some hideous internal
stitch-up that "It is a rule, but it is not written down," I haven't had the
heart to spend an evening curled up in front of the fire with the party's
rulebook.

True, there will be no Sir Anthony Meyer-style "stalking horse": the rules,
I have discovered, do not allow for one. And the talk may be premature. The
vast bulk of the party wants a change of course, not a change of leader ­
especially if any new leader genuflects and then gets on with business, or
rather big business, as usual.

But all roads lead to Gordon Brown. The unions must know that if anyone is
able to square the circle between full employment and maintaining rights at
work, it is the Chancellor. Mr Brown is at last seeing some benefits coming
out of the enforced austerity of Labour's first years. Quietly
redistributing towards the working poor, while presiding over near enough
full employment, the Chancellor has also invested a great deal of energy in
alleviating Third World debt. A Labour heart still beats heavily in Brown's
chest, and many of his supporters will be hoping that a combination of
Presbyterian morality and economic prudence would stay his hand from wasting
money and lives in the coming Hundred Years War.

Ingratitude and studied incomprehension of his motives may have driven the
Prime Minister to the London School of Economics last week, where, under a
portrait of Sidney and Beatrice Webb busily preparing Clause Four of
Labour's constitution, he once again set out his Third Way philosophy. This
was a far more cogent exposition of where he stood than has been heard
recently but the audience ­ mainly New Labour loyalists ­ failed to catch
fire. The caravan has moved on, and Blair's broader audience in Labour and
the unions has learned to separate rhetoric from reality.

Mr Blair is unlikely to change course. More likely he will tire and do
something else. But another possibility, remote at the moment, is that one
day the men in brown suits will, as a Downing Street insider once so
patronisingly observed "waddle up to Number 10". Only this time they may
bring whiskey and a revolver.

SeddonZQ1@xxxxxxx

The writer is a member of the National Executive Committee of the Labour
Party 


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