TWENTY YEARS ON FROM NEW LABOUR’S HISTORIC VICTORY, THE CENTRE IS AGAIN RESURGENT

A newly elected Tony Blair arrives in Downing Street, 2nd May 1997

Today marks the twentieth anniversary of Labour’s 1997 landslide victory, the greatest ever achieved in the party’s history and one which ushered in thirteen years of unbroken Labour rule. Swept into government on a wave of optimism, Tony Blair secured for the Centre-ground a dominant grip on British politics only recently broken by Corbyn’s election as Labour leader, the vote to leave the European Union and David Cameron’s departure from Downing Street. In viewing the current state of Anglo-American politics, a progressive centrist might rightly despair. Brexit in Britain and Trump in the US seem to spell the resounding rejection of Blair’s brand of third-way politics. The party of Jeremy Corbyn makes no secret of its disavowal of the New Labour legacy. Despite it being twenty years on from 1997, Corbyn’s Labour increasingly acts as if it were once again 1983 and is likely on course to earn itself a similar result. But there is a world beyond Britain and the United States, and it is elsewhere that progressives must look for hope, and elsewhere they will find it. 

In Britain the Centre may still be reeling, but in mainland Europe it stands on the verge of a resurgence. Emmanuel Macron is, on every prediction, set to trounce the far-right Marine Le Pen in France’s Presidential elections. In Italy, former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who resigned last December following the defeat of his constitutional reforms, has just been re-elected leader of the governing Democratic Party and is cautiously poised to mount a comeback. Both men are unashamedly third-way centrists in the mould of Blair. Their popularity counters the despairing belief currently prevalent amongst many liberals that right-wing populism will everywhere prove triumphant, that Trumpism is the order of the day. Nobert Hofer failed to win the Austrian presidency, Geert Wilders has been checked in the Netherlands and Angela Merkel looks headed for a fourth-term in Germany. Renzi and his reforming agenda may have suffered a setback in December’s referendum loss, and the PD are in a precarious position in the polls, but the renewal of his mandate as party leader massively strengthens his hand and the chances of his return to the Chigi look high. Italy may yet be precarious, but on nearly all fronts the centre is regaining ground. The tide of populism, predicted by many to be on course to swamp us all, seems to be ebbing away. 

It is in France that the hope of the progressive centre finds its brightest beacon. With Brexit and Trump, Le Pen was widely predicted to complete the hat-trick of populist insurgencies. Now that looks unlikely in the extreme. Refusing to be dragged either to the left or the right, and achieving extraordinary success in the process, Emmanuel Macron lives as a lesson: that a centrist platform is still a winnable formula. It does not mean inevitable defeat. One need not shift to the far-right to counter it, or pander to the far-left to placate it. If presented with courage and vision, if the centre is the agent of change rather than the guardian of a new conservatism, it not only still resonates but can still bring victory. The Centre is still the future, not the past. 

Twenty years on from New Labour’s victory, surveying the political landscape might seem grim to many, but look closer and hope can be seen shining through. In an interview in yesterday’s Observer, Tony Blair told Andrew Rawnsley that, ‘If my brand of politics ever comes back into fashion, the Tories are going to be where they were - flat on their backs with their feet in the air,’  and he is right. Blair’s own party might currently be engaged in stubbornly unlearning the lessons he taught them, and the Conservatives tacking more towards their pre-Blair days than the ‘compassionate Conservatism’ of Cameron, but that does not mean that the Centre is a spent force. It means that it is ripe for the retaking. The voter coalition which sustained Blair through three consecutive elections has not disappeared, it is now simply being left politically homeless. As the parties diverge to the extremes on either end, the centre-ground is vacated. The principles of New Labour point the way to its retaking and, on the Continent, Macron blazes a trail. The progressives of Britain must take heart. The spirit of the future is still more 1997 than Brexit. The Centre may be bruised but it is not beaten, it is, as in the name of Macron’s En Marche! movement, once again on the march, once again moving Forwards! The fightback has now begun.