Introduction
Nowadays, many people in the UK continue to believe that there is indeed much difference between Conservative and New Labour approaches to managing the social dynamics within the country and formulating Britain’s foreign policies. After all, both political parties have never ceased positioning themselves as such that pursue rather incompatible socio-political agendas. Whereas, the Conservatives are assumed to be striving to preserve so-called “traditional values” while advocating the economy’s continual liberalisation/deregulation, the New Labour party is widely regarded to be representing the interests of the working class. The party’s officially proclaimed goal is the establishment of a “welfare state” in the UK. It is understood, of course, that the outlined Conservative and New Labour objectives are far from being considered thoroughly consistent with each other.
Nevertheless, as time goes on, it becomes ever clearer to more and more Britons that, as of today, the mentioned discursive dissimilarity between the two is best regarded as being merely formal. The logic behind such a tendency is quite apparent – a close examination of the issue will invariably reveal that the most recent New Labour reign (1997 – 2007) with Tony Blair in the Prime Minister’s office is best seen as having been the continuation of “good ole” Thatcherism. As Dorling (2010, p. 399) pointed out, “Given the lack of social achievement, it is likely that the New Labour’s record will largely be characterised in the future as ‘Thatcherism continued’ or, more cruelly, as some kind of political boil on the backside of Thatcherism.” In my paper, I will explore the validity of this suggestion at length while promoting the idea that, as of today, both political parties have been effectively transformed to act on behalf of Neoliberalism (a political ideology that insists that one cannot be restricted in how he or she goes about taking care of its consumerist anxieties, even if this undermines the society’s overall well-being). I will also outline the main forces behind bringing such a situation into being.
Analysis
Even though the term “Thatcherism” has been excessively used by the media in reference to the years of Margaret Thatcher’s Prime-Ministership (1979-1990), there are still no universally recognised definitions as to what it stands for. While some political analysts associate the concerned historical period with the short-lived revitalisation of the UK economy, others insist that the term primarily applies to the marginalisation of the trade-union movement that has taken place throughout the historical period in question. Therefore, when it comes to discussing Thatcherism, one must focus on what can be considered the most prominent trait of the former as the clearly Neoliberal philosophy of political governance, which endorses the “mechanistic” conceptualisation of the society’s functioning. That is, according to this philosophy’s adherents, the qualitative dynamics within just about every human society are merely summative of its members’ individual priorities in life – something that stands opposed to the systemic outlook on the society, as an entity of its own. This explains why Margaret Thatcher had never even tried making a secret of her disbelief in the society’s objective existence. As she pointed out during one of her public speeches, “There is no such thing as society.
There are individual men and women and there are families. And no governments can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first” (McGlynn 2016, p. 313). The actual implication of Thatcherism’s anti-societal stance is quite clear. The concerned model of governance was suggestive of its promoters’ striving to deny any validity to the notion of “social/class solidarity”, which in turn was to serve the hegemonic agenda of the country’s rich and powerful. In this regard, Nunn (2014, p. 305) came up with an enlightening observation, “Thatcherism represented a ‘two-nations’ attempt to divide the working class between those who would benefit from popular asset ownership, the right to buy (council housing) and new service-sector job growth, and those who would be negatively affected by de-industrialisation and public-sector spending cuts.” In other words, Thatcherism can be seen as having been the tool for encouraging people to prioritise their selfish interests above those of society as they go trying to achieve self-actualisation – an objective that can only be reached at the expense of weakening the sense of collective/class solidarity in citizens so that they can be exploited/manipulated with ease.
Essentially the same can be said about what accounted for the New Labour agenda through the years 1997 – 2007. After all, despite the fact that throughout this period’s duration Labourites continued to indulge in “lefty” rhetoric (which recognised the objectiveness of class tensions within society), they, in fact, have simultaneously made a point in trying to divert people’s attention from these tensions. This helps to explain the significance of so-called “identity politics” policy (introduced by New Labour in the late nineties), which is now commonly associated with the quasi-official legitimisation of “political correctness” as the guiding principle for managing the socioeconomic dynamics in the UK. This policy was reflective of the assumption that it is namely the specifics of one’s ethno-cultural affiliation/gender that play the most important role in the formation of the concerned individual’s sense of self-identity. Hence, the actual particulars of how New Left has gone about trying to make Britain a better place to live, “The NLP… worked to combat ‘social exclusion’. It tried hard to draw in deprived social groups and spatially disadvantaged communities through very carefully targeted initiatives” (Nunn 2014, p. 312). In other words, New Labour was establishing objective preconditions for the “multiculturalisation” of British society to gain an additional momentum – a process that, according to such individuals as Tony Blair, has the value of a “thing-in-itself”. There can be only a few doubts that this policy’s implementation had a strongly negative effect on the society’s structural integrity – something that became particularly apparent in the recent decade.
The above-mentioned helps to explain yet another striking similarity between Thatcherism and New Labourism – the fact that both political philosophies derive from the assumption that being controlled by the “invisible hand of the market”, the economy is self-sustainable, and that it is specifically the economy’s banking sector that contributes the most towards the generation of national wealth. Therefore, there is nothing surprising about the fact that, just as it was the case with Conservatives under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair’s Labourites have proven themselves the ardent supporters of the idea that the more the economy is controlled by corporate entities, the better. To illustrate the validity of this suggestion (with respect to Thatcherism), we can refer to the privatisation of such formerly state-owned British companies as British Aerospace, British Sugar Corporation, National Freight Company, and British Petroleum, which took place in the early eighties. This development triggered the initial phase of the economy’s deindustrialisation due to outsourcing.
Under Blair, the expansion of the economy’s corporate sector became nothing short of exponential while making it possible for the important infrastructural elements of the public domain to become the subjects of private acquisitions as well. The reform of the national health care system, undertaken by the New Labour government in the late nineties, stands out as exemplary in this regard. The rationale behind this suggestion is that the concerned development resulted in the “commodification” of the very paradigm of healthcare in this country. Whereas prior to the implementation of the mentioned reform, British healthcare used to be discussed primarily in terms of a “public service”, it is now being increasingly referred to as just another profit-driven commercial undertaking (Radice 2014).
Therefore, there is indeed much sense in hypothesising that Blair’s New Labour was, in fact, nothing but a softened version of Thatcherism – at least in the economic meaning of this word. This simply could not be otherwise because the New Labour 1997-2007 governance resulted in completing the legitimisation of neoliberalism, as the country’s de facto ideology. In turn, the process’s starting point dates back to the time when Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister. As Jessop (2007, p. 282) noted, “The three successive Labour Governments under Blair’s continuing authoritarian plebiscitary tutelage have deliberately, persistently, and wilfully driven forward the Neoliberal transformation of Britain rather than halting or reversing it.” As of today, there can be only a few doubts as to the actual objectives of neoliberalism as the ideology that praises consumerism to be the solemn agent of social progress. Evidently enough, it is there to benefit the representatives of the financial elite: “Neoliberalism can be defined as a class project to restore the ascendency of capitalist class power over labour… and to promote financial capital over other capitalist interests” (Humphrys & Cahill 2017, p. 672). Therefore, it is quite impossible to refer to the New Labour’s “Third Way” political philosophy as having been anything but solely a part of the party’s PR-campaign meant to mislead rather than inform.
This specific suggestion can serve as yet another indication that New Labourism naturally derives from Thatcherism. After all, it does not represent much of a secret that while under Thatcher, the government had effectively “institutionalised” misinforming the public as the instrument of preserving the “nation’s unity” and distracting people’s attention from the rapid worsening of the socioeconomic situation in the UK. The fact that this indeed has been the case can be illustrated regarding both the developments that have led to the outbreak of the Falklands War in 1982 and the Conservative government’s commitment to instigating the Cold War hysteria in people throughout the eighties. Ironically enough, Thatcher’s warmongering resulted in turning Britain into one of America’s “client-states”, strongly dependent on its metropole, in the military sense of this word. Because of this, there appear to be even more reasons to think of New Labour as Thatcherism’s “rightful heir.” One will not have to go far to validate the legitimacy of this statement – the memories of Britain’s involvement in assisting the US to destroy the non-existent “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq (which set the stage for the consequential rise of ISIS), are still comparatively fresh. As we are aware of it now, Tony Blair deliberately lied to people while justifying the government’s decision to send British troops to this country in 2003. It was not by accident that in the early 2000s, the British Prime Minister has gained the reputation of being “Bush’s poodle.” This once again shows that while accounting for two ideologically distinctive (and formally incompatible) approaches to political governing, Thatcherism and New Labour are not as far apart as many people tend to assume.
Discussion
In light of what has been said earlier, one would be naturally prompted to think that there is a phenomenological quality to the discussed subject matter. The reason for this is that Thatcher’s Conservatives and Blair’s Labourites have been traditionally deemed standing on the opposite poles of the political spectrum in the UK. Yet, as it was shown in the paper’s analytical part, it is hard to describe the policies enacted in this country by Conservative and New Labour governments as having been anything but mutually complementary, even if not appearing to be such at an initial glance. Some political analysts speculate that to address the outlined logical inconsistency, one must take into consideration the long-term effects of Conservative government in Britain through the years 1979-1990 on the economy’s systemic subtleties. In turn, this implies that, after having formed the government in 1997, New Labour has found itself in the position of being able to do very little while tackling the socioeconomic legacy of Thatcherism. For example, according to Humphrys and Cahill (2017, p. 672), “Third Way governments inherited an already entrenched Neoliberal institutional architecture that had been implemented by Conservative regimes, leaving the later-governing social democrats with little choice but to submit to the Neoliberal agenda.”
This suggestion, however, would stand opposed to the main provision of the Occam’s Razor principle – “entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily.” After all, there is nothing uniquely British about the seemingly illogical fusion between the neoliberal “right”, on one hand, and the traditionally “leftist” political movements/parties (such as New Labour), on the other – the most notable feature of the political climate in just about every Western country. What this means is that New Labour’s commitment to promoting globalisation, economic deregulation, and privatisation has been objectively predetermined on a global scale by what can be deemed as the ongoing “crisis of capitalism,” due to the depletion of market expansion opportunities. Because of it, the rich and powerful begin to apply an additional effort into trying to maintain a firm grip on society’s functioning. One of the strategies that is being used, in this regard, is providing citizens with only the illusionary freedom of choice through political elections. It does not matter whether you vote Conservative or New Labour, you are still going to choose in favour of neoliberalism in the end.
Conclusion
I believe that the deployed line of reasoning, in support of the suggestion that New Labour is indeed best regarded as “warmed-up Thatcherism”, correlates well with the paper’s initial thesis. At least three fundamental similarities have been exposed between the two:
- Thatcherism and New Labour aimed to undermine the severity of class tensions within the society by means of encouraging people to indulge in consumerism as their main existential priority.
- While occupying governmental offices, the advocates of the political paradigms in question contributed rather heavily towards endorsing the disproportionate growth of the economy’s banking sector – hence, making the economy particularly prone to outbreaks of locally and globally scaled financial crises.
- Thatcherites and Labourites have proven themselves equally comfortable with taking practical advantage of different techniques of psychological manipulation/intentional misinformation as a means of remaining in favour with voters.
Probably the most obvious implication, regarding the identified discursive similarity between Thatcherism and New Labour, is that many of those political terms/notions that came into being during the 20th century’s second half can no longer be considered fully applicable. The reason for this is that the subtle transformation of Thatcherism into New Labour, which occurred through the specified historical period, effectively alters our understanding of the concept of “democracy”, in general, and the concept of “British parliamentarism”, in particular. Specifically, this development makes it close to impossible to tell any intrinsic difference between the governmental officials/politicians that represent the political “right” and “left” in this country. This objective will appear particularly challenging, given the most distinctive psychological/behavioural trait of both publicly active Conservatives and Labourites – their tendency to indulge in well-meaning but essentially meaningless politically correct rhetoric as the primary proof of these people’s fitness for the office. Thus, as time goes on, the political domain in the UK continues to grow increasingly marginalised, which, in turn, is likely to result in depriving the political process in Britain of any other but a purely ritualistic significance. It is understood, of course, that the country’s overall well-being will sustain a heavy blow as a result.
References
Dorling, D 2010, ‘New Labour and inequality: Thatcherism continued?’, Local Economy: LE, vol. 25, no. 5-6, pp. 406-423.
Humphrys, E & Cahill, D 2017, ‘How Labour made neoliberalism’, Critical Sociology, vol. 43, no. 4-5, pp. 669-684.
Jessop, B 2007, ‘New Labour or the normalization of neoliberalism?’, British Politics, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 282-288.
McGlynn, M 2016, ‘Collectivism and Thatcher’s “classless” society in British fiction and film’, Twentieth Century Literature, vol. 62, no. 3, pp. 309-336.
Nunn, A 2014, ‘The contested and contingent outcomes of Thatcherism in the UK’, Capital & Class, vol. 38, no. 2, pp. 303-321.
Radice, H 2014, ‘Thatcherism and alternatives: what future for British capitalism?’, Capital & Class, vol. 38, no. 2, pp. 277-287.