The UK: Defining The New Labour Movement

In 1997, after nearly two decades of consecutive Conservative control of the premiership and the parliament, Labour finally returned from the political wilderness with an electoral landslide. Controlling a majority of 179 seats in the House of Commons and receiving 44.4 percent of votes cast, Labour has effectively taken over the parliament once again (Heffernan, 2000). The rise of Tony Blair, the new head of this rising "reformed" Labour Party, has also brought the popularization of the New Labour as a concept. While there are currently three academic perspectives on how to view the New Labour, this article argues that the "New Labour as a Third Way" is the most persuasive perspective as it will analyze the policies and voter demographical change under the Blair and Brown governments in proving the argued position stated above.

Before moving on to the arguments, it is essential to look at the alternative perspectives proposed in defining the New Labour concept. It is an agreeable circumstance that within the last two decades, the Conservative government under the banner of Thatcherism brought changes to the social and economic situation of the United Kingdom. The first academic perspective believes the New Labour, as the continuation of Thatcherism, focuses upon the death of social democracy, a foundational concept brought by the Old Labour. Under this argument, the New Labour has maintained the prevalence of neo-liberalism embedded within Thatcherism (Heffernan, 2000). This perspective, however, is unconvincing as contradicting policies between the two ideologies can be found, which shows the discrepancy of the theory. While Thatcherism focused on centralizing power, Blair had instead enacted constitutional changes, including establishing the supreme court and devolution government for Scotland and Wales. In addition, the New Labour wanted a closer relationship with the European Union and sought to build a more socially liberal society; meanwhile, Thatcherism pushed for the opposite of these demands (Kampfner, 2008).

On the other hand, another academic perspective perceives the New Labour as an extension of the Old Labour. In this sense, the continuities of the Old Labour are seen to be more significant than the gaps that separated them. In this understanding, evidence supports their commonalities more than their contradictions, including the continuation of Keynesian economics and the ever-lasting pragmatism that has been prevalent even in the eras of the Old Labour (Allender, 2001). While the whole argument on the never-changing Labour Party is indeed plausible and convincing to some degree, this argument tends to fall under criticism by its more contemporary and orthodox members of the party themselves (BBC, 2000; O'Hara, 2018). In this case, the perspective remained less convincing as such internal disagreements show the underlining distinction of what makes the New Labour different.

The last among the proposed perspectives is the New Labour as a form of a Third Way. There is much ongoing debate on what can be described as part of the Third Way and how compatible they may be on either the left or right political spectrum (BBC, 1999; Powell, 2000). The proponent of the Third Way social-democratic theory, Anthony Giddens, promotes the idea by accepting the world's changing state and the prevalence of the neoliberal market system (BBC, 1999). Thus, it acts as a response of the left to the condition of the 1990s Labour Party, combining the economic and social reality of the post-Thatcherite United Kingdom while supporting social welfare nets and government intervention in important sectors (Lee, 2008; O'Hara, 2018). The Third Way remained distinct from liberal capitalism with its staunch belief in the free market on the one hand and democratic socialism on the other. At the center of the perspective lies the aim to combine a dynamic economy with social justice, advocating for a globalized deregulated economy and state intervention in ensuring opportunities for people, thus disassociating itself from the Old Labour concept and that of the Conservative (McAnulla, 2006). However, skeptics of the perspective would define the Third Way as an incoherent concept that is more or less uniformly applicable to various policy sectors, or in other words, an unspecified strategy of pick and mix (BBC, 1999; Powell, 2000).

Before moving into the arguments, it is first necessary to point out the post-Thatcherism UK regarding the rise of the new class of managerial elites, which would help understand the New Labour. Francis (2016) argues that there has been a profound and unique transformation within the structure of the common civilization of North America and Western Europe in the twentieth century. This transformation is characterized by the vast and rapid enlargement of mass and scale in various areas of organized human activity, the growth of mass population, and its concentration in massive urban conglomerations working in large offices and factories. Within these structures, they produce, consume, govern, vote, communicate, and fight on a unique scale in history. These circumstances would greatly influence various forms of Western society, including the government. Upon this revolution of mass and scale, a new class of managerial elites has grown out of the existing mass organization that was first created by the bourgeoise entrepreneurial class to manage the over-expanding organization they have become unable to manage. These managerial elites believe in the importance of technocratic governance, highly adhere to the value of meritocracy, have a permanent incentive to increase scale, and rely on technical skills, which helps in its gradual power growth and the gradual degradation of the traditional bourgeois entrepreneurial class’s power hold. In this expansionist idea, the managerial elites believe in the importance of universal value based upon cosmopolitanism and thus would seek to dismantle any form of traditional, more localized values and ideals that are dimmed obsolete and prevent the new universal value from taking root (Francis, 2016). Out of this condition, the New Labour and the Third Way would be given birth to existence.

Due to the rise of this new Labour administration under a generation of managerial elites, it should not be surprising how the New Labour would become eerily distinct from its Labour predecessors and that of the Thatcherite conservatives. Among the changes can be seen from its ability to use the established liberal market economy instead of antagonizing it in favour of social justice causes of the left-leaning ideological goals. Unlike his predecessors, Blair has taken into whole new leniency and openness to the idea of privatization and the competitive market. Labour has never been so business-friendly as ever before, committing itself to a low-tax economy, and the privatization of public enterprises has continued, unlike his predecessors, who had greatly opposed it (Driver & Martell, 2001). Such policies include the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), which opens for the partnership between private and public enterprises, among them being implemented in the management of the London Underground's infrastructure and rolling stock in 2007 before being wholly brought under total public ownership of the Transport of London in 2010 during Boris Johnson's tenure as mayor of London (Wright, 2010).

While Thatcher would maintain a certain degree of social conservatism during her premiership, Blair's new economic freedom would not be counter-balanced by such policy as it sought for its liberal-leaning community by promoting cosmopolitan, universal values. These goals thus assist in examining the eventual shift of the Labour Party's focus from economic progressivism into more cultural and social progressivism. The New Labour has turned itself from wealth inequality as the perceived root problem to the exclusion of particular groups from society through poverty, unemployment, poor education, or poor housing. Thus, unlike its predecessor, who would focus its policies on the redistribution of wealth, the New Labour seeks to expand the welfare system through sets of new deals, including childcare initiatives, tax credits for working families, minimum income guarantees, education reform, and boosting universal benefits (McAnulla, 2006).

If examined from the concept of managerial perception, the need for further inclusivity is necessary for the instilled universal value and the ever-expanding needs of the managerial elite. To bring the point home, an argument from McAnulla (2006) does point out the New Labour's aim of creating an inclusive 'one nation' discourse that all people from various backgrounds and occupations can identify with, an essential attribute that contrasts the Thatcherite approach of divisive 'two nations' discourse that seeks to polarize people. In his speech marking the commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Labour Party, Blair claims the need to learn from the three key lessons of 1945 that is the need for a national purpose, the need to win the battle of ideas, and the need to mobilize all people of progressive thoughts around a party that is always looking outward and ever-seeking for new supporters and member (Lee, 2008). The New Labour has taken its expansive electoral basis to a new level (Lee, 2008). This drive for expansion would later fall upon the last argument, making the New Labour distinct from its predecessor or political opposition.

The shifting electoral basis of the Labour Party is indeed something to be considered. Labour's victory in the 1997 general election has seen a transition in Labour voters' composition. There has been a growing concentration of Labour votes within the home counties and middle-class populous (Bickerton, 2019). Blair's immigration policy also further supports the shift, which has favoured incoming migrants seeking work or study. Between 1997 to 2004, the UK saw significant growth in the total number of migrants entering the UK, from 326,100 to 582,100 (Sommerville, n.d). This condition can be seen as a contradiction to what used to be their primary working-class voters' interest. The support for more significant immigration impacted the national labour market on its own, devaluating the wage value of native British workers while expanding the existing wealth gap between the elites and the working class (Omerod, 2015). But regardless of its impacts on its old constituents, the New Labour has modernized, forward-looking, and transformed into an election-winning machine (BBC, 2000). Under the managerial elite's rationale, the expansion will always be dimmed positively, supporting its focus on increasing the power base. Incorporating new members to the mass society would also increase the chance for future generations of managerial elites, instilled with its universal ideals.

Interestingly enough, data provided by Curtis (2017) shows the growing unreliability of class distinction in predicting voting behaviour, shown by the relatively close gap between the Conservative vote lead among middle-class electorates (22%) and that among the working class (17%). Meanwhile, age has become a growing dividing line in electoral behaviour, shown by Labour's 19% lead among 18–24-year-old voters while Conservative's 49% lead among voters above 65. Not to mention that the higher qualification of education one has, the higher the chance one would vote for Labour or Liberal Democrats. Although this data can be considered recent and are not taken directly from the demographics during the administration of the New Labour, it helps to show the deeply instilled impacts of the New Labour's policies in rearranging British political patterns and transforming the way of thinking of its future generations.

Upon inspecting the arguments above, it can be said that the New Labour concept is distinct from that of the Conservative's Thatcherism or even the principles of the Old Labour. The New Labour concept has come as a whole new idea and administration that combines the Old Labor's social progressivism and the economic freedom of the Thatcherite doctrine through the Third Way concept. As a result, the New Labour comes out with its vision, goals, methods, and voting base different from its older counterpart. From this consideration, this article concludes that the academic perspective of 'New Labour as a Third Way' is the most persuasive. However, there is much room for further investigation regarding the impacts of the growing dominance of the managerial elites and understanding the true nature of the Third Way and its complete implication in both right-wing and left-wing politics in future discussions.

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