As centre-left politicians and policymakers gather at 10 Downing Street in February for the first of a series of meetings ahead of the progressive governance conference in July, attention is focused on the possibility of conflict in Iraq. It is essential to spell out that the policy we have pursued over Iraq fits squarely with our vision of progressive politics and to make two key points.
First, the United Nations has laid down a clear instruction to Saddam Hussein to disarm. If he disobeys, the will of the UN must be upheld; otherwise it will become hard to argue for the UN as a means of dealing with these issues in the future.
Second, since Saddam’s regime is probably the most brutal, oppressive and dictatorial in the world and its principal victims are the Iraqi people, it would be odd for anyone on the left to shed tears at his departure. If that departure is in furtherance of the UN mandate, it should be supported.
Our task should not be to shrink from involvement in the battle against weapons of mass destruction and terrorism, but to broaden the agenda, to insist there is as much effort shown in pursuing peace in the Middle East, in action on world poverty, Africa and climate change. The next months will determine whether we can make a difference. I believe we will.
It is international solidarity that has enabled Britain to lead the way on cancelling Third World debt, increasing aid as a proportion of gross domestic product and devising a strategy for development in Africa. In foreign policy the government has moved beyond the traditional positions of old left and new right.
We have pursued some traditional Labour aims but have also been prepared, as with Kosovo and Afghanistan, to take military action to uphold our values; and we have been clear that Britain’s place lies at the heart of Europe.
Some have argued that ”third way” politics is defined by what it is not: neither right nor left. That misunderstands our approach. It is modern social democracy, set firmly in the tradition of progressive left politics but drawing on the heritage of Keynes, Beveridge and Lloyd George as well as Attlee, Bevin and Bevan.
Our values — social justice, equality, solidarity — remain the same. We are applying them in a different way to a different world. Liberalisation and technological advance have stimulated a new dynamic in global capitalism. The end of the Cold War and communism fuelled optimism in the West about the future. A decade on we can discern the limits and tensions unleashed by globalisation.
We are witnessing increasing insecurity: weapons of mass destruction and terrorism that knows no limit, the impact of migration and crime. The risks of deflation and slowdown in the global economy are exacerbating structural problems in Western Europe and Japan. Now people look to the collective power of the government to help.
They know these insecurities can’t be dealt with alone. But this is also a more individual age, where consumer choice, freedom in lifestyle and globalisation offer a range of opportunities our grandparents’ generation never dreamed of. In addition, we know ”big state” solutions can be just another form of vested interests, that producers don’t always know best.
As we defined it, the ”third way” consisted of four stances, each taking progressive politics beyond the old dividing lines of left and right:
On the economy, acceptance of fiscal disciplines together with investment in human capital, science and knowledge transfer.
In civic society, a rights and responsibilities approach, strong on law and order, with social programmes to address the causes of crime.
In public services, investment to ensure equality of opportunity, but also restructuring to provide more individually tailored services built around the needs of the consumer and to secure the public goods that markets could not provide.
Foreign policy, robust on defence and committed to global justice.
These ideas enabled us to espouse positions that in the past the left had regarded as impossible to reconcile: patriotism and internationalism, rights and responsibilities, the promotion of enterprise and the attack on poverty and social injustice.
These ideas have attracted the support of a remarkable number of political leaders, successfully marginalised other currents on the left, and put the right on the defensive in the intellectual debate. They offered a bridge between New Democrats in the United States and European social democrats. The third-way banner has established itself as a central point of reference in debates on the future of the centre-left from continental Europe to Brazil and even China.
But while the third way provided a transatlantic bridge to the Clinton Democrats, US politics have changed fundamentally since September 11 and following the collapse of the dotcom bubble. Within Europe, the grip on power that governments of the modernising left enjoyed in the late 1990s has been weakened.
We need to renew progressive politics for today’s world. In particular, we need to examine how we build a skilled workforce and enterprises able to move our economy up a gear.
We must tackle the injustice of poor public services by structural change as well as extra money. We need to see law and order as more than simply crime and punishment. We must also develop responsible citizenship that enables people to feel part of their own community.
Above all we need to be more radical in dividing means from ends. The bane of the centre-left is confusion between the two. The objectives, values and beliefs never change. The means should change as the world changes.
People the world over are ready to accept these objectives and support these values, and are prepared to believe as we do that in an interdependent world we must support each other to minimise the insecurities and maximise the opportunities. What they doubt is whether we have the will to use whatever means are necessary to produce the results, and that we can renew centre-left ideas to keep pace with these new demands. That is where the policy debate among progressives must now go. — Â