British Prime Minister Tony Blair slapped down jeering trade union critics of his leadership and free-market policies on Tuesday, saying the reality of globalisation had to be dealt with.
In his last-ever speech as British leader to an annual union conference, he highlighted links between globalisation, immigration and the threat from terrorism.
“Suddenly we feel under threat — physically, from this new terrorism that is coming on to our streets, culturally as new waves of migrants change our society and economically, because an open world economy is hastening the sharpness of competition,” he told the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in Brighton.
Blair’s speech was boycotted by some delegates.
The solution to terrorism is increased security measures and tackling its “underlying causes”, while the answers to concerns over migration lie in putting a “system of rules in place to control it”, the prime minister told hundreds of delegates in a seaside conference centre.
He said the “answer to economic globalisation is open markets and strong welfare” as well as good public services, particularly education because it arms people for change.
“We need an approach which is strong and not scared; that addresses people’s anxieties but does not indulge them,” he said.
Before Blair’s address a group of union delegates held up placards reading “Blair Out” and “Public services not private profit”, while about a dozen walked out as soon as he started speaking.
The prime minister acknowledged their democratic right to protest, but slapped down hecklers who interrupted his speech, telling them to “listen to the argument”.
Others protested his government’s military intervention in Iraq as well as his refusal to demand an immediate ceasefire during Israel’s recent 34-day war against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Delegates say these stands have weakened support among the electorate for Blair’s ruling Labour Party.
“You can hold up your posters [saying] ‘troops out’,” Blair said, but urged them to understand the soldiers were needed in Iraq and Afghanistan to help them build democratic institutions. His reply drew more jeers.
The embattled British leader was forced to pledge last week to leave office within a year, to quell a damaging crisis within Labour over his leadership plans.
That means that his annual address to the TUC — which groups about 6,7-million affiliated unionists — will be his last as prime minister, a fact he admitted would probably be a “relief for both of us”.
Some union delegates confirmed the sentiment.
Derek Simpson, head of the Amicus union, went further. He publicly called for an immediate handover of power to Chancellor Gordon Brown, regarded as more left leaning than Blair, as part of a “realignment” of party policy.
Blair has called for an end to his party’s infighting. The backbiting included a caustic attack on Brown, who was accused of plotting Blair’s downfall to fulfil his own long-held ambition for the top job.
Several British newspapers said this year’s TUC was a major event because of the revival of union confidence.
“Having gone from exercising enormous power in the 1970s, when they in effect determined whether an elected government could survive, to being almost a political irrelevance, the trade unions now find themselves auditioning candidates for the Labour leadership,” the conservative Daily Telegraph said.
Under Labour’s election rules, unions hold one third of the votes to decide the party’s leader.
“It’s exciting because we are going to see a change,” said Graham Goddard, deputy secretary general of Amicus. — AFP