quote: LONDON, England (CNN) -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair has weathered a backlash over the Iraq war to win a historic third term in the country's general election, but with a significantly reduced majority.
With the count still incomplete, but the Labour Party's majority assured, Blair went to Buckingham Palace on Friday morning to be confirmed as prime minister for the third time.
Earlier, chastened by opposition claims that he lied about Iraq, Blair acknowledged the setback and appealed for unity.
"Iraq has been a divisive issue in this country but I hope now that we can unite again and look to the future there and here," said Blair, after keeping his seat in his home constituency of Sedgefield.
One of the challengers for his seat was the father of a British soldier killed in Iraq. (Full story)
In one of the biggest upsets of the night, a radical left-winger stormed to victory in a Muslim-dominated district in east London.
George Galloway, who was expelled from Blair's Labour party, used his victory speech to launch a withering attack on the prime minister.
"All the people you killed, all the lies you told, have come back to haunt you," he said. "The best thing the Labour party could do is sack you tomorrow morning," he said to cheers from the audience.
From almost any conservative angle, Britain’s election result is disappointing.
From the standpoint of a British conservative, the Tory party lost a third election and gained very little ground — less than one percent of the popular vote. From an American conservative standpoint, Tony Blair, who is a loyal friend of the United States, is today in a noticeably weakened political state. Though he won a third term — the first Labor prime minister to do so — he saw his majority substantially reduced and his share of the popular vote fall to a derisory 36 percent. If the British electoral system had not become so lopsidedly biased, he would have almost no majority at all.
From the standpoint of a foreign-policy conservative, Blair’s loss is a sign of weakening support for the U.S. across Europe, even in America’s most reliable ally. Blair is generally reckoned to have lost a large number of “middle-class progressive” votes (i.e., Guardian-reading, muesli-eating, electric-car-driving voters) to the Liberal Democrats because of their hostility to the Iraq war.
Blair’s Labor colleagues will draw the appropriate lesson. Britain will not soon support the U.S. in any future U.S. crisis and may gradually be absorbed by the anti-American political culture of continental Europe. And from the standpoint of a philosophical conservative, the upsurge of Liberal Democrat support in university towns in opposition to Blair's modest free-market proposal of “top-up” university fees flags the difficulty of reversing even the most indefensible free lunch offered by the welfare state.
I think this also definitively signals the end of any kind of major U.S. pre-emptive strikes, like Iraq, short of extreme provocation. As much as national defense hawks might like to thump their chests about the threat of our military keeping Syria and Iran and anyone else in the Middle East in line, the reality is that we are stuck in Iraq for the time being, with no real support either domestically or abroad for another war.
I would be interested in hearing, in particular, what Brits have to say about this.
posted
It is interesting to note that Iraq was pretty much a non issue in the campaigns of both the Labour and Conservative parties. Key issues were things like tuition fees, immigration, crime, nuclear power, the pension crisis. That jazz. Iraq? From what I hear, not so much so. I'm sure he lost votes because of the war on terror, but I don't think it was nearly so central as those articals would have you believe.
But then, I ain't a Brit.
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posted
I like how the Brits do not suffer religion in their politics. Religion is all fine and dandy, but had no place in government like our current religio-neo-cons like to think it does.
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posted
Personally, I'm very glad that Tony Blair is still our prime minister.
Jack Straw has already stated that it is very unlikely that we would be involved in any further action against middle-eastern nations (I have a feeling that Iran was specifically mentioned). I think that the government were very surprised about how much resistance they have created in so many areas of society. It’s not just the young who oppose this war. Partly, I think that the fact that the government ignored the protests and brought us into the war indicated to many people that they were not prepared to listen to the people about many important issues. Quite honestly, I do not like to believe that Blair brought us into this war for any but honourable reasons. This may be because I’m still a bit of an idealist, or a bit gullible. I accept that.
Bob, I think that the main reason that the Conservatives didn’t use the war as a campaigning tool is because their leader Michael Howard has said that he would have supported the war even if he had known that it was purely for regime change. The Lib Dems were anti-war from the outset, so they could legitimately use anti-war sentiments as part of their campaign, and they did. George Galloway set up a whole party one the basis of the war and they did win one seat (the man shook hands with and supported Sadam. I can’t understand how anyone could vote for him) . The majority that Labour gained in 1997 was part of the backlash against the Conservatives, who had royally messed up our economy too many times in the almost 20 years they had been in power. It was about showing them that they had taken their power for granted. You just have to see the footage of their defeat to see how shocked they were to have lost. There was a bit of a messiah complex going on, with Blair as the hero who would instantly make everything better. That hasn’t happened. Public services have improved, unemployment has been cut, but if you are still unemployed, or if your loved ones have been ill-treated in hospital, you are going to be even more bitter. Yet, I do believe that the war has had a huge impact in the general disillusionment with Labour. However, only people with very short memories really want the Conservatives back in power. They mostly campaigned on immigration control and a cut in taxes (they said that they could improve public services while at the same time cutting taxes massively. No-one could get their figures to add up, and we all know what happened last time they promised to do that. Their policies on immigration were so extreme that they would have been unworkable and indeed, possibly illegal.)
As for the war, we’re in for the long haul. We’re not pulling out of Iraq, nor do most people want us to. If we leave the Iraqis now, we will really have failed them. We made them our problem, now we ought to fix it. However, I will eat my entire hat collection if Britain is involved in anymore wars like this, unless we are under attack ourselves. No-one will trust the reasons given for military action. We trusted the documentation this time and look what happened. As for America, there is no reason why they cannot undertake more pre-emptive strikes, if they so wish. We went against most of the world with this war, I don’t see why the US can’t do it again with one less ally. Or rather, Britain will always be the ally of the US whatever happens, but we will not send any more troops.
As for me, I was the only person that I know in my age group who even voted. The majority of young people are pretty much disillusioned with politics altogether.
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quote: From the standpoint of a foreign-policy conservative, Blair’s loss is a sign of weakening support for the U.S. across Europe, even in America’s most reliable ally.
Um... Not really, no. Blair's loss is a sign of weakening popularity of Tony Blair. While I'm sure some people treated the election as a referendum on Iraq (there are always some nutcases) the Conservatives also gained seats, and they were all for the war. Also, Gordon Brown is more popular than Blair, and there's no sign he would have done anything different than Blair. Also, I fail to see how any election in any one country could possibly be a sign of anything "across Europe". It may well be a sign of something in that one country, or parts of that one country, but that is like saying a provincial election in Quebec is a sign of changing attitudes in North America. It's just completely ridiculous.
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posted
No, it really was mostly the Iraq thing with Blair, he's said as much in his speeches. The conservatives were arguing that they didn't have all the information about Iraq and that Blair misled them.
His whole new approach is basically "I promise to listen to the people this time."
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