New Labour: born 1994. Died: 2015 – after a prolonged illness diagnosed in 2007. There are few next of kin.

For those of us who played our part in the birth and development of New Labour and watched its slow and painful death, it has been a deeply depressing time.

The story starts with a landslide victory, a sense of hope throughout the country, great achievements including the first minimum wage, peace in Northern Ireland, civil partnerships. And ends with the bitter aftermath of the Iraq war, a succession of unelectable leaders and the toxicity of the Blair brand resulting in the Blairite candidate getting just 4% in the most recent leadership election.

This piece is an attempt to explain frankly how this dramatic turnaround in political fortunes happened and where Labour might go next.

New Labour: a revolutionary movement





New Labour was not intended merely as a short-term electoral fix after 18 years out of power and four crushing election defeats (though that would not have been a terrible thing), but as a radical new force in British politics. The “project” was infinitely more revolutionary than anything proposed by Jeremy Corbyn or his supporters. The idea of New Labour was not to be a good opposition party, to protest loudly or have an “influence” over events, but, rather, to take and hold on to the levers of power. New Labour sought political hegemony: winning power and locking out the Tories to ensure that the 21st century was a Labour century with Labour values in contrast to a Tory-dominated 20th century.

The scale of that ambition, in a country dominated by a stridently rightwing press and the quiet conservatism of large swaths of the British people, was breathtaking. If Labour could be in power for a serious amount of time, then the country would, we believed, change for good; not a burst of socialism for one time (if that), but changed institutions and values that could shape the country for all time.

The project worked at a number of levels. We told a story about Britain that was optimistic, tapped into people’s aspirations, stressed our tradition as a pioneering nation and showed how once again, through knowledge, know-how, new technology and networking, our creativity could help shape the prosperity and success of Britain in the future. We championed a society in which community and solidarity played a more important role – “giving” as well as “taking”.

We put forward a practical programme for government and new delivery mechanisms to ensure that policies were actually working on the ground. A plan to get the young unemployed back to work. A plan to end rough sleeping on our streets (now sadly back in big numbers). A radical plan to end child poverty in a generation. A plan to cut huge waiting times in the NHS both for routine operations and in A&E departments. A plan to get the trains to run on time. Through massive new investment and judicious reform, the infrastructure of Britain and the life chances of the poorest families improved dramatically. The case for an active, empowering state was being made. There was a moral imperative too: to rebuild the public realm, to shape a more tolerant, kinder society and to devolve power to the nations of Britain.

Tony Blair, the architect of New Labour Photograph: Nils Jorgensen/REX Shutterstock

There were many mistakes, many messy compromises. To those who want to compare this imperfect Labour government with some Aaron Sorkin-scripted, West Wing-style fantasy, it was doomed to come up short. But the real comparison should always have been between an imperfect Labour government and a Tory government. For if Labour holds out for something pure and untainted by reality, if we pretend that there are black-and-white answers to complicated situations, then, as we are finding out now, the left is ruined.

It’s too easy to forget what life was like under the pre-New Labour Tory government or what it would have been like if they had continued in power. It was illegal to talk about gay relationships in schools; pupils still used outside lavatories in crumbling buildings; free-market Tories were urging the end of the NHS; while the government defended apartheid, foxhunting and the massive, unregulated profits of privatised utilities.

It’s also easy to forget just how much the centre of gravity of British politics has moved to the left as a result of New Labour. The Tories now compete with Labour to put more money into the NHS. They try to go one step further than Labour on gay rights by introducing gay marriage. Far from wanting to abolish the minimum wage as they used to, the Tories now try to do one better and introduce a national living wage. There is a new settlement and New Labour created it.

More than anything, the Labour government fostered a sense of confidence, optimism and energy. People’s lives were getting better in tangible ways. Communities were becoming stronger. Whatever people’s race, sexuality, income or aspiration, there was a growing sense of belonging and support. It was a good time to live in Britain. Much of this confidence is now being lost. There is a growing fear of the future.

Successful political projects must do three things: 1) Have a driving purpose underpinned by values and principles. 2) Address the urgent needs of the country. 3) Respond to the desires of the public. New Labour had a winning combination of all three up until Iraq. If you have one or two but not all three then you are vulnerable. If you have a sense of values but are out of touch with what the country needs or the public wants you will always be unelectable (the current position of the Labour party). If you pragmatically solve problems as they arise in the country you will fail to energise and motivate the public to get behind you (parts of the last Labour government). And if you are only populist, responding to every whim of the public, you look rootless and lacking in principle.

The seeds of New Labour’s demise





For all its success, New Labour failed in its bolder ambition of creating a sustainable movement. Its legacy should have been a healthy, pluralistic, internal culture (with less reliance on the power of a few union barons), which would generate the political leaders of the future and also the fresh thinking.

Much of this failure was down to the circumstances of New Labour’s birth. Some of the key players who created it were scarred by the battles with Militant in the 80s. The result, understandably, was that they wanted to position New Labour as a clean break with all that had gone before. This was a mistake. Modernisation had been a powerful strand within the Labour party since its creation, and whether it was the Attlee government, Gaitskell’s leadership, Wilson’s white heat of technological revolution, Labour had always battled to be in tune with the times.

New Labour played into the hands of those who were desperate to call it an aberration. It allowed those, like Neil Kinnock, to say, on the election of Ed Miliband, that “we’ve got our party back”. It paved the way for the most successful Labour leader in history to be written off as an interloper, a cancer in the bloodstream of Labour politics. Looking back, this was perhaps New Labour’s most fundamental weakness. Without roots, without establishing its own traditions, cultivating its own sustainable culture, drawing on the stories and figures of the past, New Labour became unnecessarily fragile, the cult of one person, not a movement of hearts and minds.

By the end of the second term, New Labour got trapped into a closed way of thinking, an approach first made famous by Thatcher with her phrase “there is no alternative” (Tina). Just as she dismissed ideas and people as “wets”, so it became increasingly easy to dismiss new ideas as “old Labour” and therefore not worthy of consideration. Tony Blair felt increasingly that there was no one else advocating the “New” part of “New Labour” and so this would fall to him. Not just that, but in order to highlight the cutting edge of New Labour he would make it more controversial, more of a challenge to the mainstream of the party. The result was that often in the latter years New Labour became too easily attacked as “right wing” rather than “radical” and this contributed substantially to undermining the long-term sustainability of the project.

On top of all this was the great hulking, debilitating disaster that was Iraq. The error on Iraq was not deliberately taking the country to war on a lie – because that is not what happened. The lack of weapons was a genuine surprise to Blair and everyone around him. What people hated was not just the closeness to an American president they loathed and a failure to get more out of this close relationship, particularly in planning for the aftermath, but also what they saw as too little scrutiny of the intelligence that turned out to be so wrong.

The Iraq war, and the knock-on effect on the region, has for many tarnished the entire record of the Labour government and is something that can never be forgiven. Though we shouldn’t forget Labour won an election after the war, Iraq nonetheless was the trigger that brought down the wrath of all those who felt New Labour was an aberration. But it was the toxic relationship between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown that diverted energy and thinking from the “project” and made renewal in office impossible.

True, it was their complex partnership that produced electoral success and some effective policies, but in the end the consequences for the party were dire.

Toxic: Gordon Brown talks to Tony Blair at the Labour party conference in 2006. Photograph: Stephen Hird / Reuters/Reuters

The maniacal way in which Brown and his supporters wanted to oust Blair from the second term onwards had three effects. The first was that is paralysed the workings of government; second, it stifled the chances of other big figures emerging who could break through and become future leaders; third, it sapped energy from renewal and the generation of ideas. Blair was trapped. A part of him couldn’t help feeling that his one-time closest political ally deserved the ultimate prize after all the agonies of waiting, while at the same time he realised with growing certainty that it would not be right for the party or the country.

Yet for all that, most of us expected Brown’s premiership would be like the brilliant first years of his chancellorship, a whirlwind of exciting new policy ideas and the start of a new wave of reform, energy and change. But it was a classic case of the emperor’s new clothes; all those nods and winks to opinion formers – “just you wait until GB gets in, then you will see a real social democratic agenda” – were a delusion. The cupboard was bare. Far from the economic crisis destroying Brown’s premiership, it actually saved it. It gave him a purpose. Without it, having achieved his life’s ambition, his premiership would have fizzled out before it had started; a sparkler with no sparkle.

The death of New Labour





The painful truth is that Brown had given his all to the 10 years he had been chancellor. The Blair/Brown era was coming to its natural end at a time when Gordon took on the premiership. He should never have become prime minister. But he had a formidable machine and no one wanted to be the first to break ranks and challenge him. The next generation, overly deferential, did not seize the moment. In retrospect, David Miliband’s best chance of being leader was going to be by winning a leadership election in government (where the question is: who do you want as prime minister?) rather than in opposition. So the result was inevitable – election defeat. What was not inevitable, but followed the usual pattern for Labour, was the turn to someone more left wing after defeat, as if to put two fingers up to the electorate.

With potential candidates from Alan Milburn to Alan Johnson no longer in the frame, and David Miliband beaten by his brother, the party was left in the hands of Ed Miliband. His time as Labour leader was more destructive to the Labour party than any that had gone before.

It is one of the quirks of political parties that they often elect hopelessly weak leaders because they appear to share their values. It was obvious that the main task was to restore economic credibility but instead Labour became more incredible. There was a need for fresh thinking on health, education and crime but little happened. Labour under first Brown, then Miliband and now Corbyn showed almost no interest in education – the engine of opportunity, equality and life chances. And Miliband paved the way organisationally (through his potty new electoral system) and tactically (by making people believe that posturing rather than serious policy is the answer) for the Corbyn regime.

Corbyn is heir to Miliband. It was Miliband who made it acceptable for Labour to rubbish its own achievements and treat winning elections as unprincipled. By denouncing the New Labour government of which he had been part, Miliband signalled to the electorate not that he was his own man but that he was no man at all.

Let’s be clear – there is a perfectly valid and viable political party that is left wing, union based, led by someone such as Corbyn and appealing to a mix of metropolitan elites, students and some trade unionists. With a charismatic leader and clever politics (two things currently missing), and relying on tribal Labour loyalty that remains in parts of the country, this approach could gain the support of 15% to 20% of the public and possibly, with the infrastructure, money and backing of the big trade unions, up to 25% to 28% of the vote. Let’s not forget Michael Foot’s Labour party got 27.6% of the vote in 1983. But this is a party that will never be in power. There is some support in the country for pacifism, republicanism and anti-capitalism but there isn’t enough to win an election. Labour’s role has become, like that of Ukip, to put certain issues higher up the agenda. Labour is currently, and for the foreseeable future, the Ukip of the left.

What Corbyn has successfully done is tap into a growing clamour for authenticity, plain speaking and something more hard edged, less hedged and cautious.

This also explains the rise of Donald Trump in the US. In a Labour leadership contest of decent but seemingly bland candidates, Corbyn was the choice of many who said to themselves: none of them is going to win the election so I might as well vote for the one who will at least stand up properly against austerity and war.

A rational argument about Labour never winning power again never had traction with Corbyn supporters because they didn’t care.

That is not their game. Many of them want to win an argument rather than an election.

The future

So this is the biggest existential moment in Labour’s history. Labour may not survive. And it is not certain if it does whether it will ever win an election again, particularly with Scotland more or less written off. There are two strands, two parties if you like, that will never be happy bedfellows even in the broadest of broad church parties. So either the current Corbyn party will at some point need a home outside the Labour party or the mainstream of the Labour party will need to make common cause with others to forge a new party.

Either way, those who think it is enough to bide their time, find a more palatable candidate and stage a coup are deluding themselves. The issue is not just the leader but the passion, the ideas, the policies, the organisation that will produce a new, dynamic, political force. Few have done the deep thinking yet to shape this agenda. There is a gaping hole in the centre and centre-left of British politics that has been left unfilled for several years. Osborne is making an attempt to occupy that ground from the right. But the Tories are not popular. They were supported by under 25% of the population in 2015 (36.9% on a turnout of 66.1%) despite the weakness of the opposition.

‘ It was Ed Miliband who made it acceptable for Labour to rubbish its own achievements.’ Photograph: David Gadd/Sportsphoto Ltd./Allstar

Today, there is a need more than ever before for a modern, progressive, values-driven party: a new “project” that does not try to recreate New Labour, because the world has moved on, but learns from it. It would have those three ingredients for success.

At its heart would be a renewed sense of moral purpose – a commitment to social mobility – breaking down all barriers to people getting on in life. It would believe in a leaner, more agile, empowering state that supports social entrepreneurs in the building of strong, diverse and democratic communities. This would be in sharp relief to the cuts of the Tories and the big state solutions of the traditional left.

This project would tap into the urgent needs of the country and the new aspirations of the public. This project would need to come up with fresh thinking about how to shape a growing, creative, greener economy and schools that prepare young people properly with the knowledge, skills and character to thrive in this economy.

Instead of just attacking the current reforms to welfare, the project would need to champion the overhaul of the welfare state to provide a more modern contributory system and new institutions such as a National Care Service for the elderly to run alongside the NHS. It would be seen as grappling seriously with the big questions of the day: migration, globalisation, terrorism, the environment, welfare, housing, our place in the world.

This “project” would not only have a fighting chance of winning an election but could motivate and mobilise people; become a movement once again. It would be a project that faced up to hard choices rather than pretending they don’t exist. But it would be a project that people could support not just with their head but with their heart too.

New Labour may be dead. Few in politics will mourn its passing. But millions of British people have been left stranded, without a political home. They crave a party that genuinely believes in social justice and economic prosperity. This is a time for urgent action, serious leadership and deep thinking. Who will answer the call? Without it, we will live for many years with only the Tories capable of winning an election; in short, a one-party state.

Peter Hyman is headteacher and co-founder of School 21. He worked for Tony Blair for nine years, including roles as chief speechwriter and strategist.

On 27 December, Marc Stears, former speechwriter for Ed Miliband, professor of political theory and fellow of University College, Oxford, joins the debate on the future of progressive politics.