Tony Blair’s speech to Labour’s rally has been welcomed as setting a new political template, with only muted criticism of what some see as a conceited ambition to ‘save the world’. Generally, it’s accepted as a progressive vision – but it’s not. In fact, it’s the clearest and most worrying exposition yet of the world Blair and his allies wish to build.

Voicing this criticism is dangerous now that Blair has drawn a simplistic distinction between ‘us’ and ‘them’ – us being all who accept Blair and co’s vision unequivocally, while them conveniently groups murdering psychopaths who fly planes into buildings with critics of globalisation or opponents of privatisation. The message is clear – buy the whole package or you’re the enemy.

As always, the most reactionary initiatives come cloaked in progressive language, so it’s worth looking closely at the content of Blair’s speech. This is a lengthy contribution, but it was a lenghty speech – and we need to consider it carefully.

"Whatever the dangers of the action we take, the dangers of inaction are far, far greater."

What more disturbing principle could the world’s superpowers be proceeding under? ‘It doesn’t matter what we do as long as we do something’ is not only a dangerous approach, it ignores the lessons of history, of logic itself. Every action provokes a reaction. So, for example, giving military and financial backing to a religious fundamentalist nutcase in order to stop a rival power extending its sphere of influence can lead to that same fundmentalist turning against you. At the time of the Soviet move into Afghanistan the same cry was heard – "action is better than inaction". Yet surely recent events have demonstrated the value of considering the consequences of any action?

Those who advocate such consideration are accused of supporting, helping or justifying "the enemy". This denunciation of all opposition or doubt borders on the hysterical, and serves only to disguise the weakness and illogicality of Blair’s case.

Warming to his line of attack, Blair then goes on to paraphrase his opponents’ arguments in order to refute them – another tried and tested New Labour tactic. Unfortunately, his refutations don’t stand up to scrutiny.

He says;
"‘Don't kill innocent people.’ We are not the ones who waged war on the innocent. We seek the guilty."
The people of Iraq, who have watched their children embargoed to death and their surrendered army massacred as it retreated on the road to Basra, are the first who one imagines would doubt Blair’s word. Having frequently flaunted an ignorance – or is it wilful misunderstanding? – of history, Blair has little concept of why so many of the world’s people will not be prepared to take him at his word.

"Look for a diplomatic solution. There is no diplomacy with Bin Laden or the Taliban regime."
This may sound like strong leadership, but it bears no relation to the realities of the world in which we live. In fact, it’s just plain wrong. There has been diplomatic contact with the Taliban, and with Bin Laden. It was there when Bin Laden was courted during the Afghan’s war with the Soviets, it was there when the US negotiated a vast injection of cash in return for a Taliban commitment to stop planting poppy fields, it was there when the delegation from Pakistan met the Taliban’s leaders at the start of this crisis. We may find the Taliban utterly objectionable, but at some stage in this struggle, like in every other conflict, diplomatic channels will be used – even if only to negotiate a surrender. Unless what Blair is saying is that every last member of the Taliban will be hunted down and killed. Or perhaps he this didn’t sit nicely with his moral concept of a just war. Whatever, even Blair seems unconvinced by his own words, for the day after his speech he told Parliament about the importance of "a strong diplomatic alliance" against the Taliban. What, we must ask, is the use of a diplomatic alliance if there is no room for diplomacy?

"People say: we are only acting because it's the USA that was attacked. Double standards, they say. But when Milosevic embarked on the ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Kosovo, we acted.
"The sceptics said it was pointless, we'd make matters worse, we'd make Milosevic stronger and look what happened, we won, the refugees went home, the policies of ethnic cleansing were reversed and one of the great dictators of the last century, will see justice in this century."

Ah, the Balkans. Let’s ignore the role of the UK and US in helping to fragment Yugoslavia and create ethnically-based ‘nations’ and begin instead from Blair’s starting point. The allied attacks almost immediately sparked a fresh and brutal round of ethnic cleansing, and was acknowledged by international aid agencies to have exacerbated the already appalling refugee crisis manyfold. This, to any reasonable person, qualifies as "making matters worse". By this time, Milososovic had already been "made stronger" by the financial and political support the UK, among others, had given him, and there was evidence that the savage assault on Serbia was hardening support for Milosovic and making it more difficult for any internal opposition to operate. But no matter because, as Blair claims, "we won". "We" meaning the companies that can now make money from rebuilding the shattered infrastructure and the international financial institutions who can impose their will. For the ordinary people of the region there is little of the freedom, justice and fairness of which Blair likes to speak. But the war wasn’t "won" for these concepts – it was won for global capital and Blair’s prattling is nothing more than tatty wrapping paper.

Demonstrating his concern for the world’s oppressed masses, Blair tells us his government will introduce "new rules to ensure asylum is not a front for terrorist entry". The effect of this statement is, of course, to label all asylum seekers as potential terrorists. Coming as it does on top of the Blair government’s decision to criminalise all asylum seekers trying to enter the UK, it illustrates the yawning chasm between Blair’s justice-riddled words and his unjust actions.

But Blair’s view is wider than just the UK, and it’s when he lays out his worldview that the intensity of his imperialist fervour becomes most disturbing. He outlines:

"A Partnership for Africa, between the developed and developing world based around the New African Initiative, is there to be done if we find the will.
"On our side: provide more aid, untied to trade; write off debt; help with good governance and infrastructure; training to the soldiers, with UN blessing, in conflict resolution; encouraging investment; and access to our markets so that we practise the free trade we are so fond of preaching.
"But it's a deal: on the African side: true democracy, no more excuses for dictatorship, abuses of human rights; no tolerance of bad governance, from the endemic corruption of some states, to the activities of Mr Mugabe's henchmen in Zimbabwe. Proper commercial, legal and financial systems."

So countries must do things our way or face the consequences. It’s a clever passage. Comforting concepts like writing off debt, no excuses for dictatorship, aid with no strings and human rights help soften the real intentions of access to markets, no tolerance of bad governance (for which read anything which isn’t neo-liberal free market orientated) and "proper" commercial, legal and financial systems. Improper systems would be those which placed people before profit, restricted business in order to preserve the environment, adopted an interventionist approach to areas like public transport, health and education, rated crimes against people as more serious than crimes against property… You get the idea.

Any politician worth their salt now has to inject a little green into their vision, and Blair comes up with some platitudes to fit the bill.
"With imagination, we could use or find the technologies that create energy without destroying our planet; we could provide work and trade without deforestation."

It sounds good, but as it’s always better to judge actions rather than words we should ask why Blair’s government has given the go-ahead to the controversial mixed-oxide nuclear reprocessing plant at Sellafield, a move which will lead to a proliferation of plutonium. If this is the first you’ve heard of it, that’ll be because the media is full of war talk and Blair’s fine but empty words.

Tired already of the sugar coating, Blair gets down to brass tacks with a firm statement of his philosophy.

"There's a risk that political leaders, faced with street demonstrations, pander to the argument rather than answer it. The demonstrators are right to say there's injustice, poverty, environmental degradation.
"But globalisation is a fact and, by and large, it is driven by people.
"The problem is not there's too much of it; on the contrary there's too little of it. The issue is not how to stop globalisation. The issue is how we use the power of community to combine it with justice. If globalisation works only for the benefit of the few, then it will fail and will deserve to fail.
"But if we follow the principles that have served us so well at home - that power, wealth and opportunity must be in the hands of the many, not the few - if we make that our guiding light for the global economy, then it will be a force for good and an international movement that we should take pride in leading.
"Because the alternative to globalisation is isolation."

If the "fact" of globalisation means there is, as Blair acknowledges, "injustice, poverty, environmental degradation", then why do we need more of it? It’s the familiar social democratic approach which seeks to turn a thing into something it’s not. Reformism is too complimentary a word, as reform presupposes the ability of a thing to be changed. Just as water can’t be made more like fire, so globalisation can’t be changed from a planet-wide system of greater capitalist dominance over all areas of our life than ever into a provider of social justice. Globalisation is driven by the need to enrich the haves by creating more have nots, and by the need to ensure that challenging this order harder than ever.

Undaunted, Blair continues.

"The governing idea of modern social democracy is community. Founded on the principles of social justice. That people should rise according to merit not birth; that the test of any decent society is not the contentment of the wealthy and strong, but the commitment to the poor and weak.


Again the mystery – is Blair really as intellectually illiterate as this statement makes him seem, or does he just come up with any old rubbish to try and keep us happy? Because a society in which people rise according to merit does not, by definition, have a "commitment to the poor and weak." In the meritocracy Blair likes to invoke, the poor and weak are poor and weak because they deserve to be so. The bottom stays at the bottom because it doesn’t deserve to move up – it’s the undeserving poor. Blair attempts to square this circle with the surpemely idiotic statement "We learnt that equality is about equal worth, not equal outcomes." What? It’s no comfort to someone living on the streets to know they’re of equal worth as a company director. This attitude smacks of the worst kind of Christianity which pats the unfortunate masses on the head and assures them they’re all God’s children, while also telling them they’re destitute because they don’t deserve anything more.

In full flow now, Blair can’t resist turning the knife on all those who still cling to the belief that Labour will return to the – comparatively – progressive politics of the past.

"The journey hasn't ended. It never ends. The next stage for New Labour is not backwards; it is renewing ourselves again. Just after the election, an old colleague of mine said: "Come on Tony, now we've won again, can't we drop all this New Labour and do what we believe in?
"I said: "It's worse than you think. I really do believe in it."

So long suckers, and thanks for everything.

The ritual adoration of private enterprise comes next, again draped in weasel words.

"There are schools, with exactly the same social intake. One does well; the other badly.
"There are hospitals with exactly the same patient mix. One performs well; the other badly."

Are there really such absolutely identical institutions performing so differently? It’s hard for any logical person to believe. But the purpose of this spurious vision is to say that "Without reform, more money and pay won't succeed."

At least there’s some consistency here. Just as the world’s nations must do as they’re told by the supreme rulers of the universe, so must public sector workers. It’s called blackmail.

Blair blathers on.

"There are great examples of public service and poor examples. There are excellent private sector companies and poor ones. There are areas where the private sector has worked well; and areas where, as with parts of the railways, it's been a disaster."

So what’s Blair doing about these "bad" private firms? Where’s the great crusade against them? And, if the railways are such a disaster (we can agree on this point) why is Blair not taking them away from the private leeches that have run them down and back into public ownership?

"Where the private sector is used, it should not make a profit simply by cutting the wages and conditions of its staff."

But that’s exactly what the private sector does do. Basic economics. Private firms exist to make profits. Profits rise when costs are cut. What is the biggest single cost of any business? Wages. So wages must be cut to increase profits. It’s economics, stupid!

For his big finish, Blair chooses these words.

"I believe this is a fight for freedom. And I want to make it a fight for justice too. Justice not only to punish the guilty. But justice to bring those same values of democracy and freedom to people round the world."

Share my vision or be my enemy, because I will impose my values on every corner of the globe.

What this speech proves more than ever is that Blair is a dangerous, confused but very effective and powerful megalomaniac. The adulation he’s received from the corporate media will pump him up still further. But are we fooled? The cult of Blair must be examined, taken apart and laid to rest.