THE HINGE OF FATE:

Why is PM seeking war on home front? (FRASER NELSON, 3/14/03, The Scotsman)

THE next seven days will decide the trajectory of British politics for the next seven years. The vote expected in the House of Commons next week will not just be about Iraq, but the entire Blair
project. The Prime Minister is taking on the Labour Party.

If Tony Blair fights and wins, he will be unassailable. If he loses next week's vote, he will have little choice but to resign. If he falls, then his lieutenants - Alan Milburn, Charles Clarke, John Reid - will topple like dominoes.

Most staggeringly, it is Mr Blair who wants to bring this to a head. The Prime Minister is being advised not to hold a vote - but wants to take his case to Parliament and actively seek the decision which could end his career. [...]

For the scores of back-benchers who have long resented the Blair project, there has never been a better chance to vote down both him and his entire apparatus. War is the one issue where a Labour MP can defy the party leader without the charge of treason. There are several constituencies in the UK where rebelling MPs would be praised for fidelity to the "Labour movement". [...]

Finally, there is a coherent ideology uniting such rebels with the historic roots of their party. They believe in the state: public services run from the centre under common ownership.

Mr Blair believes in the market. Tuition fees, foundation hospitals, private finance initiative - a trio of policies designed to empower the producer. It is state socialism versus social democracy. [...]

The Prime Minister is choosing conflict over consensus - knowing that, if public service reforms do not go through now, the results will not be available at the next election. [...]

Mr Blair has not stopped at Iraq. He is fighting on all fronts - flying to Northern Ireland last week to hammer down the peace process, urging David Blunkett to deliver an antisocial behaviour bill and imploring
Gerhard Schroeder to reform Germany's economy.

To take on so many battles looks like rage. But Mr Blair's strategy runs deeper. Painfully aware of the lack of progress his first term in office represented, this is how he wants it to be from now on.

Margaret Thatcher is the model, in methodology if not in policy. Blairites look back and admire the scope and audaciousness of her reforms - if only Labour's agenda could be implemented with such speed. [...]

To hell with the majority - let's do the right thing, and let those who like it join us. It's the message from the White House over Iraq and the message from Downing Street over public services. [...]

Mr Blair has won so much Tory support because he is showing courage and risking everything. This admiration will outlast the Iraq invasion because risk is Mr Blair's new policy for both international and
domestic issues.

It is quite possible such voters will replace those in the Labour Left who tear up their membership cards as he sends troops to war. As Thatcher found out, strength of leadership can be a political party in itself.

This may well be the most important moment in Britain since the 17th Century. If Labour succeeds in purging itself of Blairism then the British future will look much like the present of France and Germany--a moribund statist decline into oblivion. But if Mr. Blair can either fend off Labour or, better still, really roll the dice and break Labour, then forge an alliance with the pro-market Tories, Britain could revive itself along the lines already set out in such unlikely places as Chile and New Zealand. Then, as America does the same, Britain and the U.S. could lead the way and save democracy from itself. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 13, 2003 10:24 PM