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ON THE RECORD
TONY BLAIR INTV
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE 17.1.93
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JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: Tony Blair, there's a fearful old row
yet again in the Labour Party. Senior colleagues attacking you and saying
that you're engaged in a conspiracy to subvert the Labour Party, to turn it
into a version of the Democratic Party and destroy the soul of the Labour Party
in the process. What's your response to that attack?
TONY BLAIR, MP: Well, there should be no such row within
the Labour Party at all. There is a conspiracy actually. It's a conspiracy to
make the Labour Party capable of winning the next General Election, and it's a
conspiracy joined by the vast majority of people in the Labour Party.
Look - we have come a tremendously long
way since I came into Parliament in 1983, and under Neil Kinnock's leadership
we came back from those dark days. But the truth is that we have lost four
General Elections in a row and we must face up to the need to reassess our
direction and shape. Now that I think is entirely sensible and intelligent and
mature politics and we should allow this debate about change in the direction
of the Labour Party to take place in an amicable and sensible way. We all
share the same values - the point is applying them to the modern age.
DIMBLEBY: Now, are you saying that when Clare
Short talks about secret infiltration, all this stuff about conspiracy,
infiltrating positions of leadership, the so-called modernisers. I mean, are
you basically saying to her she's off the wall on that?
BLAIR: I don't really want to comment on that
except to say that the positions that we're putting forward are entirely open,
and I think it is very sensible that we have that debate for change.
Now look, what I believe that the Labour
Party requires is not a process of adjustment, it is a project for renewal.
That is, that is, that measures up to the size of the task and we've got to
take our basic values not shed them at all, but fulfil them by taking them -
the idea that for individuals to succeed you need a strong and fair community
behind you. The linking of a concept of new community to individual
aspiration.
You've got to take those basic values
and apply them to the modern age and that means transforming our society,
economically, in the new politics of individual economic opportunity, as
opposed to an old battle between public versus private sector, and particularly
within an international competitive economy. It means socially getting away
from the idea that we want to keep people on welfare but actually give them the
opportunity to get out of welfare and lead their own lives in a fulfilled way
and, constitutionally, that means devolving power, taking power away from the
centre and giving it to ordinary people, and that is a radical message; it is
a populous message, it's anti-elite, it's anti-establishment and it is the
fulfilment of our values, not the shedding of them.
DIMBLEBY: OK. So whether or not that involves, as
some say, a battle for the soul of the Labour Party - something John Prescott
says - let's look at exactly what...
BLAIR: It doesn't you know...
DIMBLEBY: He's wrong about that?
BLAIR: It's not the soul of the Labour Party
that is in doubt. The soul of the Labour Party, the belief that individuals
require a strong community behind them to succeed - that basic principle is
what unites ALL the Labour Party, that's what defines the Labour Party's
position, but you apply it for a different age, and that means the policies and
positions that you have in 1993 are not those of 1963 and, indeed, those that
we will have in the year 2023 will not be the same as those today.
DIMBLEBY: Then let's look at the options facing
you in this debate, and draw from the Clinton experience what modernisers may
find useful in it. And one area I would like to start by asking you and that
is, asking you about, and that's the need as I understand it, is the
need to distance the Party from vested interests. That's what happened in the
Democratic victory. Are you with Roy Hattersley when he says that the Labour
Party should similarly distance itself by doing away with the institutional
links between the Labour Party and the Trade Union Movement?
BLAIR: I'll answer that very directly. If I
can just say a word about Clinton, because I think it's extremely important
people don't get themselves in a muddle over this. I think it's entirely
intelligent when you've had a great Democrat victory in the States - and we've
always traditionally had close links with the Democrats - it's the first
election they've won since the nineteen-seventies. Some of the problems that
the the Democrats face with the American people are not dissimilar to those
that we've faced here with the British people in the Labour Party.
Now I think you learn sensible lessons
and we should learn them and do from the Social Democrats in Germany, the
French Socialists and so forth, but the notion that you can holus bolus (phon)
apply all the policies of Bill Clinton to here.............
DIMBLEBY: You will forgive me. There's this one
little phrase which I've heard you use before - holus bolus. For the benefit
of those of us whose Latin is not as excellent as yours is, what do you mean?
BLAIR: What I mean is you can't transplant the
policies of Bill Clinton to Britain. They are totally different. However,
there are lessons that any sensible people would try and learn and I thought
the Transport Union, for example, in holding their Conference last week, did a
great service to the Labour Party and showed that they were willing to go out
into the community......
DIMBLEBY: Let's then go holus bolus to the
question that I put to you about Roy Hattersley. Do you believe that the
institutional links with the Labour Party, the institutional links, must go?
BLAIR: I don't believe that the Labour Party
will ever sever its relations with the Trade Unions and I don't think that it
should do so. What I do think is necessary, however, is that the Labour
Party is able and confidence when it addresses people at the next Election to
say we are a Party that is addressing the entire country and that we will form
our policies and govern on the basis of the interests of the entire country.
DIMBLEBY: And you can't do that if you have
institutional links (if I interpret that correctly) with the Trade Unions. You
can have a very close relationship but not the institutional, constitutional
links?
BLAIR: I think it is entirely necessary that we
re-cast that relationship and that's why we support very strongly the Review
Committee that's been set up. And let me say, incidentally, just in
contradiction of your report, we DO support the process of change that has been
going on in that Review Committee. But if I may just make this point - you
see, this idea that it's simply people like myself that have been saying that
this relationship must change, the Trade Unions themselves were instrumental
in setting up that Review Committee.
DIMBLEBY: Sure. Let's just stick... You've
answered the question interestingly. You've got to have fundamental change.
Just let me put it one more time to you so that viewers can understand exactly
what you're saying. We all know what we mean by institutional links - it is
that power constitutional...
BLAIR: We have block votes determining
everything. That's all got to go. Well, John Smith in fact himself last week
said that.
DIMBLEBY: Right. Now then, let me take one key
example of this. Do you believe that there should be in the selection of Party
candidates one member - and by that I mean one full member of the Labour Party
- one vote, and not more than that. No other fudging or stealing the clothes
of the individual by re-imposing the Trade Unions into that process?
BLAIR: No. I believe it should be one member,
one vote, and let me say why. I think it is entirely right and sensible in a
modern Labour Party that it is the individual members of the Labour Party
within a particular constituency that choose the candidate.
If I may just make this point about the
suggestion that we embrace Trade Union levy payers. Let me make it clear what
the basis of my objection to that has been. In some ways I find it quite an
attractive idea. Indeed, myself and others have been arguing for a long time.
We want, in fact, to involve Trade Union levy payers much more in the
processes of the Labour Party, but I would like to involve them as full
members.
What I found difficult about that
particular proposal - although I think its motivations, let me say, were
entirely good - what I found difficult was the idea that you might have six or
seven hundred members of a constituency Party, and then suddenly they're met
with six or seven hundred levy payers that have been signed up by a Trade Union
- they're not actually members of the Party and yet they have equivalent voting
rights.
DIMBLEBY: Well, it could even be six or seven
thousand levy payers, couldn't it?
BLAIR: Well, it could, that's right. Now to me
we want to get them in as full members of the Labour Party and that's why I've
been arguing very strongly, and will continue to argue, that the Labour Party
should re-structure its membership, that we should bring down - I think the
membership fee is absurdly high, I think it's a deterrent to people joining the
Labour Party, and I would like to see - I would be happy to discuss it if you
wish to - that we should re-structure the membership and actually get far more
Trade Union levy payers into the Labour Party; that they should come in a
full members and there should not be two classes of membership which I think
would lead us into difficulty.
DIMBLEBY: This is very interesting, because what
you are saying is if you leave it with that proposal, having a second-class
membership, associate membership, for those individuals who pay the political
levy, you would not have done enough - one consequence would be you would not
have done enough, at least in the public mind, to separate the institutional
links of the Labour Party with the Trade Unions.
BLAIR: Well, it's less a matter of image than a
matter of substance..
DIMBLEBY: Reality.
BLAIR: ..that I just believe that it would be
much better to have those people as individual members of the Labour Party.
Now I would like to see us remove some of the obstacles to their joining the
Labour Party so that you..you see, the whole time what I want to see is the
Labour Party pushing itself outwards, getting back in its local community,
being the Party that represents people within that community. Unless you
change the complexity and nature of Labour Party membership and actually extend
the Labour Party so that it's the proper voice for the community, then you're,
you know, you're always going to have the difficulties that we've had and
that's why I believe it's so important that we go in a different direction on
membership.
DIMBLEBY: If I might, it follows from what you're
saying that if you take Conference votes and policy you would entirely do away
with the block vote and find some other way of discovering what the Party
members, who are the only people now playing in your game, what those Party
members are believing policy ought to be?
BLAIR: Well, John Smith himself last week of
course said on the BBC that he wanted to see the individualisation of the block
vote and I think that is very, very importan,t but it's a process of evolution
and you know I don't think we should set up sort of great divisions between
ourselves and Trade Unionists who want to see change. They are concerned to
involve Trade Union levy payers, and you heard John Edmonds say that. I'm
actually concerned to involv them too, but I want to involve them as full
members of the Labour Party not in a separate class of membership.
DIMBLEBY: It follows from that if you only want in
the Labour Party full members and not this separate class of members which is
what your position is....
BLAIR: Yes, and what we have now actually, we
don't have two classes of members now.
DIMBLEBY: No, OK. But to get.. there is no
halfway house for you - it is either as the situation is now which you don't
like or there's the full members and associate members proposal, which is the
centralist proposal if you like, which you don't want or there is a new full
member situation. Now under that, which you very clearly articulated and very
interestingly articulated, it would follow that policy would be made and only
these new class of full members would be involved in policy and only these new
class of full members would be involved in choosing the Leader of the Party
too, is that correct?
BLAIR: Well, I would like to see in relation to
the leadership election, I would like to see a situation where the members of
the Labour Party have a vote and also members of Parliament have a vote and I
think that that would be a better way for the Labour Party to go. Although I
will listen carefully to the arguments that have been put forward on the Trade
Union Review Committee.
But if I can just say in relation to
this idea of individual members and being involved in policy making and so
forth, I mean the Labour Party is of course undergoing many changes in its
policy-making at the moment - the National Policy forum and so forth - and
there's a whole series of changes that Neil Kinnock set in train, and I would
like to present this to you, as it were, as an evolution over time and I think
what's very important is to build upon those reforms that Neil Kinnock
introduced but......
(BOTH TALKING TOGETHER)
DIMBLEBY: I want to move on to the question,
another area of tax and spending, but I want to preface it briefly by saying of
course your position does mean that for those who think the institutional links
as they now are, or as they might be modified, are part and parcel of the soul
of the Party. This is a battle for the soul of the Party.
BLAIR: Well it's not, because you see...
DIMBLEBY: It has to be in their view.
BLAIR: It isn't if people look at this
intelligently and sensibly. You see my Labour Party membership locally has
been expanded very greatly over the past year and we're now conducting an
experiment to expand it even further. Trade Unionists, increasing numbers of
them, are participating in our Party. Now that to me is the most healthy way
of the expression of the Trade Union link and that then leaves you in the
situation not where you're anti-Trade Union, we should be pro-Trade Union but
in fact, we can be far more easily pro-Trade Union when that relationship is
put on a proper basis.
DIMBLEBY: Do you go to some extent with the
Democrats and learn from the Democrats that the Labour Party, in order to be
convincing, has to persuade the electorate that you are not a tax and spend
Party. That you are not the Party which will raise taxes in order to increase
welfare handouts.
BLAIR: Well, I think again what is very, very
important is to distinguish what our principles are and then the positioningof
the Party that follows from that. You see I think in some ways we've been our
own worst enemy in some of these areas because we have allowed the perception,
false actually, but the perception to arise almost that we'll tax and spend for
its own sake. When we raise taxes on people we do it for a purpose; when we
spend we spend for a function. Now what I would like to see the Labour Party
do is take that basic value, that basic philosophical concept,of the power of
the community to enhance individual freedom and aspiration and say well what do
we - what does that, therefore, mean for taxation and for spending. How are we
going to improve the lot of the people in our country, how are we going to
ensure that they are better off and better able to fulfil their aspirations.
DIMBLEBY: Does it mean, Tony Blair, that in future
for the Labour Party, redistribution of wealth, increasing equality, can only
be done by the tax system by taxing the very rich as the Democrats are
proposing, not those who are better off - the two per cent that they talk
about, not the ten per cent that you went for in the last election.
BLAIR: Yes but remember....
DIMBLEBY: Yes to that?
BLAIR: Well no. Remember that of course eight
out of ten families would actually have been better under Labour's proposals...
DIMBLEBY: You do understand what I'm saying?
BLAIR: YES, I do understand what you're saying
but I mean I'm not going to get into position of writing our tax plans for the
next manifesto. However, what I do think is very, very important - of course
we will have a progressive taxation system and should but it is necessary to
show in the economic policy that we have that we're reaching out to those that
are the aspiring people in the country as well as those that are poor and
unemployed and so forth. Because that is the way that we actually help the
poor and the unemployed.
DIMBLEBY: And in a word, what is your response to
those - whether they're the Prescott's or others - who say that what you're
doing is chasing middle classes rather than saving and helping your traditional
constituency's including the very poor.
BLAIR: I say that that is wrong because what we
are actually doing is reaching out and what have we done for the poor over the
last thirteen years when the social security cuts have gone through, the poll
tax, the social fund - we haven't been able to help those people because we
haven't been in power. We must be the Party of Government again and if we can
reshape and reposition our Party to do that we will sweep the Tories out of
power, not just for a term of a Parliament but for a generation.
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