November 12, 2004
Labour's Disillusionment with Blair
In a Prospect interview, the British Labour party's Neal Lawson laments New Labour's slide to the right and the idea that he and his allies can't do anything about it. I suppose these guys have been with Labour all their lives and don't want to disrespect the hand that feeds them. But speaking as an outsider, the rational course of action is obvious.
The Liberal Democrats offer the most sensible political program of any national party I'm aware of. If old-school Labour operatives are sick of Blair, why don't they ally themselves with the Lib Dems and their better proposals? Speaking realistically, there aren't many issues where Labour is still to the left of the Lib Dems, which says a lot about how far they've triangulated.
Obviously this is something of a dream scenario, but perhaps the Lib Dems can become the 2nd party in Britian in next year's elections. If they can break Labour's absolute majority, then that should be enough to bring down Blair. The election is still a long way off, though.