YESTERDAY was a letter writing day for Labour MPs.
There were at least three different letters circulating among Labour MPs, including one signed by the majority of the New Labour intake after the 2001 general election urging Blair to resign.
The signatures were said to be the pick of the Blairite crop of 2001. It was being said that the class of 2005 was also set to join the fray, desperate that Blair’s refusal to resign might cost them their parliamentary seats.
The great leader’s advisers however were also busy plotting – how their man would be able to leave after 10 years of office in May 2007, on a great wave of popular feeling from a grateful nation.
A leaked memo revealed yesterday that they were worried about Blair’s legacy. They concluded: ‘His genuine legacy is not the delivery, important though that is, but the dominance of new Labour ideas . . . the triumph of Blairism.’ Blair failed in Iraq on his oil stealing mission, and also failed to deliver the destruction of the Welfare State at home. His legacy is therefore to be failure, and a rag-bag of half-baked ‘third way’ ideas.
The advisers mused about the style of leaving: ‘He needs to go with the crowds wanting more. He should be the star who won’t even play that last encore. In moving towards the end he must focus on the future.’ He is to be the sun whose light never dims, a rival to Jesus Christ himself etc, etc.
But even the chosen advisers have their doubts about the leader’s immortality. They ask: ‘Are we up for it? Is TB up for it?’
The key to it all is ‘a farewell tour’. ‘He needs to be seen with people who will raise eyebrows’.
The key recommendation is that Blair should make appearances on Blue Peter, Songs of Praise and Chris Evans’ radio show, to win real mass popularity.
Truly, those that the Gods wish to destroy, they first drive insane.
These are the gang of delusionists who Labour MPs have not got the political principle to eject from the leadership of the Labour Party and the Labour government.
Instead, Blair is being allowed to hang onto the Prime Minister’s office and continue smashing up the Welfare State and the Labour Party with it until he is ready to hand over to Gordon Brown.
Workers inside the trade unions must organise to put an end to this farce and give this gang of bosses’ agents the coup de grace.
The TUC Congress begins on Monday week. It is an absolute scandal that the trade union leaders are determined that the crisis of the Labour government will not be discussed, never mind be resolved at this conference.
Instead, they are talking to Gordon Brown about providing Labour with up to £20 million of the trade unions’ money to solve its financial crisis if Brown will modify his positions and make limited concessions to the trade unions.
Workers must demand that an emergency resolution is put down demanding that Blair and Brown and their cabinet resign and that the Blair government is replaced by a workers’ government that will carry out socialist policies.
Congress must decide that there will be no cash for the Labour Party until this is done.
It must insist on a government that will repeal all anti-union laws and racist immigration acts, organise a massive programme of council house building, halt and reverse the privatisation programme, and withdraw all British troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Such a government will aid the Iraqi, Palestinian and Lebanese people and carry out socialist policies at home.
This is the kind of government that is urgently required by working people to defend their jobs, living standards and basic rights.
The trade unions must now be made to step forward by the membership, to put an end to the farce of the Blair government crisis by forcing its leaders to resign and by bringing in a workers’ government and socialism.
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