THE Labour government is visibly collapsing day by day, with even ministers expressing opposition and saying that they had doubts about Blair’s foreign policy as long ago as 1998.
The Minister concerned, Margaret Hodge, unburdened herself at a Fabian Society dinner.
She described Blair’s foreign policy as ‘moral imperialism’ which sought to impose British values on other countries, and the Iraq war as Blair’s ‘big mistake in foreign affairs’.
Truly the rats are beginning to swim away from the sinking ship.
Hodge did not explain how she was able to stomach the NATO attack on Yugoslavia led by Blair and Clinton, and the whole period during the 1990s when Iraq and its children were being starved to death, as well as dying from the lack of medicines during those years of UN sanctions.
She was also able to live with the March 20, 2003 attack on Iraq, and the estimated slaughter of 650,000 since that date.
Now we learn that Bush and Blair are planning for ‘one last push’ to achieve victory in Iraq, an imperialist adventure that will cost thousands more lives.
What is shaking up Hodge and many other Labour MPs and ministers is that the longer that Blair stays at the helm, the more chance there is that they will lose their seats, and their luxury life styles at the next general election.
It is this threat that has awakened Hodge’s long dormant and suppressed principles about ‘moral imperialism’, which up to this point she has been loyally serving.
While Hodge was hacking away at Blair at the Fabian dinner, another attack on Blair was being mounted, this time by a branch of the capitalist state.
The Metropolitan Police Acting Assistant Commissioner John Yates stated yesterday: ‘It is my view that considerable progress continues to be made’ in the loans for peerages investigation.
He added: ‘This has resulted in the acquisition of significant and valuable material in relation to the development of the inquiry.
‘Due to the possibility of future criminal proceedings and the need for further inquiries to be undertaken, I do not believe it would be appropriate to comment further on the current status of the inquiry.
‘Assuming the cooperation of the parties and individuals involved, then I hope to be able to forward a file to the CPS in January 2007.’
Since the Prime Minister has already taken full responsibility for the Labour Party’s loans policy, he can expect a knock on his door by the police any time now, and to be interviewed under caution, and then, after January 2007, to hear whether the CPS has decided whether there should be a criminal prosecution.
The prospect, however, is that Blair will be gone by then, as Labour MPs attempt to save their seats and livings under Gordon Brown.
Brown, however, is the co-founder of New Labour along with Blair.
He is determined to carry on with the privatisation policies and the same attacks on basic rights that were begun under Blair.
Under this leadership the only gainer will be the Tory party which is being resurrected from the dead by the Labour government’s betrayals, and who will privatise with a vengeance if they are returned to office.
Up till now the trade unions under their reformist leadership have stood aside from the struggle against Blair and Brown and their right wing policies.
They have allowed major factories to be closed, final salary pensions to be abolished in the public sector and have not lifted a finger to defend the NHS – remember the way that they allowed NHS Logistics to be privatised.
Trade union members must move into action and launch a campaign in the trade unions for them to take action to bring down the Blair-Brown government as the only way to prevent the return of the Tories, by going forward to a workers’ government that will carry out socialist policies.