What set of political ideas did New Labour represent?

POLITICAL IDEAS OF THE NEW LABOUR
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Introduction
From its foundation, the Labour Party was created as a political party standing for or championing the rights of workers in the legislative body. Emanating from the Labour Representation Committee (LRC), the Labour party was born by a range of trade unions as well as communist groups (Finlayson, 2003 p. 16). Accordingly, just from its launch, its principal aim was to choose members of parliament who would champion the welfare of the trade unions as well as individual workers. Even though apparently not a devoted communalist party, as at 1918, the Labour party incorporated Clause 4 within its party policy. It was a principle of communal possession that devoted the Labour party to making public the lands, coal mines, the energy and transport sectors as well as proclaiming their intent to make tax rates sharply progressive so as to finance a key expansion of learning as well as community services (Dearlove & Saunders, 2000 p. 394). It quickly passed the Liberal party in fame as well as climbed to be the main challenger for the Conservative party, creating three administrations between the years of 1926-1945. From 1979 Labour party has experienced spectacular transformations in its structure as well as the organization. To some extent, these transformations have been in reaction to the party’s failure to gain victory in the elections conducted between the election years of 1979-1997 (Dearlove & Saunders, 2000 p.

397). Nevertheless, the revolution travels more than these failures and may be seen as a manifestation of the constant tussle between political ideologies of various sections in the Labour party. These tussles led to the formation of the New Labour party by youthful and vibrant politicians who sought to break away from the ideologies of the old labour party. In this paper, the writer shall discuss the political new labour’s ideologies of ethical socialism, stakeholder capitalism, and consumers’ welfare. The new labour was also guided by the principle of communitarianism, refused the Keynesian form of economy and Clause 4 of the original party and abandoned the earlier idea of state-owned production.
Political ideas of the New Labour
Following the party’s election failure to the Conservative party in 1979 elections, the Labour party experienced a time of significant in-house commotion which eventually caused a widespread structural as well as organisational reforms within the Labour Party (Dearlove & Saunders, 2000 p. 402). In 1994 when Tony Blair assumed control, the party’s leadership had already reaffirmed its power having initiated considerable organisational changes that widened as well as consolidated the party’s decision-making procedure and eliminating every sign of a link to the Marxist communist beliefs.
Further, with the selection of Tony Blair as the party’s head in 1994, the Labour party underwent more sets of programmatic as well as organizational reforms (Finlayson, 2003 p. 67). The Labour party methodically re-examined its plans and strategies to re-adopt the mixed economy within the custom of the revisionists. The party steadily tussled to completely execute socialism, as well as eliminate the capitalist structure. This struggle by the party to execute socialism was due to what several critics trust to be an absence of an appropriate strategy on how to apply Marxist ideology as well as substitute the capitalist order. Blair raised the reformation of the party to another level, taking on the US notion and re-branded the labour party as ‘new.’ The party initiated the motto, ‘New Labour, New Britain’ that got stuck and the party was now referred to as the “New Labour.” Blair and the youthful leaders such as Gordon Brown trusted that the party had to undergo reformation or die (Giddens, 2007 p. 17). The New Labour party rejected the Clause 4 that was central to the Old labour party. Thus, Blair with other reformers exhibited no regard to the Old Labour’s ideologies of “government ownership, fiscal planning, Keynesian demand organization, complete employment, tax then use welfarism as well as strong connections with the trade unions (Martell & Driver, 1998 p 12).” These refusals made the New Labour party to return to winning elections.
The term “New Labour” is a disputed. There exist many arguments on the exact meaning of new labour. Freeden (1999 p 48) proposes the ‘ideological plan’ of New Labour party is situated at a place amid the three major ideological beliefs of liberalism, conservatism as well as communism although the ideology of the new labour is not at an equal distance from all these beliefs.” Other researchers propose that ‘New’ Labour is just a promotion strategy as well as a product of Alistair Campbell’s public relation advertising for Labour party in efforts to succeed in elections (Fairclough, 2000 p. 14). For example, at the 1997 elections, the Conservative members attempted to persuade electors that the New Labour was just the ‘Old’ Labour veiled and they utilized the motto ‘New Labour, New Danger.’
A few political scholars, remarkably Driver as well as Martell affirmed that the political ideas of the ‘New’ Labour party were just Liberal Conservatism ideology. These scholars contended that ‘New Labour’ was an expansion of Thatcherism in the view that it was not dissimilar from Thatcherite endeavours to merge conventional conservative with classical liberal ideologies. Alluding to the Conservative ideas concerning education, family as well as social welfare, these scholars affirm that ‘New Labour’ is just an advancement of Thatcherism (Finlayson, 2003 p. 146). However, according to Blair, the ‘New Labour’ was a way to terminate the old system and that the new labour possessed the similar principles but utilizing fresh means of attaining these objectives.
In addition to rejecting the Clause 4, the new labour stood for the following ideas: First, Dearlove and Saunders consider ‘New Labour’ as a Liberal Socialism. The New Labour refused its classification as a socialist in substitute with what several people considered as ethical socialism that was mainly inspired by Blair’s individual Christian values as well as the Labour party’s ‘custom of self-help as well as shared support.” Ethical socialism has been described as ‘the moral society where liberty is acquired for all community members via sharing the things people have, in an equivalent communal way for the freedom of everyone. Whereas Thatcher aimed at calming the open market of neo-liberalism using the conventional conservative ideas, Blair endeavoured to calm the open market of neo-liberalism using conventional ethical communist ideas of equality, fraternity, self-advancement as well as ethical righteousness, in endeavours to merge neo-liberal economic ideas with the socialist principles.
Moreover, while the ‘Old Labour’ was founded on the major principles of socialism as well as communism for the development of workers in the country, the ‘New’ Labour endeavoured to restructure the country using very democratic as well as personal duty founded on ‘collaborative self-help.’ They were also guided by the principle of communitarianism where people have the duty to assist themselves as well as the people closely near them within their area (Callaghan, Fielding & Ludlam, 2003 p. 102). Therefore, the new labour underscored the social unity as well as tried to restore the social structure of the society. The ‘New’ Labour tried to preserve the dynamic, inventive as well as useful facets and benefits of a liberal economic system while endeavouring to shun the detrimental and frequently unavoidable social disintegration. A characteristic of this was the move from the ‘Old’ Labour position of giving a big welfare state as a way of making a equal society to ‘New’ Labour’s small welfare state that is founded on the idea of “hand up, not handout” as well as the belief that the society together with an individual ought to survive for mutual gain (Callaghan, Fielding & Ludlam, 2003 p. 121).
The Ethical Socialism ideas were additionally spread by the ‘New’ Labour’s idea of stakeholder capitalism. This idea implies that all people should be incorporated within the community they inhabit through making them feel that they possess a long-standing investment within the community (Callaghan, Fielding & Ludlam, 2003 p. 126). In attaining this idea, the party utilized the principle of the welfare state as well as the general offering of social services, for instance, health as well as education.
Different from the ‘Old’ Labour’s concentration on the welfare together with the wants of workers, the labour groups as well as the underprivileged, ‘New’ Labour concentrated on the consumers’ welfare, in particular of the middle class and a fresh deal for the citizens (Finlayson, 2003 p. 145). Giddens (2013) contends that the ideology of consumer welfare was mainly in reaction to the effect of ‘post-materialism’ which states that once a particular degree of success is attained, the electorates become minimally bothered with economic matters but focus on matters that seek to improve their livelihood (Giddens, 2013 p. 19). The middle class mainly held this view. Therefore, to make the middle-class citizens vote for them, the party had to accommodate them via the idea of consumer welfare. Giddens (2013) further proposes that the New Labour’s move is a manifestation of social class dealignment as well as the weakening of the working class that implied that the new Labour could not anymore depend on a single steady ‘social class bloc’ to elect them (p. 25).
Lastly, the New Labour was mainly refused the Keynesian form of economy that utilized demand management method which was a feature of the ‘Old’ Labour (Fairclough, 2000 p. 10). The ‘New’ Labour also abandoned the earlier idea of state-owned production as well as communal possession substituting these ideas with very open market method together with the privatisation of certain previous government owned services, for instances, the London Underground transportation services.
Conclusion
To claim no distinguishable disparities exist between the ‘Old’ and ‘New’ Labour is naïve as well as insensitive. Similar to the majority of political parties in England, the Labour party from its formation has changed concerning its organization as well as the ideology to mirror transformations within the larger society as well as electors’ desires. The new labour via its principles that contained a few features of Thatcherism reduced the gap between the Left and Right. Conceivably, the main considerable revolution brought by the ‘New’ Labour was the rejection of Clause 4. Further, the social realignment, as well as the weakening of the working social class, made the new labour to move from its communist as well as nationalisation ideas that characterised the old labour party. The ‘New’ Labour does not seek to nationalise but instead favours equal opportunity. Through the ‘New’ Labour, the labour party is now not a sanctuary for the communist workers; the party has changed to accommodate the middle-class.
Reference List
Callaghan, J., Fielding, S. and Ludlam, S., 2003. Interpreting the Labour Party: Approaches to Labour Politics and History. Manchester University Press.
Dearlove, J., and Saunders, P., 2000. Introduction to British politics. Polity.
Finlayson, A., 2003. Making sense of new labour. Lawrence & Wishart.
Fairclough, N., 2000. New Labour, new language?. Psychology Press.
Freeden, M., 1999. The ideology of new labour. The Political Quarterly, 70(1), pp.42-51.
Giddens, A., 2013. The third way: The renewal of social democracy. John Wiley & Sons.
Giddens, A., 2007. Over to you, Mr. Brown: how Labour can win again. Polity.
Martell, L., and Driver, S., 1998. New Labour: Politics After Thatcherism.