................................................................................ ON THE RECORD TONY BLAIR INTV RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE 17.1.93 ................................................................................ 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.