A rchive Date
[ 17-03-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Britain ]
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[http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2003/03/16/44527-cp.html
Blair's toughest week looms
By KEVIN WARD
Sun, March 16, 2003
LONDON (CP) - If war against Iraq turns out to be the undoing of Prime Minister Tony Blair as leader of the Labour party, events this week may be traced by historians as the key moments in his downfall. With two cabinet ministers ready to quit and scores of Blair's own MPs promising to vote against him if he proposes in the House of Commons going to war against Iraq without the backing of the United Nations, Blair is in the middle of the most difficult period of his leadership.
Six months ago, it would have been seen as lunacy to suggest that Blair, arguably Labour's most successful modern leader, would soon be fighting for his political life. But now the question about Blair's future is a legitimate one as the UN was given one last chance on Sunday by the United States, Britain and Spain to issue an ultimatum calling for the use of force if Iraq doesn't disarm.
In a month of damaging political developments for Blair, one of the most withering attacks he has faced came from one of his own cabinet ministers, a sign of just how widespread the opposition to him is inside his party. In announcing she would resign from cabinet if Britain declares war without UN sanction, Clare Short described Blair as a man who was risking world stability, his own government and his political future.
"I'm afraid that I think the whole atmosphere of the current situation is deeply reckless - reckless for the world, reckless for the undermining of the UN in this disorderly world . . . reckless with our government, reckless with his own future, position and place in history," she said.
There was widespread media speculation on Sunday that Robin Cook, the government's leader in the Commons, could join Short in walking out of cabinet over Iraq. In the short term Blair's position is widely regarded as safe, but his popularity is slipping in the polls and there are fears that if war against Iraq wasn't successful, his leadership would be in peril.
Although there has been a threat in the Labour party over the last week to hold a leadership review, the rebels behind that movement are described as the usual suspects by Blair loyalists. "I have spoken to a number on the hard left who believe that it has been a tactical mistake to personalize the issue," Labour MP Martin Salter told the Guardian newspaper. "Just because we don't agree with the prime minister on this, it doesn't mean we should get rid of him."
Still, the derision levelled at Blair is rising.
The tabloid Daily Mirror, a traditional Labour party backer, published a photograph of a satanic-looking Blair on Friday with the headline "Prime Monster?" plastered across his forehead. "Drag us into this war without the UN, Tony, and that's how history will judge you," the paper warned. "For God's sake, man, don't do it."
And many of his old critics in the party have upped the rhetoric over what they see as his blind support for U.S. President George W. Bush's administration.
"He is roving ambassador to the right-wing, born-again, Bible-belting fundamentalist crew which first turned Texas into the toxic execution chamber of the western world," Labour MP George Galloway wrote in the latest issue of The Spectator magazine. "History will indeed judge Mr. Blair for his decisively important appeasement of this scurvy crew; and not kindly."
The test of Blair's strength in his party could come this week if the Commons debates and votes on some sort of war resolution.
The last time Blair tested Parliament's mood on Iraq, almost a third of Labour MPs voted against his handling of the crisis. Bolstered by support from the Conservative party, Blair isn't believed to be in any danger of losing a vote in the House, but if he was to lose more support in his own party, it would be a significant blow.
Diane Abbott, secretary of the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs, has predicted Blair will be in for a rough ride from his own backbenches if the Commons votes again. "So where does Tony Blair go from here?" she asked in the group's newsletter after the last vote three weeks ago.
"It would appear that in terms of his relationship with the parliamentary Labour party over this war he has nowhere to go but down. Each vote on the war is likely to increase the number of rebels or abstentions."
A BBC television poll of Labour MPs released Sunday suggested about half of Blair's caucus could vote against the government over war with Iraq if they get the chance in the House. "Many of us were with the strategy until a few weeks ago," said Labour rebel Graham Allen, who argued weapons inspectors should be given more time to disarm Iraq.
"Do we need to go to war next week on George W. Bush's timetable?" he asked. "This is exactly the wrong way to go."
But Foreign Secretary Jack Straw argued that public opinion is swinging to Blair based on discussions he had this weekend with his constituents in Blackburn. "There has been a significant shift of public opinion by way of the government," he told the BBC on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Labour party chairman John Reid has described the debate over Blair's future as an unnecessary distraction.
"Why don't we spend our time discussing in the party what is the really important issue, which is not getting rid of Tony Blair. It is getting rid of the weapons of mass destruction of Saddam Hussein."
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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