The Labour Party Is Staring Into The Abyss

The Labour party, with Tony Blair as their leader, won the
2005 general election gaining a third term of office. However, on
the 27th of June 2007, Tony Blair resigned after much opposition.
Gordon Brown preceded him with a huge wave of enthusiasm but
this was short lived as many people realised that Brown was in fact
incompetent. The Labour party has lost much popularity recently to
the extent that it may loose its majority in parliament.
Throughout the 1970’s Labour appealed to a very small
majority of the population as the ideology and appeal of the party
leant more towards the trade unions and miners for example. Many
Trade Union leaders had great power within the party and they
influenced many decisions. Labour’s power as well as their
influence was limited. The party needed to modernise and that is
what they did. New Labour was formed, their policies appealing
more to the middle class voters than they had done before. As well
as this they did not stand by their ‘die hard’ trade unionist ideas and
showed this through the appointment of an ex-public school leader.
This modernisation was a large factor in the success of Labour in the
1997 election.
For the past 12 years in which the Labour government has
been in power they have succeeded in losing much respect as well
as voters. Their troubles seemed to start with the invasion of
Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. With regards to Iraq, the
reasons for an invasion were widely criticised and are believed to be
false by many. Suggested reasons include the prospect of gaining
Oil as well as to gain approval and improve relations between the
United States. There was also the case before the war of the
bugging of Kofi Annan’s office, the General Secretary of the United
Nations. Many have questioned why we have not intervened in
Zimbabwe while Robert Mugabe continues his terrible rule
considering that we did so with Saddam Husain
Many British people also feel deceived by the promises that
Labour have made and have not kept. For example, they promised
to not introduce tuition fees before the 2001 election, however, they
proceeded to do so after the election. The government has also
failed to act on many social issues for example, the huge increase in
knife crime, bullying, young offenders as well as the call for better
pensions for the elderly and a crackdown against the rising gun
culture. The increase of truancy within schools has also risen every
year since 1997 1,358,206 "unauthorised absences" in 2004-05,
however, this figure does take into account pupils who have been ill
making the information reasonably unreliable. The issue of
immigration has also been within the public eye. Many are critical
of the immigration laws, as it is perceived many of them are taking
‘our’ jobs and our population is considered to be almost too big at
60 million people.
Perhaps the largest reason for the decrease in Labour’s
popularity is the international economic downturn. As the ruling
party, they are blamed for the impact it has had on the country and
thus have lost much support, many choosing to favour David
Cameron instead. The NHS has also suffered much criticism under
the Labour government with long waiting lists and the well-
publicised risk of infection and diseases within NHS hospitals.
Through this, the Labour party has lost support, jeopardising its
hopes for a victory in the May 2010 general election.
From the start of the party’s formation in the 1920’s it has
always been thoroughly supportive of the working classes, hence
the party’s title and its left wing position. Essentially the party grew
out of the Trade Union movement which demanded more power for
workers and more rights for those workers i.e. it aimed to put forth
the voice of the working classes. In 1924 the Labour party was
rewarded with power in government under Ramsay MacDonald as it
formed a coalition with the Liberal party. The foundations therefore
of the Labour party are from the working class, not necessarily the
middle nor upper. Recently, however, the Labour party has gained
much support from the middle class with ‘New Labour’. However, in
gaining appeal with the middle classes, Labour therefore loosing
some of the votes on which the key ideals of the party is based.
The old Labour party used to give total support to the working
classes and greatly supported the trade unions. Now, the party is
arguing with the trade unions and almost disfavouring them. A
party cannot survive without the foundations on which it was built.
We can see therefore that the party is loosing support from the
foundations of its ideology, however, will the support it has gained
from the middle classes be able to help the party to win the next
general election? The answer is ‘no’ due to the fact that much of
the middle class Labour vote is being lost in favour of the
Conservative party. The is probably because of the clear failures of
Labour and the unpopularity which the press have encouraged.
In conclusion, the Labour party is starring into the abyss. This
is because the party has lost much of the support that formed its
foundations. Without a good foundation of voters the party may
plummet from power in the election having also lost many of its
middle class voters. The question is can Labour change again as it
did in the 1990’s in order to gain more voters, for now though, the
party is starring into the abyss.