Tony Blair made his name in British politics as the father of “third way” politics, steering between the extremes. And he is still hewing to that path.
Last week he headlined a conference in London on the need for compromise and cooperation, and for hard policy spadework to put those values into practice, if centrist leaders are to claw back voters from ideologues and populists.
Why We Wrote This
Pragmatic cooperation is currently out of political fashion even in the oldest of democracies; but without it, governments will struggle to address the key challenges of our time.
That’s a message with relevance to the United States, Europe, and Israel, just for starters. In all those places, gladiatorial partisan politics are corroding democracies just when the issues that governments are facing are too complex and too fraught to be resolved by slogans.
The outlook is not bright. U.S. President Joe Biden is struggling to make his bipartisan approach stick in the United States; French President Emmanuel Macron has lost his parliamentary majority and will have to fight for legislation bill by bill; British opposition leader Keir Starmer, an ally of Mr. Blair’s, has lacked the opportunity to develop a policy agenda; and in Israel, a varied ruling coalition has just lost its majority in parliament.
They may all be in trouble, but that does not mean that the principles they stand for are not essential to dealing with the long-term threats that democracies face.
London
It was hard to escape the impression of an aging rock star returning for one last gig – appropriate, in a way, since the headline act, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, was something of a wannabe guitarist in his youth.
But the conference Mr. Blair convened in London last week was about politics, not pop music.
Once the poster boy for “third way” politics, steering between the extremes, he is arguing that there is a renewed need for those in the center ground of politics to claw back voter affection from populists and ideologues on both left and right.
Why We Wrote This
Pragmatic cooperation is currently out of political fashion even in the oldest of democracies; but without it, governments will struggle to address the key challenges of our time.
His message is rooted in a mix of political values – notably cooperation and compromise – and a hard-nosed acceptance of the policy spadework it will take to put those values into practice.
And it’s a message relevant to the future of democratic governance in Britain and beyond: most urgently in the United States, but also in European countries and in America’s major Middle East ally, Israel.
