British Elections

British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced today that he will ask the Queen to hold parliamentary elections on May 5th. This will be an extraordinary election, the first time Tony Blair's Labour Party will face the polls after its unpopular decision to take the UK to war in Iraq.

Traditionally the Labour Party has been the "left" in British politics, corresponding to the Democratic party in the US, and the Conservative Party has been the "right", corresponding to the Republican party in the US. As the Iraq war illustrates, however, the Labour party has moved right in recent years becoming more centrist than anything else. The space on the left is now being occupied by the Liberal Democrats, a free-market, pro-environment, pro-civil liberties party led by the Scottish Charles Kennedy. Many on the left who are disaffected with Labour's drift to the right are thinking about voting LibDem this time around.

Although Labour is almost guaranteed to win the election,(due to the perverse voting system Britain uses) the real fight is for second place. If the LibDems can garner enough support they may overtake the Conservatives as the primary opposition party to Labour. The Labour party has unfortunately left its roots as the defender of workers and enemy to imperialism. It now has made the dangerous mistake of sending British soldiers to Iraq and has bungled badly on terrorism where its scaremongering and blatant disrespect for civil liberties show that it is a party badly in need of a kicking. The United Kingdom has no written constitution to guarantee the rights of individuals, as we do in the United States. Of the three parties going to the polls on May 5th only the Liberal Democrats oppose the Labour government's efforts to undermine civil liberties in the name of fighting terrorism. For this reason alone, they deserve the support of progressives, liberals, and Democrats on this side of the Atlantic.


There is another important reason why the LibDems should receive our support. The Liberal Democrats overtaking the Conservatives may permanently shift British politics to the Left, following a trend around the globe where several important nations, Brazil, Argentina, Spain, Canada, and Mexico have elected strong left-wing governments with very weak Conservative opposition. Indeed in many nations conservatism itself is dying. Right wing parties in most European nations now have positions that correspond to the Democrats' here in the US, and even then they are often in the minority. In Latin America the only right wing leader of note oversees a nation undergoing a civil war. In Asia, both Taiwan and South Korea have recently ousted their rightist authoritarian parties that governed them in the decades of dictatorship. In the developed world, only Australia and the United States seem to have truly Conservative governments, and Australia's is almost wholly supported by the Australian economy which has grown at an unbelievably fast rate in recent years.

Supporting the Liberal Democrats in this election will force the Labour government to take its commitment to liberal ideals seriously, and may spell the end for the party of harsh conservatism and Margaret Thatcher. Current polls have Tony Blair's Labour Party leading with 37% of the vote, Michael Howard's Conservatives trailing narrowly at 34%, and Charles Kennedy's Liberal Democrats behind with 21 % (with smaller parties totaling 8%). Although this looks bad for Labour, because of the way Britian elects its MP's, Labour is likely to retain a substantial majority despite coming almost even in the polls. The conventional wisdom is that the Liberal Democrats will rise to the polls after the start of the official campaign season, becasue their charismatic leader shines in the spotlight. Let's hope that happens.