Why Blair is standing by Bush now

29 July 2006

Whether Tony Blair decides to step down at the next party conference, or hang in there until 2007, doesn’t much matter when it comes to appraising the much-mocked Blair–Bush relationship.

In a similar vein Blair argued that the EU is not about economics — something Gordon Brown doesn’t quite understand, was the unspoken subtext — but about the position of Britain in the world. Britain can be a world power only if it does two things — engage the EU so completely that it is accepted as a true European, and grapple itself to America with hoops of steel (that’s my theft of Shakespeare, not Blair’s).

The first task is made difficult by Britain’s failure to adopt the euro; the second by the not-so-latent anti-Americanism on the Left of the Labour party, and on the snob-Right of the Tory party. Blair has consistently sought to overcome those obstacles so that Britain might become the bridge between Europe and America; a role that Blair is certain is the only alternative to marginalisation. Andrew Rawnsley in last week’s Observer catalogued Britain’s assets: a permanent seat on the Security Council, an independent nuclear deterrent, the fifth largest economy in the world, a powerful financial centre in London, and seats on the IMF and the World Bank boards. Add easy access to the White House, and Britain becomes a world power, fighting above its weight, as the saying goes.

Blair has always believed that his differences with a very conservative President do not change the fact that he and Bush have world views as similar as those of Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. That team knew that the biggest threat to world peace and to the West was Soviet Russia, and they knew it had to be defeated rather than merely contained. The status quo, they agreed, was unacceptable, no matter what their foreign-policy officials advised. They were right.