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Just curious what the British are doing to get Tony Blair out of office. He made it damn easy for America. I would have to say a large part of the blame could rest on his shoulders.
Quick primer for those unfamiliar with how parliamentary democracy functions in the UK. There is no direct vote for the leader of a political party. The leadership is, along with policies, local government and various other considerations, supposed to be taken into account when you cast your vote for the person you want to represent your constituency, and thus yourself.
Got that? There is no way to vote directly for a Presidential-style leader. You elect your parliamentary representative, not the leader. This is because the Prime Minister is precisely that - the head of a cabinet of a party with a majority delivered by popular vote. Our head of state is not elected, but a hereditary monarch.
With me so far? Excellent. Now, one way to exert pressure on the party is to make it clear that a key factor preventing you from voting, or for voting New Labour (or, if you prefer, the Labour Party), is the leadership. At that point, it becomes in the best interests of the parliamentary representatives to get rid of the leader and replace him or her with a leader more likely to persuade people to cast their vote for the party's parliamentary representative. This happened with Margaret Thatcher, who lost the support of the people, leading to a leadership contest in which it was made clear that the party no longer had faith in her ability to keep them in jobs come the next election.
So, how do you make that clear to your representatives? You go on massive demonstrations, you write to your MP, you phone to cancel your membership of the Labour Party, explaining precisely why and what would make you rejoin... in general, you communicate that Blair has become a vote-loser rather than a vote-winner.
On the down side, this system does not allow the people to choose their Prime Minister directly, as one does a President (electoral college notwithstanding). On the up side, it means that the leadership of the party can be changed even when there is not a general election...
Bear in mind, however, that there is no electable party in the UK with anti-war leadership per se, although Michael Howard has now cast doubt on whether he would have voted for the war if he had known then what he knows now. Having said which, Michael Howard is a nutterh.
To address the second apotropaism, it seems to me unlikely that Blair, ultimately, had the power to enable or prevent the US invasion of Iraq that Number Nun seems to imagine. It is deeply embarrassing that he colluded in the supply of either incorrect or maliciously false information that impacted the parliamentary vote on whether or not the UK should go to war itself, and also possibly the US decision to go into Iraq, and I imagine he is as hacked off as you are that, after he went to all the trouble of trying to negotiate a means by which the operation could proceed with UN authority, Bush went in without, probably due to a misunderstanding of how to handle France. However, Bush and co. were gung-ho to invade Iraq *anyway*. It's deeply unfortunate that the British parliament backed the wrong horse on this one, but to believe that the UK's position was ultimately the deciding factor for Bush on whether or not to invade Iraq gives our humble island a degree of power it has not enjoyed for a long time. |
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