Currently the factionalism centers on who will succeed Anthony Blair as party leader, and when. Earlier this month, a number of junior government ministers resigned, leaking a statement to the media that called on Blair to go. There was speculation in the media that Gordon Brown, now Chancellor of the Exchequer and front-runner to succeed Blair, had orchestrated an attempted “coup.”

This struggle in the social-democratic party that has governed for a decade is about the future of the “New Labour project” that Blair has led, which has made the Labour Party more like imperialist bourgeois parties such as the Democrats in the United States.

In May, in a wide-ranging “cabinet reshuffle” the prime minister fired Home Secretary Charles Clarke; demoted foreign secretary Jack Straw; and stripped the deputy prime minister, John Prescott, of a number of his powers. Bourgeois commentators suggested that the reshuffle was indirectly connected to the positioning of candidates for the leadership succession.

Now, it has been widely reported that forces within the government most closely associated with the prime minister are seeking to stand a candidate against Brown when the leadership election finally takes place. Blair has yet to publicly endorse Brown despite his private agreement to do so years ago. This agreement, widely known here as “The Deal,” is the subject of many newspaper articles and a major TV drama. Blair, many pundits and politicians argue, has reneged on the deal to keep himself at the helm, thwarting Brown’s ambitions.

But the intensity of the factional struggle involving major forces in the ruling class cannot be explained away by the naked ambition of two capitalist politicians, as strong as that may be.

Nor is it to be found in any deep political differences between Blair and Brown. The two have been in agreement on all of the government’s decisive policies. Brown is strongly pro-Washington and has supported Blair’s foreign policy of enhancing London’s “special relationship” with its U.S. ally, a course that is the firm position of the dominant sections of the British ruling class. An article by Martin Wolf in the September 18 issue of the Financial Times said that “the chancellor of the exchequer has had a bigger impact on the condition of Britain than the prime minister. New Britain is more Gordon Brown’s than Tony Blair’s.”

The concern of Blair and his allies is whether Brown, and those around him, can be relied on to continue advancing the New Labour project.  
 
Blair and New Labour
Since its founding at the beginning of the 20th century, the Labour Party has had a capitalist program. Its imperialist character has undergone no fundamental change for nine decades. It has, however, converged in its “political character and functioning with imperialist bourgeois parties such as the Democratic Party in the United States,” as a feature article, titled “Their Transformation and Ours,” in issue 12 of the Marxist magazine New International put it, referring to other “Social Democratic,” “Socialist,” or “Labor” parties. New Labour, like its counterparts in Europe and elsewhere, has sought to maintain an electoral base in the working class while expanding support in the middle classes and organizing to weaken institutional controls—in fact or in form—by the trade union movement over its policies and course.

In 1999, Blair told the Trades Union Congress not to expect any “special favors” from the government. “In many ways we have a better, clearer relationship than ever before between trade unions and Labour,” he said. “You run the unions. We run the government. We will never confuse the two again.”

Blair also sought to end the division between Labour and the Liberal Democrats. He appointed as aides people who had previously split from Labour and aligned themselves with the Liberals. He gave two Liberal Democrats seats in a cabinet committee in his first government. And he engaged in informal electoral pacts with leaders of the Liberals.

Behind the move by Blair loyalists to stop Brown lies their concern that, the overall political agreement by the chancellor of the exchequer with the prime minister notwithstanding, Brown’s allies would act as a block to advancing the New Labour project. Writing in the Financial Times September 12, Philip Stephens said that Brown heads “a faction dominated in the House of Commons by those of an Old Labour disposition.”

This concern is sharpened by the continued strength of Old Labour in “devolved” Scotland, which has gained a measure of autonomy from London. Gordon Brown is a Scot and a member of parliament (MP) for the Scottish constituency of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath.

Some bourgeois commentators see this as a potential obstacle to a Brown government effectively tackling the continuing lag of UK productivity behind London’s competitors in France, Germany, and the United States. They also question whether such a government is best equipped to move forward in eroding the social wage. The Financial Times comment and analysis editor, Brian Groom, for example, recently opined, “Genuine long-term success, however, may require a leader who is more radical than Mr. Blair rather than less, particularly on reform of public services such as health and education. Whether Mr. Brown has the stomach for that is not yet clear.”  
 
Cameron: Blairism without Blair
The concern in Labour circles has been heightened by the emergence last year of David Cameron as leader of the Conservative Party. For those looking to build on the successes of the Blair government for the rulers, Cameron’s “Blairism without Blair” image is a tempting alternative to the uncertainty surrounding Brown. Cameron’s standing in the polls continues to rise, putting pressure on Labour MPs. As Pete Riddell put it recently in the Times, “If Labour deserts Blairism, then it will be handing the initiative to David Cameron and the Tories.”

Seeking to counter this concern, Brown emphasized his New Labour credentials in his keynote speech to the Labour Party conference. “New Labour will never retreat, but positively entrench our position in the center ground—in the mainstream as the party of reform,” he said.

What is being played out is the death agony of the old Labour Party. The recent events indicate that, whoever succeeds Anthony Blair, the factional strife in the ruling class will continue.  
 
 
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