“Very soon, the real battle in
British politics will begin,”
Conservative Party Leader, David
Cameron, told a crowd in Tooting, a
London
neighborhood, on June 18.
“Us
against Gordon Brown,” he said.
Cameron's “soon” portends to former
Great Britain Prime Minister Tony
Blair relinquishing his power to new
Labour Party Leader and good bloke,
Gordon Brown, on June 27. After a
decade in the Prime Minister slot,
Blair turned over leadership to
Brown who thumped all his
competitors in Labour Party
referendums. Brown became the
official leader of the Labour party
on June 24.
Blair's tenure as Prime Minister
witnessed monumental shifts in
domestic policy and international
diplomacy. Elected as Prime Minister
in 1997, Blair ended 18 years of
Conservative Party rule, as the
Labour Party garnered 43 percent of
the national vote that year. Blair
worked his way up the parliamentary
ladder system, holding a plethora of
positions.
His
political incipience began after his
graduation from
Oxford
in 1975. He represented Sedgefield
as a Member of Parliament since he
joined the Labour Party in 1983,
after noticing a Labour Party
vacancy within the district. He also
held positions as “First Lord of the
Treasury” and “Minister for Foreign
Service.” As Prime Minister, Blair
was a member for the Privy Council
of the United Kingdom alongside his
Labour Party leadership. He held the
longest tenure for a Labour Party
Prime Minister.
“I
think it will go down as he will be
regarded as a great Prime Minister,”
British Consul-General from San
Francisco, Martin Uden, told The
European Weekly Online. “Anyone
who can stay in power for ten years
fully deserves that accolade.”
Uden's primary task as a
Consul-General to
Britain
concerns facilitating foreign
investment into the United Kingdom,
but one of his auxiliary roles
includes maintaining knowledge
pertaining to British politics. Uden
mentioned that Blair gave more
independence to legislatures in
Wales and Scotland to advance their
own local agendas. He also said
Blair was known
for helping the diplomatic process
in Northern Ireland achieve peace
and stable negotiations. Blair also
helped increase EU membership and
advance the ideals of the Kyoto
Protocols.
However, as Blair's popularity waned
in the later years of his
leadership, he indelibly tarnish
fragments of his legacy,
particularly going against the
popular will of the British public,
and abetting in the invasion of Iraq
with the United States. The Daily
Telegraph conducted a poll in 2006
where only 26 percent of the British
public approved of him personally.
“Tony's going, and the phony war
will be over,” Cameron said during
his speech.
Blair officially gave his
resignation from the pulpit in
Sedgefield on May 10 at the Trimdor
Labour Club. There was “revolt in
Labour Party itself,” according to
Uden. The Labour Party gave a
substantial amount of time to go
through the process of eventually
choosing Brown. Although Blair's
opposition never mustered enough
negative sentiment to lodge a no
confidence vote, he regularly took
heat in the House of Commons and
from members inside the Labour
Party.
“He
[Blair] can look back on some very
solid achievements,” Uden said.
“The British people will have a
clear choice. A choice between two
different visions of society. A
choice between two different
approaches to running the country.
And a choice between the old and new
politics,” Cameron said.
Blair bequeathed to Brown the highly
dynamic, macroeconomic
London
–– the world's best city for
commerce according to Master Card
Worldwide. Uden attributes English
commerce success to a colonial
history of “openness.” This open
attitude correlates to extensive
foreign investment in the U.K., but
Uden did mention one danger from
foreign investment, which is that in
the end, “foreign investors will be
repatriating their profits.”
As
political winds swept officials in
new directions, Blair will bluster
into a special envoy position to the
Middle East, focusing on the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He
will work with officials from EU and
the U.S.
As
for Uden, he is set to become an
ambassador later this year in
October. He could not divulge any
specific details about his new post.
It's a “fulfillment of a dream,”
according to Uden.
However Gordon Brown’s future
remains a mystery.
