Authors: Tom Bower
Many of the new ministers, Robin Butler assumed, would want to
discuss their responsibilities at the first Cabinet meeting. To restore good relations with Blair, he diligently offered a draft agenda. The reply was jolting. ‘I’ve decided to make the Bank of England independent,’ Blair revealed.
‘The Cabinet will want to discuss and decide that,’ replied Butler.
‘Oh, they won’t mind,’ said Blair. ‘We’ll ring round and they’ll agree.’
‘It was my idea,’ he would later write. ‘I kept control of the economy but was pleased to let Brown take the credit.’
Butler was surprised that a tradition established three hundred years earlier was being jettisoned so casually. Since Robert Walpole became Britain’s first prime minister in 1721, his successors had abided by the custom that the Cabinet would be consulted on major decisions. In Blair’s vision, all traditions needed to be re-justified in order to survive. Collective government, ranking the prime minister as first among equals, reflected weakness. With presidential powers, he would govern with a handful of like-minded friends who, united by ambition and a desire for secrecy, would meet in his small office. ‘My core staff’, wrote Blair, ‘were knitted together like a regiment, imbued with a common purpose and with a camaraderie that had a spirit of steel running through it.’ Members of the Cabinet were not included. In addition to Powell and Campbell, there was Anji Hunter, his confidante since his teens, who acted as gatekeeper, his pollster Philip Gould and Peter Mandelson, the political genius who invented New Labour and fashioned Blair’s image. During those early days, few outsiders could accurately measure Blair’s disdain for the Labour Party members, especially those appointed as ministers. Their appointment was secured on condition that his orders were unquestioningly obeyed.
Although before the weekly meetings Cabinet ministers would receive the traditional agenda covering parliamentary, foreign and home affairs, Blair continued to ignore Butler’s drafts. Powell took over that task, thus denying any dissidents an opportunity to launch complaints. The discipline Blair had imposed since becoming party leader would continue in government. He was a man in a hurry, and Cabinet
meetings would be limited to forty minutes, during which he would address his government, expecting complete loyalty. That, he mistakenly assumed, had been Margaret Thatcher’s method.
The change in approach surprised other leading civil servants besides Butler – Brian Bender, for instance, the senior Cabinet Office official responsible for Europe. In a conversation with Robin Cook after the new foreign secretary’s meeting with Blair three days after the election, Bender listened to an unusual complaint.
‘I’m chairing the committee about joining the euro but no one has given me the key documents,’ said Cook.
‘Well, I’ll see what I can do in the future,’ replied Bender.
Bender approached Jonathan Powell and asked, ‘Will the single currency be discussed in the first Cabinet?’
‘Don’t worry about that,’ replied Powell with noticeable impatience. ‘We’ll tell them what the line is.’
Perplexed, Bender asked Peter Mandelson how the new prime minister would operate before making major decisions. ‘You’ll find’, replied the minister without portfolio, ‘that he will helicopter in and then focus.’
Still uncertain, Bender addressed Blair directly. ‘I assume you will want to implement the manifesto pledges?’
‘Don’t feel spellbound by every word we used,’ came the reply, implying that the manifesto should be ignored.
‘Blair doesn’t trust anyone,’ Bender silently concluded.
On 8 May, as twenty-one ministers arrived in Downing Street for their first Cabinet meeting, Blair asked Butler, ‘What do people call each other in the Cabinet?’
‘The Conservatives were formal,’ replied Butler, ‘but Labour governments have used first names.’
‘Call me Tony,’ Blair told his ministers, with a flash of the familiar smile. His audience was rapt. Thanks to his emotional appeal, their leader had delivered an unimaginable 179-seat majority in the Commons. Even his critics in the room acknowledged their leader’s
talent as a communicator who gave the impression of enjoying everyone’s company.
Blair started as he intended to continue: the chief executive imposing his will on former lawyers, TV producers, councillors and teachers with no experience of managing large organisations. ‘The Bank of England will be made independent,’ he announced. There were no comments. Everyone knew the form from their years in opposition: decisions were presented and voicing an opinion would not be looked on kindly. Next, Blair spoke about ‘the line to take’, focusing on how policies should be presented.
During the election campaign, simple phrases had spread Blair’s promise to Britain: ‘the future not the past’; ‘the many and not the few’; ‘duty to others’; and ‘Britain deserves better’. He described his country as a community working together in ‘a fair society’. His vision for Britain promised ‘progressive’ politics to ‘modernise the nation’. The campaign song, ‘Things Can Only Get Better’, played over captions promising renewal, recovery and change, had energised voters to believe Blair’s vision to ‘end the crisis of faith’ because, under New Labour, ‘we will be a beacon to the world if people unite behind our mission to modernise our country’. And, finally, ‘The future then, not the past.’
His ministers embraced every word. Even the left-wing Clare Short, responsible for international development, believed his declaration that ‘The Britain of the elite is over. The new Britain is a meritocracy.’ In the very first Cabinet meeting, she offered to give up her official car. ‘You can keep it, Clare,’ Blair said soothingly.
Sitting against the wall, Alastair Campbell epitomised the enigma of Tony Blair. The trusted propagandist had been employed as a political writer on Robert Maxwell’s
Daily Mirror.
Without complaint, he had ignored journalism’s duty towards objectivity and loyally served the infamous fraudster until Maxwell’s sudden death. In serving Blair, similar nuances had been embraced to establish New Labour as the natural party of government. Blurring the distinction between left and right had been one reason for the party’s landslide victory. In a pre-election
film, Blair had offered a ‘different type of politics rooted in values and convictions but not quite left or right’, adding with sincerity, ‘I will not promise anything I can’t deliver.’
Much of that message had been crafted by Campbell and was endorsed by Blair’s belief that ‘communication is fifty per cent of the battle in the information age’. Ensuring that Labour supporters in the media repeated the message had paved the way to victory. The most important ally had been John Birt, the BBC’s director general, who had contributed money to Blair’s campaign to become party leader while still employed by the corporation.
Like Jonathan Powell, Campbell had been given special powers by an order-in-council and had taken control of the government’s media officials. Immediately, he dominated the Cabinet room. The weak feared his wrath, while the strong basked in his admiration. Campbell’s skulduggery complemented Blair’s apparent purity. Quite simply, he was indispensable to Blair’s success.
His one rival as the dominant force in the new administration (besides Blair himself) was Peter Mandelson. Ever since Blair had become the party’s leader, together the three men had focused on winning the upcoming election. During the three years after 1994, Blair was to rewrite Labour’s constitution and utter slogans in verbless tirades aimed at crushing the Tories: ‘New Labour. New Britain. The party renewed. The country reborn.’ The language, the spectacle and the tactics had awakened the imagination of the electorate, but beyond the words there had been limited preparation in terms of realising Blair’s ambitions. Now it was time for the hard work to begin.
One obstacle, the cabal knew, would be John Prescott, the obdurate representative of traditional Labour, a man burdened by a chip on his shoulder. To keep him onside, Blair had acceded to his demand to be both deputy prime minister and the supremo of a massive department embracing the environment, the regions and transport. The former waiter, Blair anticipated, would not interfere in running the government.
Blair ended his homily in the Cabinet room with a smile. Shortly after, he summoned Butler and furiously denounced the two ministers who had raised questions. ‘From now on’, he ordered, ‘I want to know in advance about anything they want to bring up.’
The second Cabinet meeting lasted just thirty-five minutes.
After eighteen years in opposition, there was a long list of revisions that did not require Downing Street’s approval. The most controversial would become immigration.
The last Commons clash on this issue had been fought over Michael Howard’s bill in 1996. Alarmed by the increase in the number of foreigners claiming asylum in Britain, the Tories had proposed a list of restrictions that Jack Straw had vigorously opposed.
Britain had been a historic safe haven for those escaping persecution. Until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, many fleeing the Soviet Union and other East European dictatorships had been welcomed. Among the 4,000 refugees arriving every year were politicians and artists from Africa and South America. Their applications automatically involved MI5, and were governed by the Geneva international convention signed in 1951. Asylum would be awarded only to those able to prove persecution by their government, and there was no legal guarantee such requests would be granted.
By 1995, that approach had changed. Third World economic migrants were entering Britain as tourists and then, after their six-month visas expired, claiming asylum. That year, applications rose to 43,000. Pertinently, the number of asylum-seekers in the rest of Europe had fallen dramatically because borders were being tightened. ‘Britain was no longer a haven but a honey pot,’ declared Howard. Unlike in other European countries, successful applicants were given generous cash benefits, subsidised housing and free health care. Home Office
officials estimated that in 1995 over £200 million was paid out in benefits and only 5 per cent of those claiming asylum were genuine refugees. In Howard’s opinion, the Home Office was losing control. Dilatory judges were allowing skilful lawyers to exploit a crumbling system. If the law were not changed, another 75,000 foreigners would claim asylum within the year.
To stop the racket, Howard’s bill made it illegal to employ unrecognised asylum-seekers, withdrew benefits from those who failed to apply properly and stipulated procedures to remove bogus applicants as swiftly as possible. He also created a ‘white list’ naming those countries recognised as tyrannies whose nationals could genuinely be seeking asylum, and a ‘safe’ list whose nationals should have no reason to fear for their lives. Applications for asylum by nationals from the ‘safe’ countries would be automatically denied. Following the announcement of the bill, the number arriving in Britain dropped from 43,000 to 29,000 during 1996. Immigration from the Indian subcontinent also fell.
At first, Blair said nothing about the bill. He believed that immigration was good for the economy. Beyond that, he was oblivious to potential political problems arising from immigration or bogus asylum-seekers. As he would subsequently write, ‘We had come to power with a fairly traditional but complacent view of immigration and asylum.’ But Straw was genuinely angry. Free to oppose Howard in the Commons, he described the home secretary’s focus on the number of immigrants as ‘racist’. He was supported by Gerald Kaufman, an acerbic Labour MP, who characterised the legislation as ‘vicious’. Blair was eventually forced into making a public comment, damning Howard for playing the immigration card as a sop to his party and the electorate.
A succession of human-interest stories now strengthened the Labour case, in particular one concerning a group of failed Algerian asylum-seekers on hunger strike in Rochester prison in protest at their deportation orders. Tim Walker and other Home Office officials believed that Howard was prepared to let them die. His nonchalance was widely criticised.
A second victim of the bill who received considerable publicity was Viraj Mendis, a Sri Lankan who was pulled out of a church and deported. A third was a family of Nigerians destined for deportation who were seeking sanctuary in a church in Stoke Newington.
‘We are seen as a soft touch,’ said Howard defensively. ‘My bill will prevent the abuse of the law.’
‘Wicked,’ retorted Straw. Not granting asylum to the Nigerians, he went on, was racist because Nigerians needed visas to enter Britain while Americans didn’t. According to Straw, all asylum-seekers arriving in Britain were genuinely fleeing from oppression and torture. Bogus claimants were products of Tory racism. He pledged to repeal Howard’s ‘arbitrary and unfair’ law. Labour’s manifesto, he predicted, would also include legislation to promote racial equality among those employed in the public sector.
Straw’s damnation of Howard’s bill resonated among those directly affected. In the dying months of a discredited Conservative government, the immigrant communities assumed that Straw would be the next home secretary and pinpointed one particular pledge in the Labour manifesto. At Straw’s behest, the party promised to remove the ‘primary purpose rule’ – a regulation enshrined by the Home Office to prevent bogus marriages being used to enter Britain. The targets were naturalised immigrants from India and Pakistan living in Britain who sought to marry citizens living in the subcontinent and bring them back to Britain. That was forbidden unless they could prove that the primary purpose was genuinely to marry and not a ruse to enable a non-resident to live in the UK. For years, the law had kept out many suspect fiancés and members of the immigrants’ extended families.
Straw had a special interest in the rule. Many of his constituents in Blackburn originated from the subcontinent, and they were pleading for the right to be united with their wives and family – real or acquired – in Britain. Straw wrote a pamphlet called ‘Firmer, Faster, Fairer’ that praised tolerance and reflected his belief in the benefits of immigration, and he promised to repeal the 1996 Immigration Act and abolish the
primary purpose rule. Blair agreed with Straw that ‘the rule is a mistake and should be removed’.
‘Because I represent Blackburn’, Straw told Tim Walker, ‘and have been the shadow Home Office minister for many years, I know a great deal about immigration and asylum.’ The primary purpose rule, he ordered, was to be abandoned immediately. ‘There will be about 10,000 immigrants a year coming from India and Pakistan,’ he predicted with certainty. ‘I don’t like letting illiterates from the subcontinent into Britain,’ he added, ‘but people have the right to choose their wives.’ In passing, he also mentioned that ‘Tony’s not interested in immigration. He wants the manifesto commitment quickly implemented.’
Mike O’Brien, the junior minister responsible for immigration, silently noted that ‘Straw’s also not interested in asylum.’
One official sought to persuade the home secretary that he misunderstood marriage in the subcontinent. ‘Marriage in India’, she told him, ‘is an important part of the economy. Families are prepared to pay large sums to arrange for their daughters to enter Britain, not least so they can follow.’ She added that in Somalia the word ‘brother’ had a different definition to that in Britain. Straw was dismissive and, although he would never approve of any proposed legal definition of a dependant or a family, he waved her advice aside. Immigration, he told officials, was not a problem and was certainly not a priority.
Taking his lead from Straw, Richard Wilson had no interest in immigration. His attitude was reinforced by the absence of any policy directive from Robin Butler. ‘Blair’, observed Butler, ‘never discussed immigration. I doubt if he ever thought about it.’ It was clear that Straw’s proposals had barely been discussed with his leader. Accordingly, the primary purpose rule was abolished and more immigrants from the subcontinent were made eligible to enter Britain. While Labour would formally retain Britain’s border controls with Europe, their enforcement was relaxed.
In that halcyon year, the consequences did not materialise: Straw had inherited the legacy of Howard’s restrictions. The number of
asylum-seekers arriving in Britain began to fall in 1997 from 32,500 towards 20,000 in 1999; immigrants from non-EU countries remained static at about 150,000. After deducting the number of Britons emigrating, ‘net’ migration was under 100,000. Straw also inherited an unmentioned difficulty: the 52,000 applications for asylum that were piled up, unprocessed, at the IND’s headquarters in Croydon.
Within the Home Office, the immigration department was an unloved backwater where some 5,000 civil servants were charged with scrutinising bulging files, highlighting discrepancies. In a forbidding atmosphere, newly appointed officials duly noted that most applications were riddled with lies. Their work rarely led to solutions but invariably to appeals. ‘Our task is often hopeless,’ Walker told Straw during his first visit to the centre. ‘Their efforts to get in are always greater than our efforts to keep them out.’ Straw was told that the IND’s task could be relieved only if the number of applicants fell or the conditions of entry were modified.
He agreed. Officials were told to rewrite Howard’s restrictive index of approved nations. ‘Increase the countries on the list,’ Straw ordered. Asylum was to be granted to beleaguered Afghans, Nigerians and others. The unusually legalistic home secretary also asked officials to redefine ‘persecution’. Among those to be granted asylum were gays fleeing maltreatment in Africa and Roma suffering in Europe.
By the end of May, human-rights activists recognised that the 1996 Act had been swept aside. One lawyer even challenged the state’s right to withhold benefits from asylum-seekers who had, as required by the Act, failed to register their claim immediately, citing a clause in the 1948 Assistance Act that guaranteed the state’s duty of care towards the poor. Judge Andrew Collins, sympathetic towards Labour’s intentions, agreed that the 1948 act neutralised Howard’s prohibitions. Normally, the Home Office would have appealed the judge’s decision, but officials assumed that Blair wanted all immigrants, including suspect asylum-seekers, to be treated generously. Accordingly, even failed applicants became entitled to welfare benefits.
In 2011, Blair would write, ‘Law and order – and to an extent immigration – were to me utterly mainstream and vital points of what the government was about.’ In reality, Downing Street’s directive to ministers was not to mention immigration. Blair was just not interested in the subject.
Any doubts about that message were removed by the government’s announcement soon after the election that it would introduce a human-rights bill, under which suspect asylum-seekers would be guaranteed the right to have their cases heard by a judge in Britain rather than a European judge in Strasbourg. The change was interpreted across the world as the beginning of a new tolerance, described by Blair as ‘placatory signals’. In reality, his nonchalant dismissal of the topic would come back to haunt him.