Conclusion

Summary

Has the Labour Party gotten over New Labour? I think the answer to that is “no”, although much has changed over the last decade or more. This book has shown just how impactful interpretations of New Labour and its legacy have been for the contemporary Labour Party, across ideology, conceptions of democracy and the right way to reach political judgements. The word “impactful” is operating as an umbrella term here, beneath which are an array of interpretations about the consequences. It is possible to argue, for instance, that the impact of the dominant (negative) interpretations of New Labour has been disruptive and damaging. It is also possible to suggest the still semi-hagiographic view of New Labour has had a stultifying effect, obscuring for people in and around the Labour Party how to confront today's political experience, rather than that of the 1990s and early 2000s. I have no doubt that these kinds of arguments – and others like them – will continue to be made in and around the Labour Party, but something has changed in post-Brexit Britain: there has been a little more acknowledgement of complexity, contingency and nuance when it comes to New Labour. To return to the question of whether Labour has gotten over New Labour, we can break it down into two broad parts: the historical take on the New Labour project and the New Labour governments; and New Labour as a touchstone. In this concluding chapter, I bring together the different threads of this book's argument, all with relevance to these two parts of the New Labour conundrum.

On the historical take, I suggest the context in which New Labour has been – and is being – thought and written about matters, and that today there is a reassessment underway. This is not about writing out New Labour's mistakes, but nor is it about writing off New Labour's achievements either. Rather, it is to reinterpret New Labour at a greater distance and with the comparator of successive Conservative governments. On New Labour as a touchstone – a kind of orientation point from which to judge the good and the bad within the Labour Party – I argue that while this is connected to the historical assessment of New Labour, it can be understood as a distinct thing in itself and has arguably been the more damaging part of this debate.