If Blair makes it through all of this, he will probably have a strengthened cabinet, as his left wing competitors within the party (and cabinet) are committing suicide:
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Analysis: 'Cassius' Cook strikes at Blair
By Martin Sieff
UPI Senior News Analyst
From the International Desk
Published 3/18/2003 5:27 PM
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WASHINGTON, March 18 (UPI) -- On Monday, former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook resigned from his position as leader of the House of Commons, effectively putting himself at the head of at least one-fourth, possibly as many as one-third of the ruling Labor Party's MPs who oppose Prime Minister Tony Blair's policy of supporting the U.S. war on Iraq.
Five months ago, when no one else in American journalism and almost no one in Britain either dreamed of such a development, we predicted it in UPI Analysis. The article that follows ran on Oct. 16. Only two references to "last month" and "last year" have been removed. Otherwise, it is entirely unchanged.
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In Shakespeare's classic play "Julius Caesar," it was Cassius, he of the "lean and hungry look" who masterminded the assassination plot that slew his mighty leader. If any rebellion against Tony Blair erupts in Britain's Labor Party, that role is most likely to be played by his former foreign secretary, Robin Cook.
Ever since Blair became prime minister of Britain in 1997, his acknowledged heir apparent has been his chancellor of the exchequer, or finance minister, Gordon Brown. But if anti-American resentment in Blair's Labor Party ever boils over into open rebellion, its leader is likely to be a very different figure, the left-wing, embittered and resentful Cook.
Cook, the current leader of the House of Commons, is the "gut" leader most sympathetic with the grievances of Labor's old radical-romantic left, who loathe Blair with a passionate hatred born of the repeated humiliations and defeats he has heaped upon them. He has long aspired to succeed Michael Foot and Tony Benn as the leader of Labor's traditional outspoken left-wing conscience. If the Iraq war goes badly, or even if it goes well but British combat casualties are significant, he, rather than Brown, is the likely figure to mount a challenge to the prime minister.
If that happens, Cook could become the "stalking horse" challenger who focuses long-simmering party resentment against a sitting prime minister from within their own party. That was the role that former Defense Secretary Michael Heseltine played in toppling Margaret Thatcher in 1990.
Cook's ambition is also fueled by personal resentment. Intimates say he has never forgiven Blair for dropping him as foreign secretary after the 2001 general election when he was replaced there by the up-and-coming Jack Straw.
Like Heseltine, Cook may be untenable as party leader or unable to win the position himself. But he could still become the stalking horse who could gather enough support to bring down the much resented Blair.
Labor's rank and file have suffered one emotional humiliation after another over the past years at Blair's hands as the price for ending their almost a generation long exclusion from power.
First, they gave up their old economic policies. Then, after finally winning power in 1997, they saw Blair fail to move effectively even on their social agenda of rescuing the public services. Now Blair is flouting them yet again on perhaps the most dearly held emotional Labor tradition of all over the past half century -- passionate anti-Americanism.
Instead of standing aside from America's virtually unilateral crusade against Iraq, or -- even better as far as his left-wingers are concerned -- lecturing and moralizing against it, Blair has embraced the new Bush program. Labor left-wingers are seething over this and even many supposed party centrists are said to be exceptionally uneasy. But the prime minister has been magisterially right so often before when ignoring mainstream Labor sentiment they are, at least initially, used to going along with him.
Blair may well come on top smelling like roses and as unsullied as Teflon just as he has so often before. But even Thatcher's exceptional judgment and legendary luck finally ran over the poll tax issue in 1990. If the war in Iraq should go disastrously wrong, then a volcano of long-repressed resentments against Blair could easily erupt.
Events in Germany have also made that far more likely. For months, conservative candidate Edmund Stoiber, the minister-president of Bavaria, led sitting Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder by a wide margin in opinion polls. But once Schroeder started blasting U.S. policies on Iraq as contrary to German interests, he rapidly closed the gap, and won an upset victory.
The lesson for Blair's enemies in Labor was clear, anti-American sentiment wins elections for social democratic left-of-center parties in early 21st century European politics. And that is especially important, if the incumbent social democratic government has a poor and weakening record on public services and the economy, as Schroeder's Social Democrats certainly did, and as Blair's Labor may well over the next year.
Most American pundits expect Blair to reign serenely as the uncrowned monarch of British politics for many years to come. Even if he should suddenly stand down or even be forced out, they unanimously assume that Brown, his longtime No. 2, will smoothly succeed him. But if things go unexpectedly wrong in Iraq, then the strongly pro-American Brown, not loved by Labor's grassroots either, could go down with the man he has been forced to play able and loyal second string to for so long.
Bush administration policy-makers have never imagined in their worst nightmares --assuming they are capable of having nightmares -- that they might ever have to face a Prime Minister Robin Cook in No. 10 Downing Street. But then, they were certain they would never have to face a triumphantly re-elected Schroeder, nationally endorsed for his critical anti-Bush stand, as German chancellor, either.
Labor Party history is rich in dramatic rebellions and passionate conflicts. Blair has kept it deceptively predictable and stable for a long time. But even he cannot do that indefinitely. In politics, nobody rules forever. Julius Caesar found that out the hard way. Even Blair may, too.
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