Politics:Tony Blair's part in bringing peace to the North is overshadowed by the war in Iraq.
In electoral terms Tony Blair is guaranteed a benign historical verdict, having led the Labour Party to three successive general election victories. But his broader achievement and legacy are more complex and uncertain. One of the many merits of Anthony Seldon's edited book, Blair's Britain 1997-2007, is that it does justice to all aspects of the Blair era, from heady expectation to later disaffection, and from positive to negative achievement and legacy. The volume is intended "to achieve a balanced perspective not only on the man but also his government", and the distinguished team of experts contributing chapters to the book have successfully accomplished this goal.
From the complicated picture that emerges, three particular things stand out.
The first concerns the question of how far Tony Blair himself made a decisive difference to politics during his era of power. He certainly inherited much of importance. When he took over the British Labour Party in 1994, it was around 20 per cent ahead in the opinion polls and already likely to win the next election. He also inherited a party which had already gone some distance down the road towards self-reinvention and modernisation. When he became prime minister, in 1997, he was handed a strong economy by the previous government, which conveniently also presented him with the great advantage that, simply, he was not them: the electorate had become deeply disaffected with the Conservatives after their 18 years in power, and the heady mood of May 1997 had much to do with that.
In policy terms, devolution was more inherited than created by Blair himself, and much government policy during 1997-2007 originated decisively with others. (Most notable here, of course, was the economic policy of his next-door neighbour, rival and now successor, Gordon Brown.) Blair's era was, then, about far more than Tony Blair.
But the second and third things which stand out in this book are areas in which Blair himself did play a huge and decisive role: Northern Ireland, and Iraq.
In regard to the former, there were of course significant inheritances and shared responsibilities. John Major and Albert Reynolds had worked closely and productively to create considerable momentum in the peace process, while the shift of the IRA from something like war to something nearer to peace had created the environment within which Blair's government moved the North from ceasefire nervousness to more settled politics.
The role of a host of other figures was also important as the peace process jaggedly proceeded, including John Hume, Bertie Ahern, Gerry Adams, Martin Mansergh, David Trimble, Bill Clinton, Mo Mowlam, Alec Reid and Paul Murphy.
Yet, unlike devolution in Wales and Scotland, in Northern Ireland Tony Blair did indeed have a large amount to do with what remarkably occurred. This was signalled early when he made Belfast the location of his first official trip outside London after the 1997 election victory. Indeed, Blair's engaged, sincere commitment to making lasting change in the North was vital; and the effective ending of the Troubles will arguably prove to be Blair's most positive historic legacy.
In the year in which he had joined the Labour Party (1975), the Troubles had cost 267 lives; in the period from 1966 until the year in which Blair assumed office, the conflict had caused 3,578 deaths. The conclusion of such a protractedly awful and bloody period represents a genuinely historic achievement and Tony Blair deserves much credit for it.
As Frank Millar, London Editor of The Irish Times, points out in his very thoughtful chapter on the Northern peace process, the joint assumption of power by Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness in Belfast this year was "truly a remarkable moment", and it reflected an extraordinary reordering of Northern Irish politics. Blair's government had managed to harmonise Irish nationalist concern about self-determination with Ulster unionists' emphasis on the consent principle. If, as Millar suggests, Blair did shift Labour towards a position "of effective support for maintaining the Union", then he impressively managed to do so with the backing of Irish nationalists; and in overseeing the shift towards peace, "this British prime minister really did make history in Ireland".
HE MADE HISTORY too in Iraq, but in very different ways. For all of its complexity, Iraq fatally damaged Blair's reputation and the authors tend to read the endeavour negatively. In Timothy Garton Ash's words, "I believe we can already say with confidence that the invasion and occupation of Iraq has proved to be a disaster . . . Britain and the United States went to war on a false prospectus about weapons of mass destruction and without proper authority, either legal or political. The failure to prepare for the likely consequences was a disgrace. It would be difficult for things to be worse than they were under Saddam Hussein, but in 2007 they were. Hundreds of thousands of people had been killed or maimed, and there was no good end in sight".
Blair's complex legacy unquestionably includes many positive achievements, Northern Ireland's stability pre-eminent among them. But the overall assessment from the editor of this valuable book remains significantly qualified: "Blair should be seen in history as Labour's most successful party leader . . . But for the Iraq War, he might have been considered one of the great prime ministers".
Richard English is the author of Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA (2003) and Irish Freedom: The History of Nationalism in Ireland (2006), winner of the 2007 Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize
Blair's Britain 1997-2007 Edited by Anthony Seldon Cambridge University Press, 690pp. £15.99