"The class war is over but the struggle for true equality has only just begun," Mr Tony Blair declared yesterday in an evangelical conference speech seeking to cast New Labour at the cutting edge of a new century of progressive politics.
His mission to transform Britain had barely begun: "It is us, the new radicals, the Labour Party modernised, that must undertake this historic mission, to liberate Britain from the old class divisions, old structures, old prejudices, old ways of working and of doing things, that will not do in this world of change."
The battle of the 21st century, he said, would not be about capitalism and socialism "but between the forces of progress and the forces of conservatism". "The Third Way" was "not a new way between progressive and conservative politics", but rather "progressive politics distinguishing itself from conservatism of left or right".
Mr Blair reminded this "centenary" conference that Labour had been in power for only 22 years and had never won a full second term in office. "That is our unfinished business," he declared, challenging his party: "Let us now finish it and with it finish the Tory party's chances of doing as much damage in the next century as they've done in this one."
Unusually, Mr Blair started his speech with a list of all the things his government had still to do. "More than 1 million still unemployed; schools and hospitals still needing investment; pensioners still living in hardship; people still petrified by crime and drugs; three million children still in poverty; a century of decline, 20 years of Conservative government still not put to rights. Do you think I don't feel this, in every fibre of my being?" he demanded, in a clear reference to those critical of the government's delivery rate in key policy areas.
Mr Blair shared "the frustration, the impatience, the urgency, the anger at the waste of lives unfulfilled, hopes never achieved, dreams never realised", but he promised: "Whilst there is one child still in poverty in Britain today, one pensioner in poverty, one person denied their chance in life, there is one prime minister and one party that will have no rest, no vanity in achievement, no sense of mission completed, until they too are free.
"What threatens the nation state today is not change, but the refusal to change in a world opening up, becoming ever more interdependent," he said. "The old air of superiority based on past glory must give way to the ambition to succeed, based on the merit of what Britain stands for today."
For the last half-century, Britain had been torn between Europe and the United States, searching for identity in the post-empire world, but there was no such choice today, he said. "Britain is stronger with the US today because we are strong in Europe."
If Britain's destiny was not with Europe, then it should leave, "but we would leave an economic union in which 50 per cent of our trade is done, on which millions of British jobs depend. Our economic future would be uncertain, but what is certain is that we would not be a power."
In that event "Britain would no longer play a determining part in the future of the continent to which we belong", and that "would be the real end of 1,000 years of history".
Mr Blair linked his powerful conference attack on the forces of Conservatism to an appeal that they should not be allowed to stop devolution to Northern Ireland. In a restrained attack on the Conservative Party for breaking the bipartisan approach, Mr Blair said: "I ask the Conservative Party: we supported you when you were in government; don't make our task harder now because that would be the real betrayal of the children of Northern Ireland."