Thread by @labour_history

#OTD 2001. In Brighton, Blair is to give a speech to the TUC to define Labour's second term:

"There is nothing more damaging or destructive to the true national interest than the anti-European isolationism of today’s Conservative party"

But he never got the chance to deliver it

The media trailed it as a huge confrontation between the Government and the trade unions over reforms to the public sector.

"TUC lions' den awaits Blair"

The Daily Mirror warned that Blair was ‘Out of Touch’ and set to be deserted by 1 in 4 voters ‘if he presses on with creeping privatisation’

The GMB general secretary John Edmonds claimed that Blair threatened to "crack the foundations of the Labour party" through the public-private plans.

On the morning of September 11th a mass GMB poster campaign against privatisation began.

Blair’s speech – which was later circulated to delegates - had intended to signal a move towards greater European integration:

tidesofhistory.com/2017/09/11/an-…

“On Europe I want to make it clear. Britain’s proper place is at the centre of Europe as a leading partner in European development. There is nothing more damaging or destructive to the true national interest than the anti-European isolationism of today’s Conservative party"

“3 million jobs depend on being part of Europe; nearly 60% of our trade; we negotiate together in international trade and commerce. It's the most integrated regional bloc of nations the world has seen. It now often works together on issues of common foreign and defence policy"

"Tell me what other nation anywhere, faced with such a strategic alliance right on its doorstep, at the crux of international politics, would isolate itself from that alliance, not out of accident but design?"

"It would be an absurd denial of our own self-interest. It’s not standing up for Britain. It’s sending Britain down a road to nowhere"

“And, of course, Europe needs reform; of course, it will do things we don’t agree with, at times; but aren’t we better in there, with confidence in ourselves and an ability to win debates, than sat on the sidelines as irrelevant critics, affecting nothing?”

And on the Tories:

“That is the measure of the shift in British politics. 7 June confirmed it.

The Party that had opposed the minimum wage defeated heavily.

The Party that campaigned on xenophobic anti-Europeanism defeated heavily"

“For the first time in our political life, in the battle between investment in public services and short-term tax cuts, public services won. That is a big achievement. A big shift, A big challenge ahead. For, we may have won the battle. We haven’t won the war"

"Because those we defeated are re-grouping around exactly the same ultra-Thatcherite agenda. Either they will have a leader whose policies are anathema to his Party; or a leader whose policies are anathema to the public.”

“So battle will have to be joined again, And we will win, not by changing the basic reasons why New Labour has been successful but by deepening them, and explaining how they are the modern expression of our values, just as partnership is the modern expression of yours”

“Why do I want so passionately for every school to be a good school? Because unless we make the most of the talents of every child, we are simply pouring our country’s greatest asset – the potential of our people – down a drain”

"So let us start from agreement that these are our motives, yours and mine, Let us not misrepresent our positions for the sake of a headline or an invitation to the TV studio"

"And let us hear no more false charges about privatising schools and hospitals when we are set to spend this year more money on them than ever before, are employing more people in them and their pay is rising faster than the private sector, for the first time in years"

But the speech was never delivered. Blair later took to the stage to respond to the attacks on the twin towers:

“This mass terrorism is the new evil in our world today. It's perpetrated by fanatics who are utterly indifferent to the sanctity of human life and we, the democracies of this world, are going to have to come together to fight it and eradicate this evil completely from our world”