Assessing the Impact of the Third Way

Tony Blair’s election to the leadership of the Labour Party in 1994 consolidated the process of reform begun by Neil Kinnock in the 1980s and continued by John Smith. These reforms targeted both the organisational structure of the Party and its ideological platform, with the ultimate aim of making Labour electable again.2 The key structural changes were Kinnock’s expulsion of the Bennite hard left from the Party, the replacement of the trades unions’ block vote with the ‘one member, one vote’ system, which Smith accomplished in 1993, and the rewriting of Clause IV of the Party Constitution under Blair. In terms of ideology, Kinnock initiated a ‘gradual transition from state socialism to a variant of European social democracy’, which purged Labour of its traditional socialist commitments to central economic planning and public ownership and led to a reassessment of key revisionist ideas.3 This process continued during Smith’s leadership and gained momentum under Blair, culminating in the rebranding of the Party as ‘New’ Labour.