Blair faces opposition over Iraq

British P.M. Tony Blair faces growing opposition for backing U.S. in Iraq, his ties to loan scandal

BY MOHAMAD BAZZI | Newsday Middle East Correspondent

April 2, 2006

Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair takes the stage to give his keynote speech at the Labour Party annual conference. Blair warned Afghanistan's Taliban regime to surrender Osama bin Laden or face being forced out of power. (AP photo / October 2, 2001)

LONDON - Tony Blair is in trouble.

The British prime minister's popularity has sunk to record lows in recent months as he faces intense criticism for his continued support of U.S. policies in Iraq and for a campaign finance scandal that has rocked his ruling Labor Party.

While Blair has been under attack from opponents of the Iraq war since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, his critics are intensifying their calls for British troops to withdraw as Iraq descends into sectarian warfare. And since early March, Blair has been deeply embarrassed by disclosures that several wealthy businessmen who provided millions of dollars in secret loans to his campaign were then nominated for seats in the House of Lords, the appointed branch of Britain's Parliament.

Even some of his staunchest supporters are calling on him to resign after nine years in office. In a March 20 editorial, the left-leaning Guardian newspaper - a longtime backer of the Labor Party - declared that Blair "should go this year."

"Adrift in Iraq and caught in a net of soft loans which looks worse by the hour ... Mr. Blair risks becoming a leader without purpose beyond power," the newspaper wrote. "The longer he waits, the greater his troubles will be and the greater the damage to his party, the country and his reputation."

Military involvement in Iraq is highly unpopular among the British public, and many blame Blair for dragging their country into the quagmire. Britain has 8,000 troops in Iraq, the second largest contingent after the United States, and 103 have died.

"Blair brought us into the Iraq chaos and he's refusing to bring us out of it," David Ferr, 34, a computer analyst, said as he sat in a London coffee shop last week. "I voted for him twice, but I could not do it a third time because of Iraq. ... He needs to bring us out of there."

A March 19 poll in the Times of London found that Blair's approval rating had plunged to 36 percent, the lowest point of his tenure. In January, about 45 percent of Britons approved of the job Blair was doing. The poll attributed the drop to the third anniversary of the Iraq invasion and the loans scandal.

But so far, Blair has been unrelenting in his backing of President George W. Bush - whose popularity also is at a record low - and U.S. policies in Iraq. During a visit to Australia last week, Blair pledged to keep British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan until those countries are stabilized. "If the going is tough, we tough it out," he said.

Blair's rhetoric on Iraq and "the war on terrorism" often echoes that of Bush. The two leaders also have a strong personal friendship, and that has caused headaches for Blair at home.

"Our prime minister is way too friendly with George Bush. Why are they always together?" asked Andrew Hassell, 46, a construction worker in London. "Sometimes, Tony Blair puts American interests ahead of British interests."

The loans scandal has further damaged Blair's standing. Labor acknowledged on March 17 that it had accepted loans of nearly $25 million from 12 donors during 2005 parliamentary elections. Officials did not violate any rules by keeping the loans secret because British law requires parties to disclose the source only of donations, not loans.

While the loans were supposed to be paid back, critics argue that they would have been quietly turned into donations. Four of the donors were nominated later for seats in the House of Lords and, when the scandal broke, it created the appearance that these seats were up for sale - an allegation that Blair vehemently denied.

The scandal has been especially difficult for Blair, who first won office in 1997 by labeling the Conservative Party government of then-Prime Minister John Major "sleazy." During that campaign, Blair pledged to run a government that is "purer than pure," a statement that is now haunting him.

As the furor over the loans intensified, British police opened an investigation and Labor officials promised to close a loophole in the law that allows such payments to remain secret. But leaders of the rival Conservatives - who also acknowledged accepting loans - jumped on the issue.

Thomas Strathclyde, the Conservative leader in the House of Lords, said March 20 that Labor's effort to change campaign laws was like a burglar "caught in a back garden with a bag of swag, saying he only wanted to polish the silver."

The scandal has added to speculation about when the prime minister would step down. In September 2004, Blair declared that if he won a third term in 2005, he would not seek a fourth. Since then, he has said repeatedly that he wants Gordon Brown, the finance minister, to succeed him.

Under Britain's parliamentary system, voters do not elect a prime minister directly and instead vote for a political party's House of Commons candidates. That means Blair could resign at any time and whomever Labor chooses as its new leader would become prime minister.

There has been growing speculation that Blair would resign by 2008, so he could turn the office over to Brown well before the next elections in 2009. In Britain, political leaders usually serve at the head of their parties for several years before they face voters in a national election.

In Australia, Blair created another uproar by saying he might have been wrong to announce he would not seek a fourth term - throwing into doubt whether he would resign to make way for Brown's ascension. "It was an unusual thing for me to say, but people kept asking me the question," Blair told Australian TV. "Maybe that was a mistake."

But calls for his resignation are likely to intensify. In the midst of the loans scandal, the normally staid Economist magazine ran a photo of a waving Blair on its cover under the headline, "The final days of Tony Blair." The magazine opined, "If Britain's prime minister is not thinking about stepping down, he should be."