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Prime Minister Tony Blair has stated his intention to stand down during this parliament; some argue that Blair will hold out until Gordon Brown’s frustration gets the better of him and he forces confrontation. So will Brown show his hand and fulfil his destiny as the Heseltine to Blair’s Thatcher? Finally affirming Blair’s place as the true successor to the Iron Lady, felled by a final act of regicide.

Brown would be wise to keep his own council and wait out the final throws of the Blair era, waiting to take the helm of the New Labour ship as it approaches the next election. But what will a Brown government be like? Will it move decidedly to the left nourishing its base support, or will it maintain the strangle hold on the centre ground? Brown is cagey at best but he has hinted that he shares Blair’s vision of government, and why shouldn’t he? It has delivered 3 successive victories at the ballot box.

This week the strident Blairite Alan Milburn, argued in the pages of The Guardian against a return to the left-wing politics that have defined the Labour Party for a century:

…it sends a shiver down my spine when I hear talk in the Labour party of the need to get back to left-right politics. It is almost as if nothing had been learned from the 1980s.

So the New Labour revolution will not – Milburn demands – be rolled back, the centrist policies of Mandelson will continue to define the future of the party. The Chancellor himself in one of his few hints has claimed that his government would be pro-business. From The Scotsman:

A Brown government, the Chancellor said, would be about “enterprise, enterprise”, as well as “social justice”.

We can therefore expect more of the same from Brown, but this will leave many in the party - who have remained loyal despite grave misgivings about Blair – bitter and disillusioned. Backbencher’s who have become increasingly frustrated with policies such as Public Finance Initiatives (PFI), Foundation Hospitals, and the Iraq War, look to Brown to rekindle core Labour principles.

The dour Scot seems destined to disappoint.

A continuation of Blairism would I believe leave the party deeply and possibly irrevocably divided. Blair is like many ideologically driven leaders; they shatter shared unity in their demand for personal loyalty. Like President Bush whose style has divided not just Americans, but Republicans also; Blair will leave the party split as to which direction to follow. The Brown version of Blairism will be just as unpalatable to the core support and a further fall in membership will follow.

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With the exchange of power the future British Politics may well hang in the balance. Voter apathy has reached chronic levels, and political membership of the two main parties is now critically low. With the FPTP (First Past The Post) system that we operate, it is the party that can best control the centre that wins out. All serious parties therefore migrate to centrist politics in order to attract the electorate, and the choice the voter is faced with is diminished.

The superiority of New Labour in occupying the centre is impressive. Three significant victories in three consecutive elections is tantamount to a dynasty, and such is the dominance of New Labour consensus politics, that little oxygen is left in the centre for other parties to breath. This policy suffocation is so acute we saw The Conservatives during the last election; make a desperate lunge to the right in an attempt to appeal to Middle-England xenophobia. The Tory defeat in urban areas clearly displays that any movement away from the centre will mean disaster.

Like a huge fish in a small pond the Labour Party denies its competitors any opportunity to carve out an existence. Popular policies are hijacked, modified, and adopted by this constantly changing government.

But is there anything wrong with an evolving ideologically devoid political party?

With a centrist government that adopts good populist policies, the public should – in theory – be satisfied; voter apathy is a natural phenomenon in this ultra-sensitive version of consensus democracy. As there is little real choice, and generally Labour has all the relevant ‘bases covered’, why vote? This is why we have an elected government with a mere 26% of the electorates support – but again what is the problem? One may however argue that a low turnout could allow a far-right (or left) party to gain considerable power in parliament, and this is why the political parties claim to share concern about low-turnouts.

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I argue that the main problem with the current apathy in British politics is not the threat of extremist political groups gaining seats in parliament, but the loss of main party financial independence. With ever dwindling membership the parties are looking more and more to corporate donors for financial sustenance. The cash-strapped New Labour Party has become receptive to the vested interests of the corporate world, and policy is shaped not by the will of the electorate but increasingly that of big business. Political parties like all living things understand the realities of their own mortality, it is democracy that is sacrificed.

Democracy as we understand it changes, and – following the lead of the US – it is financial power that is kingmaker.

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Gordon Brown will not give up power for ideology and New Labour will shed yet more supporters. Members will either migrate to the Liberal Democrats, become politically disengaged, or join organisations that represent real left-wing politics. As many political commentators suggest the future of participation politics may well be fringe single-issue parties. The three major parties will contest the elections, but they will be almost solely financed by large donations.

Political Parties offer nothing if they can’t offer ideology.

When Blair came to power he rode to victory on a wave of relief and anticipation following the stagnant leadership of the Major years. He was ideologically fired up to undertake sweeping reforms to our political systems and he had both the electoral mandate, and parliamentary majority to make this dream a reality. If there is one missed opportunity of the Blair government it is this, modest reform of the House of Lords aside, Blair has made little progress in creating an electoral process that encourages public participation and interest.

Tomorrow the Germans will go to the polls and the balance of the vote appears to be on a knife-edge as Schroeder’s ruling Social Democrats (SDP) gain ground on Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU). The Proportional Representation system used in Germany gives real power to fringe politics through the emergence of coalitions. Such a system has given Joscha Fischer’s Green Party a chance to influence both debate and policy (see the German position on Nuclear Power). I would argue that such a system – while not without its faults – should be introduced in Britain to breathe life into politics.

Of course power corrupts, and New Labour has experienced absolute power under the FPTP system, they will not commit political hari-kari and introduce reform that would limit their influence. So we are destined to continue this consensus politics where power is centralised for fear of gaffs and negative publicity, where the perception is more important than the reality. When government becomes centralised it becomes isolated and detached from realty, and it is unable to see what exists beyond its interior. The New Labour government is indeed becoming isolated from the country. Only when Labour and the other three major parties are forced to reengage with the people - through Proportional Representation – will the public take ownership again of their political system.

Blair & Brown have one chance to create a real legacy – the creation of a new vibrant progressive political system, I implore they take it.