New Labour and the Ideological Fantasy of the Good Citizen

This paper will seek to demonstrate how New Labour's incorporation of a particular substantive notion of citizenship, within their public discourse, has been a factor in sustaining their electoral success, by gaining popular support and legitimacy, due to their particular ideological discursive construction of the bad citizen. It is argued this discursive construction manipulates, within a significant part of the electorate, a pre-ideological enjoyment that is structured in fantasy.

New Labour's Discourse of Citizenship

Over the last eight years New Labour personnel have widely articulated a particular concept of citizenship that is arguably a central element of New Labour's hegemonic project. A relatively explicit articulation of this concept of citizenship was made in a speech by Tony Blair in July 1993 (Blair, "New Britain"). The speech was entitled "New Community, New Individualism." This is a passage from this text: "A modern notion of citizenship gives rights but demands obligations, shows respect but wants it back, grants opportunity but insists on responsibilities. So the purpose of economic and social policy should be to extend opportunity, remove the underlying causes of social alienation, but it should also take tough measures to ensure that chances that are given are taken up" (218). Within this quote, citizenship is nominalized as an actor that gives, demands, shows, wants, grants. and insists. The participation of the public in deciding the terms of this conception of citizenship is absenced by this nominalization, as is the state, which is implicitly present in the statement as the agency that is able to enforce responsibility. However the use of, "demands," indicates that obligations are to be taken seriously. It is an example of a discourse of tough authority, which also surfaces in the statement in the forms of, "insists," and "take tough measures." Citizenship is also posited as a singular entity in this speech, thereby absenting other, potentially competing, contemporary conceptions of citizenship.

The concept of "opportunity" is included within this modern notion of citizenship and is grouped with rights and respect as the elements that are given to the individual by this notion of citizenship. In contrast, obligations, respect, and responsibilities are grouped as the elements that are fulfilled by the individual to meet the demands of this notion of citizenship. The linking of rights and opportunity allows slippage between the two terms. This is not in itself new. T. H. Marshall's concept of citizenship implicitly linked rights and opportunity in that the establishment of social rights was seen as the means of guaranteeing opportunity by alleviating poverty and disadvantage. Within Blair's notion of citizenship, opportunity is not something that is necessarily created via the establishment of social rights. It is open to the idea that opportunities can function in the place of social rights. This slippage of opportunities replacing rights can be seen in the New Deal policy for the unemployed, in which, in principle, universal unemployment benefit is replaced by benefit that is conditional. The last clause of this quote makes it clear that these opportunities are not necessarily optional. This discourse has a socially authoritarian element in that it is the state that determines the terms of citizenship with regard to the specific nature of opportunities and obligations and then polices the fulfillment of the obligation to take up opportunities.

In a later speech delivered at the Spectator Lecture in March 1995, Blair states, "The rights we receive should reflect the duties we owe" (236). The key word in this statement is "reflects," which indicates a prioritization of duties over rights. A reflection is a copy of an original. It is the existence of the original manifestation that is prior to and conditions the existence of the reflection. Therefore, in this case it is the existence of duties that is both prior to and conditions the existence of rights. The latter no longer have a status...