Don't be fooled: this opposition to war is more than just anti-Americanism

When, at the last Labour Party conference, Bill Clinton was rehearsing the cod delegate's opening that Alastair Campbell had written for his speech – "Clinton, Arkansas CLP" – he turned in understandable puzzlement to Campbell and asked: "Are you sure they're going to laugh at this?" Well, it sounded better than it reads. So they did, heartily. And from then on, despite making a speech that was stronger on style and delivery than substance, he could not put a foot wrong. The conference loved it.

That's worth remembering in any attempt to analyse a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) yesterday, which remained seriously divided despite what even serial rebel MPs such as Bob Marshall-Andrews acknowledged was a "bravura" performance by the Prime Minister in defence of his line in Iraq. (Mr Marshall-Andrews's point was that, given the eloquence and unvarnished, rather un-New Labour passion with which Mr Blair made his case, the fact that – in his estimate – about half the PLP remained opposed showed how serious Mr Blair's problem was. But we'll return to that.)

The warmth of the Clinton reception in Blackpool shows that the party has not, largely, reverted to the anti-Americanism that disfigured much of it in the 1980s. The idea, for example, that Robin Cook, a prominent cabinet doubter, is any longer anti-American, is absurd. If he had been, he would not have enjoyed, as Foreign Secretary, such a close relationship with Madeleine Albright. The party has moved a long way since even the 1990s, when a frequent complaint within the party about New Labour's style was that it reflected the "Clintonisation" of British politics. In probable contrast to the Tory leadership, almost the entire PLP wants to see Hans Blix and not the US administration decide whether the Iraqis are in material breach of UN resolution 1441. It is not any longer the US per se that so much of the Labour Party distrusts. It's George Bush and, even more so, some of those around him, like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.

This simple distinction matters, because that distrust reflects a much wider slice of public opinion, including the non-political establishment, than the traditional anti-Americanism of the Labour left ever did. When Mr Blair addressed the UK ambassadors last week, the diplomats' revolt predicted in some quarters didn't happen, and his speech was pretty well received, partly because he chose to remind the Americans that they had to "listen back". But Robin Christopher, the Ambassador to Argentina, struck a chord with many of his colleagues when he asked Jack Straw to say what, if any, were the limits to UK support of the US.

So while there may have been a trace of the old atavism in Dennis Skinner's pointed advice in the Commons to Mr Blair on what he should tell the US President on his trip to Washington at the end of this month, there was nothing very maverick about his claim that Mr Bush was after Iraqi oil and the completion of the job that his father had left unfinished in 1991.

Well beyond the ranks of the hard left and those such as the consistent and honourable anti-war MP Tam Dalyell, there are many mainstream Labour MPs who share just those suspicions. Just as there are many who would love to see Saddam deposed but who have genuine worries, right or wrong, that an invasion of Iraq will make progress in the Middle East peace process more rather than less difficult, particularly if the US continues to show significantly less interest in influencing it than the British Prime Minister. And that's before you get to the human rights issues in the US's treatment of prisoners, not only in Guantanamo but in Diego Garcia and Bagram, from which, according to well-sourced reports, detainees have been deliberately handed over to friendly Arab regimes less squeamish about torture than Western democracies.

But precisely because these concerns are much more than the mere excuses for a generalised anti-Americanism that they might have been 20 years ago, they are unlikely to be decisive if the UN Security Council passes a second resolution endorsing the use of force against Iraq. Perhaps as many as 20 per cent would still vote against war. Calculations yesterday – on the basis of the applause in the PLP meeting for Mr Blair – that 70 or even 80 per cent are already behind him are almost certainly well wide of the mark. The calculation of the ultra-loyalist Peter Mandelson that the figures were closer to 60-40 may be nearer the truth and, given a reasonable margin of error, comparable with that of Mr Marshall-Andrews. But in the event of a second UN resolution, 80-20 support for Mr Blair is more than likely – and would have been evident yesterday if Mr Blair had chosen to promise that such a resolution would be a precondition of going to war.

So why won't he do just that? Although it was easy to find MPs immediately after the PLP meeting convinced that he does not expect a second resolution, I suspect they're wrong. Instead there are several reasons for refusing to rule out action without it. One is that if he ruled it out now, Russia – say – might just be tempted to promise a veto in return for a deal on oil. At the very least, the chances of Saddam backing down might be even more forlorn if war without a fresh UN sanction was ruled out now.

A second reason may be tactical: given that opposition to war is focused on a second UN resolution, it helps Mr Blair to make clear that it's still an open question, lest the opposition finds another issue to focus on. And a third is that he can't yet be 100 per cent sure that he will get the new UN resolution, in which, in any case, any justification in international law would have to rest on existing UN Resolution 1441 as a self-enforcing mechanism. But there is still every sign that he meant it when he predicted in the Commons yesterday that there would be a new resolution.

Certainly, the stakes could hardly be higher for him personally. Without a UN mandate, a US-British invasion would split the party and the Cabinet. Some loyalist ministers are already even more worried about wholesale defections of party members than they are about MPs. Despite his strong expressions of support for the Blair strategy, the party might well turn to Gordon Brown as the Tories turned to Chancellor Harold Macmillan after Suez. Even with informal Security Council consent but no fresh resolution, a war could well be politically hazardous at home.

But here's the paradox. It rather helps Blair that a large section of the party remains so unconvinced when he goes to Washington at the end of the month and argues, as he certainly will, first that Mr Blix be given time to prove a breach, and second that there must be a fresh UN resolution. It reinforces the point that UN support is much more important in the UK than it is in the US – especially since a majority of the PLP will swing, however reluctantly, behind him if he gets the new resolution he surely wants.

d.macintyre@independent.co.uk