Four years on from Rio, the summit’s 40 chapters of aspirations are still being worked through council chambers up and down the country, and that’s precisely what unsettles me.
Nobody objects to cleaner rivers or better forestry management in principle.
What I object to is the mechanism: a non-binding UN structure that nonetheless expects local councils, right down to parish level, to draw up their own “Local Agenda 21” action plans. That’s a great deal of policy influence flowing from Rio de Janeiro into a town hall in Lincolnshire, without a single vote being cast on it here.
A few things trouble me particularly:
Who’s actually accountable for Agenda 21?
This isn’t legislation passed through Parliament, it’s a structure agreed by delegates and then filtered down through unelected local authority committees and quangos. If it goes wrong, who do we vote out?
The whole appeal of it, to its architects, seems to be that it sidesteps the normal democratic friction. That should worry anyone who cares about who governs Britain, not because sustainability is a bad idea, but because the “how” matters as much as the “what.”
The property rights question
Buried in the sustainable development language is a great deal of scope for restricting how land is used, farmed, or built upon, all in the name of the collective good.
Farmers and landowners in this country have a long, hard-won relationship with property rights, and handing planning influence to a document drafted by international committee, however well-intentioned, is the kind of thing that tends to erode those rights by a thousand small concessions rather than one big argument.
Vagueness as a feature, not a bug
“Sustainable development” is one of those phrases everyone nods along to because nobody’s quite defined it. That’s useful if you’re trying to build consensus among a great many governments. It’s less useful if you’re the person who has to live with whatever specific policies get justified in its name ten or twenty years down the line. Vague mandates have a habit of being filled in later by people with much sharper agendas than the original signatories had.
None of which is to say Rio was some grand conspiracy. It’s simply that “non-binding international agreement, implemented locally, in the name of a goal nobody can quite define” is exactly the sort of arrangement that tends to expand well beyond its stated brief.
On Mr Tony Blair
Now, closer to home. Tony Blair cuts an impressive figure, I’ll grant him that. After Kinnock’s failures and Smith’s untimely death, Labour has finally found someone who can speak to Middle England without frightening the horses, and “New Labour, New Britain” is a slogan built for exactly that purpose. He’s young, he’s telegenic, he’s dispensed with Clause IV without so much as a backward glance from most of his party.
Compared to Major’s increasingly tired, sleaze-dogged government, he looks like fresh water.
But here’s what nags at me:
The discipline is the point
Blair’s Labour is extraordinarily controlled. Every MP on message, every interview managed, Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell running an operation that would make a Fleet Street editor blink. That’s effective, certainly, but a party this tightly stage-managed makes me wonder what happens once it has actual power rather than opposition to unify against.
Discipline in pursuit of office is one thing. Discipline in government, when there’s no opposition strong enough to check it, is another.
He’s borrowed heavily from Clinton’s playbook
Triangulation, focus groups, presentation over substance, wrapping traditionally left policies in centrist language so nobody quite notices the direction of travel. It’s clever. It’s also difficult to know, watching from the outside, what he actually believes as opposed to what tests well with the electorate.
A politician who’s mastered the art of sounding like everything to everyone is not necessarily one who’ll govern predictably once the cameras are elsewhere.
Constitutional appetite
There’s talk of devolution, Lords reform, civil liberties reform, possibly even a referendum on the voting system. Individually defensible, perhaps.
Taken together, that’s a genuinely significant rewiring of how Britain is governed, proposed by a man who hasn’t yet held office for a single day. I’d want to see rather more caution about remaking the constitution than enthusiasm for a fresh start usually allows for.
Worth saying plainly: this is very much the sceptic’s case, not the only case.
Plenty of thoughtful people would tell you Agenda 21 is a toothless, voluntary structure that any competent local council can simply ignore if it wishes, and that Blair represents the most credible chance in a generation to turf out a government that’s run out of ideas and out of luck.
The proof, either way, is in what actually gets built rather than what gets promised at a conference or a party rally, and none of us know that yet.
Common Questions About Agenda 21 and 1996 Politics
What is Agenda 21?
Agenda 21 was a non-binding action plan agreed at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. It set out sustainability goals for governments to work towards at every level, including local councils.
Was Agenda 21 legally binding on UK councils?
No. Agenda 21 was voluntary. UK councils were encouraged, not required, to draw up Local Agenda 21 plans, though many did so anyway under that banner.
What was New Labour’s position before the 1997 election?
By 1996, Tony Blair had already scrapped Clause IV and rebranded the party as New Labour. He was promising devolution, Lords reform and a fresh style of government ahead of the general election.
Why were some people sceptical of Blair’s reforms in 1996?
Sceptics pointed to the tightly controlled media operation around Blair, and questioned whether his centrist positioning reflected genuine conviction or careful positioning for the electorate.