For those of you who regard yourselves as being on the left, there is a word with which you might not be too familiar, and that word is "victory". The left is accustomed to noble defeats. I know there are obvious exceptions, such as the end of apartheid and freeing Nelson Mandela, but frankly that is the only T-shirt I have ever bought that worked.

Normally when I buy a T-shirt for a cause, I feel that I should really just phone up those involved and tell them to pack everything up and move on. The left has a knack of turning important and righteous campaigns into slogans, badges, T-shirts and, swiftly after that, into a lost cause.

Even when the Tories were defeated in the 1997 general election, I didn't count it as a victory. I was performing on stage the night after John Major lost, and opened the show by saying: "Forgive me this indulgence, but I have waited 18 years to say this. That Labour government - what a bunch of bastards!" And then I sat back smugly and watched history prove me right.

So it came as a shock on Tuesday morning to find out that we had won (for "winning", see "victory" above). If you wouldn't mind indulging me once again, I have some celebrating to do.

I almost feel I should be in a smoke-filled room, putting 20p in the tin for crap coffee and bland biscuits before saying: "My name is Mark, and I am a director of the Ilisu Dam Campaign, and I haven't touched a drop of optimism for a month, one day at a time."

Incredibly, the two-and-a-half-year campaign to stop the British government granting £200m of our money to Balfour Beatty to help build the dam in Turkey has succeeded. The company announced its withdrawal from the project, saying that there was "no clear prospect [for a] resolution of environmental, commercial and social complexities". This innocuous-sounding statement hides a greater truth. Forgive me if this sounds like gloating, but that truth is: we whipped your arse!

Just to recap, here is what the project would have done. The proposed dam would have been a human rights disaster and an environmental catastrophe. It would have resulted in at least 30,000 Kurds being displaced in a region where the teaching of the Kurdish language is an arrestable offence. The idea that the Turkish authorities would consult with the Kurds on resettlement issues is politically motivated wishful thinking.

According to the Turkish authorities' own report, the dam could have affected up to 78,000 Kurds. In conjunction with other dams, it could have cut off the flow of water into Iraq, a threat the Turks have made before. It would destroy Hasankeyf, a 10,000-year-old town that is the cultural jewel in the crown for the Kurds. All of this would have taken place in a region in which 30,000 people have been killed in conflict.

The whole issue exposes one of the fundamental flaws at the heart of new Labour's love of business and its foreign policy. According to new Labour's policies, it is fine to supply arms, dams and anything else we can muster to torturing states such as Turkey, because this is seen as "constructive engagement". This concept, in the case of the Ilisu dam, is about as coherent as an after-dinner speech by Clare Short. It holds that, by backing a project that will result in human rights abuses on a huge scale, Turkey will be persuaded to commit fewer human rights violations.

This logic is insane and, frankly, exists purely for propaganda purposes. David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, would never say: "In order to stop violent racist attacks, we shall give loads of support and money to violent racists, because by doing this they will become less racist."

However, so flawed was the Ilisu project that not even Tony Blair's personal intervention could keep the project afloat. Blair has very skilled advisers; one of them might have taken the trouble to point out that there had been four highly critical select committee reports on the scheme. Or that Balfour Beatty was becoming increasingly uneasy about the media attention the dam was attracting. Or that Turkey could not meet the conditions for granting the money that were laid down by the Export Credits Guarantee Department. Or that, had the government backed the project, it would have left itself open to at least two judicial reviews - one based on the illegality of Turkey's refusal to negotiate with Syria and Iraq on the downstream flow of water.

As Balfour Beatty announced its withdrawal from the Ilisu dam project, so did the Italian company Impregilo, which was part of the consortium to build the dam. Now, to lose one multi-national from a project might be considered careless, but to lose two . . .

These events follow the example of the Swedish company Skanska, which withdrew from the consortium last year. Well, to lose three multi-nationals . . . It leaves the Swiss firm Sulzer as the only western company left in the project. With multinationals pulling out and Turkey's finances in disarray, the dam is dead.

Balfour Beatty's withdrawal allows Blair to save face with his own backbenchers and the Turkish authorities. The Export Credits Guarantee Department has not had to defend its pathetic revamp, which excludes effective human rights and environmental guidelines.

It is a victory none the less, and you'd need to climb a scaffold to pull the grin off my face at the moment. Thanks to all who were involved in the Ilisu Dam Campaign.

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