Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair speaks at the International Bali Airshow in Kuta, Indonesia in September, 2024.Johannes Christo/Reuters
Former British prime minister Tony Blair has waded into the leadership debate swirling within Britain’s Labour Party with some stinging criticism of the state of the party and Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government.
In a lengthy essay published late Tuesday by his think tank, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, Mr. Blair said Labour had “an almost infinite capacity for self-delusion” and that Mr. Starmer lacked “a coherent plan for the country in a fast-changing world.”
“The Labour Party is playing with fire; or, more accurately, with its future, and that of the country,” he wrote.
He called on the government to abandon net-zero environmental policies, crack down on illegal immigration and adopt more pro-business policies. He also urged Mr. Starmer to learn how to work with U.S. President Donald Trump and form a “structured relationship” with the European Union short of rejoining the bloc.
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Mr. Blair said he made the intervention, his most detailed political commentary since leaving office in 2007, because the Labour Party is on the verge of a leadership challenge. “It’s possible we’re about to have the seventh prime minister in 10 years. A serious country can’t do that to itself. And what is bizarre about the present situation is that we’re all talking about politics when the key thing is to talk about policy,” he told the BBC.
His comments will pile more pressure on Mr. Starmer, who is facing growing dissent among Labour MPs.
Despite leading Labour to a sweeping victory in the 2024 election, Mr. Starmer’s government has failed to generate much economic growth or ease voter concerns about the cost of living. Support for Labour has plummeted in opinion polls, and the party is being squeezed on the right by Reform UK and on the left by the Green Party.
Mr. Starmer has vowed to press on but is expected to face a leadership challenge from Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, who is running in a parliamentary by-election on June 18. If he wins, he’s widely expected to launch a bid for the leadership.
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Mr. Blair urged Labour members to consider policy before personality. And he took a shot at Mr. Burnham, who said this week that Britain has been on the wrong path for 40 years. “Nothing good happened in that period of Thatcher with the business community, or New Labour?” Mr. Blair told the BBC. “I don’t think he really means that.”
The former prime minister is the only Labour leader to win three elections in a row − in 1997, 2001 and 2005 − and is largely credited with making Labour more appealing to voters by pulling the party toward the centre. However, he remains a polarizing figure.
His credibility took a beating after he backed U.S. President George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003. A public inquiry later criticized Mr. Blair for deliberately exaggerating the threat posed by the Iraqi regime.
He’s also out of step with many Labour MPs who regard him as too right-wing and has drawn criticism for joining Mr. Trump’s Board of Peace for Gaza.
“Tony Blair won an election nearly three decades ago, and it seems he’s continuing the argument from back then rather than looking at the situation today,” said Labour MP Rachael Maskell.
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Mr. Burnham said Mr. Blair fails to grasp how inequality is driving current politics. “If you are not rooting your analysis in the fact that people are unable to live and that things that were taken for granted are no longer affordable, then you are not understanding what’s going on,” he told The Observer.
Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, said Mr. Blair still has a knack for generating headlines. “But his understanding of the British electorate is so hopelessly outdated, and he’s so clearly moved to the right, that he’s become pretty much an irrelevance, even an embarrassment, as far as many in the Labour Party are concerned,” Dr. Bale said.
Jon Tonge, a politics professor at the University of Liverpool, said Mr. Blair made some valid criticisms of Mr. Starmer and the direction of the government. But his comments will fall flat within the party.
“The Labour Party has never loved Tony Blair,” he said, adding that, unlike Mr. Starmer, Mr. Blair had a much better economy during his time as prime minister and did not have to deal with the fallout from Brexit.
In his essay, Mr. Blair cited Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and centrist leaders in Poland, Australia, France and the Netherlands for proving that “the centre ground is still where elections can be won.”
“Labour’s only electorally viable strategy is to become the Radical Centre,” he wrote, adding that it’s from the centre that “you work out the correct analysis, then the correct answer, and shape your political strategy around it.”
Mr. Burnham rejected that analysis. “People don’t think the centre has delivered for them in terms of their lives, therefore they’ve gone further to the extremes.”