Ex-UK Premier Tony Blair Lambastes Labour’s Leadership Woes

Tony Blair Photo by Christopher Goodney /Photographer: Christopher Goodne

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(Bloomberg) — Former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair criticized the party he once led for “playing with fire” in its attempt to oust current premier Keir Starmer, while also slamming the government for lacking a clear agenda.

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In a 5,600-word essay penned for his think-tank, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, he said Labour needs to move toward “radical centrism,” prioritizing cheap energy over clean energy, fundamentally overhauling planning regulations, putting economic growth at the heart of policies and cutting welfare spending.  

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“The government’s principal problem isn’t Keir’s personality,” Blair wrote in the essay, published late on Tuesday. “It is because we don’t have a worked-out, coherent plan for the country in a fast-changing world and are in the wrong political position from which we can devise one and win a second term.”

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Blair’s intervention comes less than three weeks after Labour suffered catastrophic losses in a set of local elections, shedding 60% of the English council seats it was defending and losing control of the Welsh assembly, known as the Senedd, for the first time. His views matter because he won three elections and led the country from 1997 to 2007, making him electorally the party’s most successful leader.

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Labour’s losses earlier this month sparked an internal rebellion as approaching a quarter of the party’s Members of Parliament called for Starmer to go.

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While no-one has yet formally challenged the premier, Wes Streeting quit his post as health secretary and indicated he would stand in any contest, and Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham launched a bid to secure the Parliamentary seat he would need in order to mount his own challenge. He faces a tough contest against Nigel Farage’s hard right Reform UK party to win in the Manchester constituency of Makerfield, whose MP, Josh Simons, stood down to make way for Burnham.

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Blair said Labour has “an almost infinite capacity for self-delusion,” adding that “trying to force the prime minister out before we know what policy direction we’re bringing in is not a serious way of conducting ourselves.”

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Nevertheless, voters and a swath of the parliamentary Labour Party see Starmer as having little clear vision for the UK, and as the wrong person to turn around the UK’s stagnating economy. The premier has repeatedly said expanding the economy is top of his agenda, yet has been denounced by businesses for growth-stifling measures including raising taxes on employers, lifting the minimum wage, and increasing workers’ rights, which have had a combined effect of lowering employment. 

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Blair criticized Starmer’s policy-making during almost two years in power as being “parked firmly in the party’s comfort zone,” of the so-called soft left.

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“Are we really prioritizing economic growth, essential not just for prosperity but for social justice, if there is a slew of policies we’re implementing which might restrict it?” he wrote. “Does our economy need right now the goal of clean energy or cheap energy? How do we justify adding to the welfare bill when it is already ballooning, taxes are high and getting higher, and we’re told we have to increase defense spending to prepare for the possibility of war?”