Sir Tony Blair has warned Labour is “playing with fire” by rowing over Keir Starmer’s leadership – as he accused the Government of lacking a proper plan. In a blistering intervention, the former Prime Minister said his own party had an “almost infinite capacity for self delusion”. He said Labour only won its landslide election victory by being an “acceptable” alternative to the Tories, and had failed to offer a proper vision for the rapidly changing world . “The world is turning on its axis
and today’s politicians living in a 24/7 pressure cooker have barely time to recognise the turning, let alone study it,” he said. He went on: “The government’s principal problem isn’t Keir’s personality. Or a failure to communicate ‘our achievements’. Or a need to assert more strongly Labour’s values. “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.” His brutal
attack comes after Labour’s local election losses triggered civil war, with dozens of MPs calling for Mr Starmer to go and ministers quitting their posts. But the PM has vowed to fight on as his rivals openly jostle to replace him. Despite his criticism of the PM’s leadership, Sir Tony branded the shadow leadership contest between Andy Burnham and Wes Streeting “extraordinarily retro”, and said the party needed to find a vision rather than arguing about politics. He warned: “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.” The Labour grandee, who won three general elections, warned lurching to the left or right risked splintering the party’s vote – and instead called for a shift towards the “radical centre” of politics. In thinly veiled swipe, he said: “Unfortunately to the exam question: how do we win a second full term of government, the one answer that seems ruled out, is learning from the only time
in the party’s 120-year history it has ever done so.” He called for radical change to keep up with the technological revolution, and accept AI will transform the way society functions. He also warned Britain risked becoming “marooned on an island of irrelevance” as China jostles with America for superpower status and India rapidly grows in influence. But despite being a staunch Remainer, Sir Tony said the UK could not just rejoin the EU and needed to thrash out a new relationship based on the
world as it is now, not as it was in 2016.
Sir Tony Blair, Keir Starmer, Labour leadership, Andy Burnham, Wes Streeting, local election losses, radical centre, AI, China America, India influence, EU relationship