Sir Tony Blair has warned that Labour is “playing with fire” and risks doing long-term damage to both the party and the country unless the government undergoes a fundamental reset.
In a major intervention, Labour’s most successful former leader and prime minister urged the party to return to its “radical centre” and warned that the country was in a “mess” because the party had failed to put policy first and politics last.
He said reversing this was key to winning a second term in government, saying it needs a clear plan to put things right if it is to save the country from Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
But he warned that trying to force the prime minister out without a clear policy direction “is not a serious way of conducting ourselves”.
The stark warning comes as Sir Keir Starmer’s government is in limbo, awaiting the outcome of the Makerfield by-election. If the Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham wins the by-election – he is just ahead of Reform UK in the polls at the moment – he will launch a leadership challenge to Sir Keir.
Sir Tony, who played a major role in the Remain campaign opposing Brexit, also warned that the UK is “too weak” to reset its relationship with the EU and cannot even discuss rejoining until it regains its lost strength.
In his 5,600-word essay on the future of Labour and the country, Sir Tony discusses Britain’s position within the new world order; the centrality of the AI and technology revolution; and sets out “a new policy agenda … to halt Britain’s slide”.
He warned: “The Labour Party is playing with fire; or, more accurately, with its future, and that of the country.”
“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. These changes need long-term strategic thinking, which is alien to the way most modern democracies function.”
In a damning indictment of nearly two years of a Starmer government, he added: “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 to devise one and win a second term.”
But Sir Tony suggested that simply swapping Sir Keir for Mr Burnham, former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, or former health secretary Wes Streeting, who claimed on Tuesday that he has the 81 backers needed to contest the leadership, would not solve the problem in itself.
He said: “Whether there is a leadership change or not is irrelevant if it doesn’t start with a policy debate.”
In a plea to the party to allow more time for reflection, he added: “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.”
Sir Tony was himself forced out by supporters of Gordon Brown in 2007, with Labour going on to lose the next election in 2010. But he warned that, unlike his government, the party is now trying to govern from “its own comfort zone” on the soft left.
He said “The government is governing from an essentially traditional Labour ‘soft left’ position, parked firmly in the party’s comfort zone.
“In the last Budget, it appeared as though we were increasing tax to pay for additional welfare spending, when the public already think welfare bills are too high.”
In a scathing critique, he noted that the Starmer government’s measures such as “the new workers’ rights laws; the net-zero acceleration and phasing out of the British oil and gas industry; the uplift in the minimum wage beyond inflation; and the non-dom changes” have given “headwinds, not tailwinds, to British business, despite the macroeconomic gains for which the chancellor is rightly praised”.
He argued: “Governments that succeed don’t start with a personality contest. Or a political question, such as how do we “save the country” from Reform. They start with an idea, a project, a governing purpose, an analysis of what is wrong and a plan to put it right.”
He called on Labour to occupy the “best political space” which he described as “the radical centre”.
“The centre – properly defined – is where you put policy first and politics last. So, you begin with the question: what is the right answer? And only once you have that, do you engage in the political task of persuading people of it. Britain is in a mess precisely because, in recent years, it has done the opposite.”
On Brexit, he said that simply reversing it “isn’t the answer”, as the country is in a far worse situation now than it was when Britons voted to leave the EU in 2016, largely due to its flatlining economy.
“If we want to go back into some sort of structured relationship with Europe, we can only do so from a position of economic strength. We must be at the farthest end of European competitiveness. At present, we’re not,” he said.
And on the country’s positioning in the new world order, he said Britain was “caught between the isolationist tendency of parts of the right, and the misguided progressivism of parts of the left, which combined are in danger of leaving Britain marooned on an island of irrelevance”.
He claimed to understand “the anxiety in Europe” when US president Donald Trump casts doubt on the value of Nato or the transatlantic alliance, but he regarded it as “less of a ‘rupture’ than a ‘reckoning’. This side of the water we’re being told some home truths that, if we are wise, we will wake up to”.
He added: “Europe needs to build economic competitivity and military capability. At present, it is not succeeding in either as it should.”
