The intervention by the former prime minister comes just weeks before a key by-election that could determine Labour’s future.
LONDON — Tony Blair launched a devastating broadside against the Labour government on Wednesday, warning that his own party is “playing with fire” and risks relegating Britain from the “Premier League of nations.”
In a blistering 5,700-word essay published by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, the former prime minister accused Labour of suffering from an “almost infinite capacity for self-delusion” just under two years since Keir Starmer led the party to a landslide victory, forming the first Labour government in 14 years.
The intervention comes weeks ahead of a by-election, which could see Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham return to parliament and potentially challenge Starmer for the leadership of the party.
But Blair, who highlighted his three-time win record, argued that rather than “Keir’s personality” or “a failure to communicate,” the current government’s main affliction is the total absence of a “worked-out, coherent plan for the country.”
In the essay, he urges Labour to avoid a drift to the left and instead to push for a “radical center” policy agenda if it is to hold on to power, including grappling with artificial intelligence policy, capping pension spending, and easing restrictions on oil and gas drilling.
“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,” he warned.
Blair took direct aim at the cornerstones of modern Labour policy, attacking a host of top officials and their signature initiatives: Energy Secretary Ed Miliband’s net-zero targets, Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ business tax policy, and former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner’s workers’ rights package.
“Taken together, these measures have given headwinds not tailwinds to British business despite the macroeconomic gains for which the chancellor is rightly praised,” he argued.
Potential challengers to Starmer also came in for a lashing. He blasted Burnham for drifting leftward on tax and spend, and critiqued the more centrist Health Secretary Wes Streeting over capital gains tax and EU relations.
The missive landed to a mixed reaction from Labour MPs — and a curt brush-off from the government. Chris Curtis, chair of the economic reform-focused Labour Growth Group, told the BBC it was a “refreshing” read that grappled with big issues facing Britain.
Treasury Minister Dan Tomlinson, responding for the government, told Times Radio that while he was “always interested in the contribution of former prime ministers,” Blair’s argument was “essentially about new Labour versus old Labour,” and “is just not where we are today.”
He added: “Actually what this government is doing is getting on with the job of confronting the problems that are facing people in modern Britain in the mid-2020s, 30 years on from the debates and the framing that Tony Blair was putting out this morning.”