Tony Blair’s encyclical for Keir Starmer

Tony Blair has accused Labour of having an “almost infinite capacity for self-delusion”. In a damning essay, published by his Institute for Global Change, the former prime minister who left office nearly two decades ago, launched a 5,700-word attack on the government and warned that if the party does not reoccupy the centre ground, it will almost certainly lose the next election.

Blair has urged the government to slash welfare spending, walk back from net zero, and lift the ban on new oil and gas licences. He describes the government’s current position – quite disparagingly – as a “traditional Labour ‘soft left’ position”.

Why Blair has chosen now to intervene is obvious: the Labour Party has spent the best part of six months in the midst of an identity crisis. After a woeful set of local election results, Keir Starmer’s position as Prime Minister is still in question, Andy Burnham is seeking to return to Westminster, and Wes Streeting is steadily laying out his leadership pitch. But in the midst of two international wars and a cost-of-living crisis, many members of the public will likely agree with Blair’s overarching analysis that now is not the time to turn inward. He writes: “Governments which succeed don’t start with a personality contest.”

But the party that Blair spent 13 years leading is unlikely to welcome this intervention with whoops and cheers of gratitude. Many of the suggestions Blair makes in his essay – such as arguing that Starmer should have scrapped his pledges on workers rights and net zero early on in his premiership – are likely to go down like a cup of cold sick with the party’s disgruntled backbenchers. Blair’s critics are also likely to point to his Institute’s financial links to the tech boss Larry Ellison as being drivers of his AI-evangelism and will not look kindly on his suggestion that the UK should repair its relationship with Donald Trump.

Dan Tomlinson, the treasury minister who had the unenviable task of taking on the broadcast round this morning, deftly handled an awkward situation. He told broadcasters that while he agreed with Blair on some of his analysis, his essay seemed to re-litigate an age-old Labour squabble. “I think [Blair’s] essay was about whether we’re New Labour or old Labour – that was a debate that was happening in the 1990s in the UK, which was pretty much around the time I was born [in 1992]. Things have moved on a lot since then,” he said.

Listening to Blair being interviewed by Nick Robinson on the Today programme offered a hint of that argument. In his national-local campaign for Makerfield, Burnham has spoken scathingly about the impact of 40 years of neoliberalism on the British economy. Taken at face value, this could suggest that the governments of Blair and Brown (in which Burnham participated) were part of the problem. “I don’t think he really means that,” Blair said.

Still, Blair’s essay doesn’t seem to be speaking to the Labour Party that exists today. While he warns against occupying the “traditional Labour soft left”, the most likely outcome of the party’s leadership woes is that it continues to do just that. Blair’s closest heir in this race is Streeting, who he describes as a “huge political talent”. But according to polling, Streeting will have a more difficult time than rivals such as Burnham, Miliband, or Angela Rayner in replacing Starmer in No 10.

As this intervention reveals, Blair clearly has a vision for the Labour Party and a vision for Britain. Are his political descendants willing to listen?

This piece first appeared in the Morning Call newsletter; receive it every morning by subscribing on Substack here

[Further reading: What Britain won’t face]