Tony Blair has launched a scathing 5,700-word essay attacking Prime Minister Keir Starmer and other Labour figures, accusing the party of having an “almost infinite capacity for self-delusion” and warning it is likely to lose the next election. In a highly unusual intervention by a former Labour prime minister, Blair argued that the government must abandon net zero policies, crack down on welfare spending, and smooth relations with Donald Trump.
Blair criticised Starmer’s approach to the US, saying it was vital the US could trust the UK as an ally, and attacked policies including Angela Rayner’s employment rights bill, Ed Miliband’s net zero drive, and the phasing out of oil and gas licences. He also took aim at Andy Burnham and Wes Streeting, calling their tax and spending ideas a “perennial delusion” that the party should move left while losing seats to the right.
Despite his criticisms, Blair cautioned against removing Starmer as leader, stating 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.” He urged the party to focus on a policy debate rather than a leadership change.
A senior Labour source responded sharply, saying: “Tony has evidently not been near a working-class Brit for decades but he’s clearly been away with the tech bro fantasists. Reheated Blairism has absolutely no answers to our national decline since the vultures were let loose.”
Blair’s essay also criticised cuts to international aid, which he said had weakened Britain’s influence, and argued that the government should remove obstacles to AI growth, radically increase planning reform, reverse North Sea energy policy, and make fundamental changes to the welfare system. “Without an agenda of this nature, radical but sensible, Britain will continue its long slide towards relegation from the Premier League of Nations,” he wrote.
