Andy Burnham has hit back at Tony Blair after the former prime minister accused him and other Labour figures of abandoning the centre ground, warning the party risks losing the next election due to its 'almost infinite capacity for self-delusion'. In a scathing 5,700-word essay published on Tuesday, Blair criticised Burnham, Keir Starmer, and Wes Streeting, urging the government to crack down on welfare, abandon net zero restrictions, and repair relations with Donald Trump.
Blair argued that Labour must move to the centre, saying it was a 'perennial delusion' to shift left while losing seats to the right. He attacked Burnham and Streeting for tax and spending ideas he said had been rejected by serious governments, and criticised Starmer's approach to the US, cuts to international aid, and policies including Angela Rayner's employment rights bill and Ed Miliband's net zero drive.
Burnham responded by accusing Blair of being out of touch, 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.' A senior Labour source echoed this, accusing Blair of abandoning social democratic values.
Blair also warned against trying to oust Starmer, stating that a leadership change is irrelevant without a policy debate. He said the government should remove obstacles to AI growth, reform planning, reverse North Sea energy policy, and overhaul welfare. Without such an agenda, he argued, Britain would continue its 'long slide towards relegation from the Premier League of Nations'.
