Wes Streeting has rejected the 'Blairite' label by launching a scathing attack on Sir Tony Blair's failure to address inequality in his recent proposals for Britain. The former health secretary, who resigned from Sir Keir Starmer's government to prepare for a leadership bid, criticised Blair's 5,600-word critique for treating inequality as peripheral rather than fundamental.
Writing in The Guardian, Streeting argued that inequality is the cause of crises reshaping Western democracies, not merely incidental. He highlighted disparities such as nurses paying higher tax rates than landlords, poorer communities falling ill earlier, and most private wealth now being inherited rather than earned.
Streeting also clashed with Blair over Brexit, calling for the UK to rejoin the EU, while Blair insisted Britain could not reset its relationship while economically weak. On Donald Trump, Streeting warned against 'automatic subservience' to the US, citing the Iraq war as a consequence of 'loyalty replacing judgement'.
The intervention distances Streeting from the Blairite wing of the Labour Party, as he rejects Blair's demands to slash welfare, scrap the pension triple lock, and ditch net zero spending. The move comes as Andy Burnham, the frontrunner to replace Starmer, also criticised the former prime minister.
