Former UK PM Blair criticizes Labour as lacking a ‘coherent plan’

Tony Blair has warned the Labour Party against forcing out UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer without having a proper policy agenda to follow him, as he launched a criticism of the government’s time in office.

The former prime minister, who is the only Labour leader to win three general elections, argued Starmer’s government needs a “fundamental reset” less than two years since Labour won a landslide election.

Blair said Labour is “lacking a project” and was “playing with the future of the country” in a 5,700-word essay which was published on Tuesday.

He highlighted a number of areas where he disagreed with the government since it came into office in July 2024.

Blair, who left office in 2007, said Labour had held back business and growth since it won the election.

He referenced the increase of employers’ national insurance, the workers’ rights bill and the rise in minimum wage.

The former prime minister said: “The Labour Party is playing with fire; or, more accurately, with its future, and that of the country.”

He went on: “The government’s principal problem isn’t Keir’s personality. Or a failure to communicate ‘our achievements’. Or a need to assert more strongly Labour’s ‘values.’

“It is because we don’t have a worked out, coherent plan for the country in a fast-changing world and are in the wrong political position from which we can devise one and win a second term.

“The government is governing from an essentially traditional Labour ‘soft left’ position, parked firmly in the party’s comfort zone.”

He said the government should not have stopped the US from using its RAF bases during the attacks on Iran.

Blair also said the government should do “whatever it takes” to stop the small boats migrant crisis and laid out a 10-point plan for the future of government. In it, he emphasized the impact of AI on society, and urged action to be taken on it.

Despite backing Remain in the Brexit referendum, and later a second vote, Blair cautioned against a push to rejoin the European Union. Instead, both should work on areas of shared interest, including defence and energy.

“The truth is that Britain has lost from Brexit. But so has Europe,” he said.

“We’re both weaker without the other. But we can’t go back to cohabitation unless on a basis which enhances our capabilities, economic and political, and does not undermine them – and that goes for both of us.”

ANEWS wp:paragraph