Tony Blair ‘fired up’ to shape Labour future by Andy Burnham’s attack
Sir Tony Blair is poised to escalate his interventions in Labour’s leadership race after allies said criticism from Andy Burnham had “put a fire in his belly” and hardened his resolve to shape the party’s future.
Blair’s allies said Burnham’s claim that “40 years of neoliberalism” had damaged Britain was an attack on the former prime minister’s legacy and an inaccurate representation of the country’s economic woes.
There is now a growing row between the two men, after Burnham told The Observer on Wednesday that Blair did not understand the dire economic reality for working-class Britons.
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Burnham was responding to a 5,600-word essay from Blair that criticised Sir Keir Starmer’s government for not having a “coherent” plan for the country, and accused the Labour Party of “playing with fire” by contemplating a more left-wing agenda under a new prime minister.
Burnham said: “He doesn’t mention inequality once. If you don’t get how that’s driving politics now, if you are not rooting your analysis in the fact that people are unable to live and that things that were taken for granted are no longer affordable, then you are not understanding what’s going on.”
The mayor of Greater Manchester is standing in next month’s Makerfield by-election as part of a plan to replace Starmer in No 10.
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A key part of his pitch is to bring “Manchesterism” to the rest of Britain, which could lead to greater state control of public utilities and more development in the north of England.
The recent leadership wrangling and the performance of Starmer’s government have energised Blair to take a more public role in trying to shape the future of Labour.
One of Blair’s allies said the former prime minister believed Tuesday’s essay was “the beginning, not the end” of his efforts to influence the future direction of the Labour government.
The ally said: “The ‘40 years of neoliberalism’ line [from Burnham] has put fire in Tony’s belly.
“Just take a look at Makerfield before and after the last Labour government — it’s completely transformed. In life expectancy, educational attainment, employment. And over the last decade it’s gone backwards.”
Blair has also told friends that he likes Burnham, but just does not agree with him.
On Wednesday, the former prime minister told The News Agents, a podcast, that he was “anxious” and “pessimistic” about the future of the Labour Party.
He said: “There’s no point in deciding who leads the country on the basis of personality unless you understand our purpose in governing.”
He also wrote in Tuesday’s essay that Labour now risked consigning Britain to “relegation from the Premier League of nations”.
The Times first reported in December that Blair had grown increasingly unimpressed by Starmer’s efforts in office and his government’s leftward drift.
Since then, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change think tank has put together a policy platform that calls for an overhaul of the civil service, more North Sea oil drilling and accelerated AI development.
On Wednesday, Blair told Times Radio that Starmer should rip up Ed Miliband’s net-zero goals to reduce energy bills.
Discussing Starmer’s ban on new North Sea oil and gas drilling, he said: “I don’t [know] another country in the world that’s doing that if they’ve still got a requirement to import energy from oil and gas.”
He also criticised Starmer’s government for keeping taxes on working people “too high” and called for an end to the pension triple lock.
Dan Tomlinson, the Treasury minister, waved away the criticism on Wednesday morning and said “things have moved on” since 2007.
He added that “this government is taking the big steps, actually some of the steps that the Tony Blair government didn’t take”, including planning reform to build more homes.
Blair’s essay has divided opinion among Labour ministers, MPs and activists.
Many on the left of the party saw it as an unwelcome intrusion from a man who left office more than two decades ago.
Richard Burgon, a Labour MP, said Blair had “nothing to offer Labour in 2026” and that “neoliberalism, backing of endless wars and acceptance of inequality are exactly what Labour must break from”.
Luke Charters, a Labour MP and Burnham supporter, said: “One conversation with a former Reform voter now backing Andy in Makerfield tells you more than any think tank political essay ever could.”
However, many moderate Labour MPs privately agreed with much of Blair’s analysis of the government.
One said it was “hard to argue” against his argument that Starmer had not properly diagnosed the country’s problems or provided a comprehensive plan for how to fix them.