Tony Blair pens withering attack on ‘woke left’, Labour and Keir Starmer after election losses
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair has launched a scathing attack on Keir Starmer and the “woke left” after the Labour Party suffered a slew of defeats at the local body elections.
Blair, the last Labour Party Prime Minister to be elected, said the Labour Party needs to be rebuilt and that Starmer “lacks a compelling economic message”.
“And the cultural message, because he is not clarifying it, is being defined by the ‘woke’ left, whose every statement gets cut-through courtesy of the right,” writes Blair in the New Statesman today.
The Tories gained control of more than 12 extra local councils and took more than 200 further councillors at the local body elections last week.
Labour did, however, do well in Wales and in city mayoralty races in England.
The former Prime Minister argues that the Labour Party needs a full “deconstruction and reconstruction”.
On Starmer, Blair writes that the London MP is “struggling to break through with the public, and last week’s elections are a major setback.
“Keir seems sensible but not radical”.
Regarding the so-called culture wars and Labour’s place in them, Blair advised: “A progressive party seeking power which looks askance at the likes of Trevor Phillips, Sara Khan, or JK Rowling, is not going to win.
“People are suspicious that behind the agenda of many of the culture warriors on the left lies an ideology they find alien and extreme,” he adds.
It came on the same day that other senior Labour Party figures chimed in with their analysis on their organisation’s political future.
Former leader Ed Miliband this morning said Labour needs to be “bolder” but Starmer should be given time to rebuild the party’s support.
The shadow business secretary’s comments came after Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner admitted that members of the public did not know what Starmer “stood for” before they went to the poll.
Miliband said the party’s senior figures have a “collective responsibility” to “show what we stand for”.