As Labour elects its new leader, Tony Blair, the most successful leader in the party’s 120-year history, on Thursday cautioned that nothing less than a ‘head-to-toe renewal’ is needed if it is to come anywhere near power after another Conservative term in office.
The party was humbled again in the December 2019 election, losing its fourth election in a row since 2010. Blair, who led the party to three election wins since 1997, used the 120th anniversary of the party’s founding to present his version of the challenges ahead.
Labour’s new leader to replace Jeremy Corbyn will be announced on April 4. The three candidates are Indian-origin Lisa Nandy, Rebecca Long-Bailey and Keir Starmer – each have different views of Blair’s record in office.
“The country needs an opposition...Our latest defeat was entirely predictable and predicted”, Blair told a London audience, noting that out of 120 years, Labour has been in office in just over 30 years. He regretted that the current dispensation wants to “disown” achievements under his New Labour.
“We went into an election with a Leader with a minus 40% net approval rating, on political terrain chosen by our opponents, with a manifesto promising the earth but from a planet other than earth, and a campaign which substituted a narcissistic belief in our righteousness for professionalism”, he said.
{{/usCountry}}“We went into an election with a Leader with a minus 40% net approval rating, on political terrain chosen by our opponents, with a manifesto promising the earth but from a planet other than earth, and a campaign which substituted a narcissistic belief in our righteousness for professionalism”, he said.
{{/usCountry}}“Labour has always won when it secured the centre of British politics, addressed the future and broadened its appeal; and yet despite this obviously being true, we have exhibited an extraordinary attachment to retreating into a narrow part of the left which has always ended in defeat”.
According to him, Labour’s needs to internalise the “mentality of government”, and also redefine what it means by “radical”, because this is the current technology revolution is the 21st century equivalent of the 19th century industrial revolution.
“(The) right ideas in politics never work without the right mentality. I mean the mentality of Government. The Labour Party is not an NGO, and not a pressure group. Its aim is not to trend on twitter, or to have celebrities (temporarily) fawn over it or to glory in a bubble of adulation pricked by the sharp point of the first tough decision”.
“2020 isn’t 1997 or even 2007. And 2030 will be a revolution different from 2020. It’s always about the future. Precisely because of that, because whilst pointing forwards, we have been traveling backwards, nothing less than ‘born again’ head to toe renewal, will do”.