We Have All Heard Enough From Tony Blair

Tony Blair’s unabashed tendency to offer his unsolicited opinion on the decline of the Labour party has unfortunately become a rather exhausting feature of British politics. Refusing to comply with his fate of exiting stage left and disappearing into irrelevancy, the former Prime Minister and Labour party leader has maintained an irritating desire to be heard. His latest intervention comes in the form of a rambling essay posted to the Tony Blair Institute’s so-called ‘insights’ page accusing the Labour party of recklessly ‘playing with fire’ and the future of the country. Playing with fire is something the former Prime Minister is adept at, having notoriously led Britain into the infamous 2003 Iraq war, which was later explicitly identified as illegal. Perhaps Blair should have some warm words for Keir Starmer at this difficult time, with the latter mirroring the former's mistakes in cultivating a close relationship with the odious figure Peter Mandelson. 

Warm words are certainly absent from Blair’s latest contribution. Managing to deliver an almost impressively high number of shots at senior Labour party figures in just the first few lines of his essay, Blair condescendingly dismisses the party of ‘well-meaning people’ as having an ‘almost infinite capacity for self-delusion’. The former Prime Minister goes on to lay out his solution to all the government’s woes in his usual verbose manner, culminating with the entirely original suggestion of ‘radical centrism’. It is at this point Blair’s tirade loses all sense of exceedingly tenuous legitimacy. Is Blair aware there has been nothing radical about centrism in several decades? His essay goes on to discourage the Labour party from prioritising attempts to fend off Reform whilst also decrying a left-wing policy shift, instead utilising the opportunity to rehash usual tired debates surrounding income tax and the welfare bill. 

Sparing no time to offer meaningful policy advice, the long rant then shifts back to generic prophesying about the development of a so-called new world order. The former Prime Minister defines the rise of China as a great power and the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as two pillars of this new order. This commentary on shifting geopolitics would have hardly been novel a decade ago, and reads today as painfully repetitive. Never missing a chance to drag the UK into yet more military intervention in the Middle East, Blair enthusiastically advocates for continuous UK endorsement and participation in American military efforts as an attempt to cling on to international relevance. Undoubtedly, Trump will continue to encourage Blair’s delusion by including him in further projects equally as grotesque as last year’s ‘Gaza Riviera’ fantasy. In similar unoriginal commentary, he calls for a ‘structured relationship’ with Europe and further investment in the Gulf states. The latter he admits may be a difficult sell with ‘parts of Western opinion’, an ambiguous way to suggest not all British politicians may be willing to overlook human rights abuses. Blair himself has no such qualms, considering his organisation’s receipt of up to $12 million in exchange for advising the Saudi Kingdom, a partnership which has continued since the 2018 assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. 

Beyond his waxing lyrical about unsavoury figures from Javier Milei to Georgia Meloni, Blair offers some core tenets of his uninspiring ‘radical centrism’ agenda. Once again, ideas as novel as deregulation, welfare reform and ‘whatever it takes’ to deal with immigration take centre stage. Blair can hardly even claim these views are his own, given the myriad of billionaire funders his organisation insists on being a mouthpiece for. Trump-supporting tech billionaire Larry Ellison, who invested $130 million in the Tony Blair Institute between 2021 and 2023 and has since pledged a further $218 million, is certainly the true voice behind the Institute’s uncritical support for further investment in AI. 

Beyond his self-indulgent ramblings, a dangerous truth has become clear. Blair is not content to sell himself and his organisation to the highest bidder; he is calling for the sale of the country itself. Unfortunately for him, his relevancy has long expired. No longer the charismatic salesman offering promises of a Cool Britannia, all that remains of Tony Blair is a bottomless pit of greed and nauseating subservience to autocrats with twice his relevance.

Image: Flickr/Quinn Daedal

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