Labour increasingly in the grip of far left, warns former PM Blair
FORMER Labour prime minister Tony Blair has admitted he is “worried” about the direction of the party but vowed he is “not going to give up on it”.
Mr Blair said Labour was “increasingly in the grip of the far left moving further and further to the left in its politics”, adding that it had “frankly reheated politics from the days I remember when I was a student”.
He said he was not advocating or involved in a new centre party or “certainly not running for its leadership at this or any stage,” but he predicted someone would fill the “vast uncultivated centre ground”.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that “you have a Conservative Party that becomes increasingly defined by Brexit and, if you like, engages in a sort of narrow-minded nationalism on the one side. And then you have on the other side a Labour Party that is increasingly in the grip of the far left moving further and further to the left in its politics.”
Asked if he was scared by Labour’s trajectory, he said: “I don’t say scared, I’m worried because I don’t think it’s the right direction for the Labour Party or the country...if you leave between that Brexit-dominated Tory party and a hard left Labour Party, you leave that vast uncultivated centre ground.
“At some point someone is going to come along and cultivate it.”