LONDON, May 27 (Reuters) - Tony Blair, who led Labour to victory in three UK elections, called on the party on Tuesday to shun the temptation to move left or reverse Brexit to shore up its fortunes, and to concentrate on policy rather than personality.
As Labour gears up for a possible leadership contest, Blair, the party's longest-serving premier between 1997 and 2007, spoke out in a more than 5,000-word essay, taking aim at Prime Minister Keir Starmer and two of his rivals, Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham and former health minister Wes Streeting.
"(Any renewal of Britain) requires a fundamental reset," he wrote. "Labour's only electorally viable strategy is to become the Radical Centre."
Rivals to Starmer are circling the prime minister, who is battling some of the worst popularity ratings of any leader, and are offering their opinions on how to turn round the ailing fortunes of a government that has struggled to offer voters a clear vision and dent the rise of the populist Reform UK party.
BURNHAM POINTS TO NEW VOTING HABITS
Burnham, the favourite to replace Starmer if the mayor wins a return to parliament in an election in northern England next month, quickly criticised Blair's comments, telling the Observer newspaper the former prime minister had failed to grasp how inequality was driving new voting habits.
Streeting, in his own response published in the Guardian newspaper, also criticised Blair's lack of focus on inequality and said the Labour Party should ensure market forces "serve society rather than dominate it."
Blair said the Labour government's problems would not necessarily disappear if the party changed its leader.
"The government's principal problem isn't Keir's personality. Or a failure to communicate 'our achievements'. Or a need to assert more strongly Labour's 'values'," he wrote.
"Whether there is a leadership change or not is irrelevant if it doesn't start with a policy debate."
In what appeared to be criticism of Burnham and Streeting, Blair said the party should not move further left or try to return to the European Union to win over voters.
"It is one thing when in opposition to indulge this perennial delusion that when we lose seats to the right the country is really signalling it wants Labour to move left; it is dangerous to do it in government," he wrote.
"Just as Brexit was never the answer to Britain's challenges back in 2016, reversing it isn't the answer to the country's far worse situation in 2026."
AI REVOLUTION
Instead, the government should signal it is on the side of business in navigating the AI revolution, must focus on cheaper energy rather than cleaner energy and try to forge "a structured, formal relationship" with the EU.
Burnham criticised Blair for not mentioning "inequality once" and failing to realise that people "don't think the centre has delivered for them in terms of their lives, therefore they've gone further to the extremes".
"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," he said.
(Reporting by Elizabeth Piper; Editing by Sharon Singleton and Chiara Rodriquez)
