Tony Blair tells Starmer and rivals: abandon net zero and move closer to Trump [View all]

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Source: The Guardian

Tony Blair tells Starmer and rivals: abandon net zero and move closer to Trump

In highly unusual intervention, ex-PM says his party’s ‘almost infinite capacity for self-delusion’ makes it likely to lose next election

Jessica Elgot Deputy political editor
Tue 26 May 2026 22.00 BST
Last modified on Tue 26 May 2026 22.28 BST

Tony Blair has accused Keir Starmer, Andy Burnham and Wes Streeting of putting Labour’s future at risk by abandoning the centre ground, warning that the party’s “almost infinite capacity for self-delusion” means it is likely to lose the next election.

In a scathing 5,700-word attack on the prime minister and his would-be successors published on Tuesday night, Blair argued for the government to crack down on welfare spending, abandon restrictions on oil and gas and smooth relations with Donald Trump.

His essay, a highly unusual intervention for a past Labour prime minister, is likely to draw a furious response from across the party, where Blair’s legacy remains highly contentious. On Tuesday, one senior source accused him of abandoning social democratic values to embrace an agenda that had “no answers”.

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The former prime minister named Angela Rayner’s employment rights bill and Ed Miliband’s net zero drive as key mistakes, alongside the phasing out of oil and gas licenses and Rachel Reeves’ decision to raise the minimum wage and national insurance and change the status of non-doms. All of the policies had given “headwinds, not tailwinds to British business”, he wrote.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/may/26/tony-blair-labour-abandon-net-zero-support-donald-trump