Mandelson and his protégé Morgan McSweeney may be dead politically. Labour Together has even buried its old brand.  People are abandoning Labour for the Greens and Reform. But the architect of New Labour is still out there and he has made quite a splash with his 5000 word essay.  Every media outlet led on this and he was given more than 10 minutes on the World at One. The mass media is owned by the billionaire class, today Blair was speaking for that corporate elite.  

A key part of the mass media narrative has an anti-political party slant to it.  It mirrors and fuels the refrain that ‘they are all the same’. You just need some new personality to knock their heads together and do the common sense thing. The ex Prime Minister’s diatribe is not just against the mildly left Burnham but dismissive of Starmer and Streeting too.  It did not endorse any British political leader except to urge us to rally around Trump, AI and Big Tech.

What is he up to?

What is the old war monger up to?  It looks like he is trying to reboot the right wing of Labour to resist any Burnham led change. Maybe the sudden implosion of Labour Together is galvinising him into desperate action. Perhaps he thinks there will be some sort of very unstable, hung parliament situation after the next general election. Is he preparing the ground like some latter day De Gaulle to answer the call to keep Britain in what he calls ‘the Premier League of Nations? Does he see himself as some sort of super advisor above all parties to guide some new coalition government along the righteous path of what he calls the ‘radical centre’. Who knows maybe he just likes to keep a buzz  going about himself and his legacy.

What did he say? Here is a summary just to save you the trouble of wading through the pomposity of 5000 words:

• • stop illegal migration “by any means necessary”
• • take away recent legislation on workers’ rights to “give business confidence”
• • scrap net zero commitments and reopen the North Sea oil and gas fields
• • let AI rip without regulation – recognise that AI has changed everything
• • abandon the founding principles of the NHS and have private firms run rampant
• • uncritically support Trump’s foreign policy, Britain was weak on Iran
• • reject progressive tax proposals even from Streeting for equalising income tax and capital gains tax rates
• work with the Tories to slash welfare, end triple lock,

The one thing he said that is true is that the contest between Starmer and Burnham is not about their personalities or communicative competency but needs to be about policies. He is wrong to say Labour has not got a coherent plan. Its plan is clearly a strategic partnership with capital to create growth that will trickle down to provide some extra spending for the people. Blair’s alternative is a much more blatant and open (more junior) partnership with corporate capital. He thinks AI will usher in some sort of golden age if we just let Big Tech get on with it. Blair’s plan is neither radical nor innovative but pure adaptation to international corporate capital. He talks to these people every day. He is one of these people.

The Conservative party spokeswoman interviewed on the BBC actually said the whole project sounded really like modern conservatism rather than the radical centre. She was not far wrong.  The Tories and even Reform would be happy enough with most of the policies in the essay.

Blairism helped create today’s inequality

Burnham was interviewed by the Observer today and he did make one very good point. Blair was incensed by his characterisation of the state of the country being caused by 40 years of neo-liberalism. Obviously that includes Blair’s governments. Burnham correctly says that this has created the immense inequality and insecurity that is today fragmenting British politics and pushing people for more radical alternatives on the right and left.

Blair just does not join up the dots. If a Labour government is, as Mandelson notoriously said , intensely relaxed about people getting rich if they pay their taxes, then it is hardly surprising that galloping inequality is the consequence. Of course Blair lives in another world of privilege and power. His think tank is lavishly funded by people like Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle Corporation.  Blair has been paid millions for advice he gives to the most reactionary and authoritarian regimes. He is a lead member of Trump’s Gaza board of governance.

We need a radical eco-socialist alternative

For the socialist left this debate about policies is an important opportunity for discussion both inside and outside the Labour party. We have to put forward an eco-socialist alternative that begins to break with the hold of corporate capital over our lives. We oppose Burnham’s scramble to already back down from some of his previously stated positions on Shabana Mahmood’s racist proposals, on trans rights or on respecting the fake fiscal rules. 

While welcoming the challenge to Starmer we have no illusions that Burnham is the answer.  We will be discussing what this alternative looks like at the third Eco Socialism annual conference this weekend (See details elsewhere on this site). Come and join us.