Has Tony Blair shifted far right?

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Tony Blair was always a warmonger with Iraq, but he seems to have gone full on far right / Reform now, criticising Starmer for not jumping in with Trump and the US on Iran.

He's saying we should have let them use our bases straight away and "show up" for America no matter what.

He also said Labour has made mistakes by spending more on welfare, focussing on Net Zero, increasing taxes on businesses..

Has he completely lost the plot? This sounds like proper far right policy to me.

I used to think Blair was centre-ground New Labour, but this feels like he's shifted hard right. In fact it's giving me proper far right / racist vibes.

Loads, but my experience of debating with you on other threads is that it would be pointless to discuss them with you.

See some of the ideas others have put forward above.

Everyone is ‘far right’ now, remember.

People who object to a housing estate being built in their back garden. Far right.

People who think children who take knives into school and set fire to the buildings should be expelled. Far right.

People who think prisons should exist. Far right.

People who don’t want 1000 men from misogynistic countries turning up every day demanding they be allowed to live here. Far right.

People who like Oasis. Far right.

People who think we should spend on the military at all. Far right.

And on it goes

Funnily enough, UK productivity increased more last year than the last 6 years combined.....

Thank you for sharing this, you prompted me googling and I learned something new.

Is the UK on the cusp of a productivity revival?

A product of NI business increases and the subsequent rise in unemployment?

Unfortunately it might be the case:

"Economists differ on whether the latest data is promising or worrying because the main reason productivity has improved is low-paid jobs being cut.

These job losses have been centred on hospitality and retail, sectors that were especially hard hit by last year’s increases in national insurance and the minimum wage.

Job cuts in low-wage sectors push up the average output of the remaining workforce in the short term, but Michael Saunders, senior adviser at consultancy Oxford Economics, argued “this is not a route to sustained higher potential growth”. He said the government’s policies are “removing lower paid people from the workforce”, leading to a lasting rise in unemployment and the fiscal burden, while “potential growth is no higher”.

It might well be the case that NMW and NI finally pushed businesses to invest more in automation and now AI, so productivity started growing, but on the back of higher unemployment, especially amongst youngsters. I'm not sure if it's that great.

This article was published in January 2026. So far unemployment is growing.

Countries you rightly cite as having more successful immigration systems such as Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, do have controlled, selective migration with a clear criteria on skills and contribution, as you say.

Closer to home, much of Europe, as you again cite, have struggled because immigration is seen as a moral issue and that is where we struggle because we fail to address how we should cope with housing, wages, schools, health service and integration.

It's a shame the productivity increase was caused by high interest rates pushing weaker firms out of business (according to the Resolution Foundation) rather than because the economic picture is stronger overall.

Well criticising Net Zero and criticising the amount spent on welfare is definitely full on extreme racist fascist ideology.

Income inequality has barely changed in the last 30 years. However wealth inequality has changed significantly (as in got bigger) over the last 30 years. This is largely due to massive rises in house prices and large generous final salary pension pots, rather than billionaires.

Oh it’s worse than that. Questioning net zero or welfare spending means you are indisputably a lump of pure evil, like in Time Bandits.

Tony Blair is the reason l stopped voting for the Socialist Party. Sorry New Labour.

Always was, and still is a real self interested piece of work.

Questioning lockdown is another thing for the list of making one “far right”.

Mind you, I shudder to think what lockdown would have been like under Bliar, the pioneer of the nanny state. We’d probably still be in lockdown now. He probably regrets that he wasn’t PM in 2020.

Fine, all mouth no trousers... You don't have "loads" at all, you've none & no one up thread has suggested any either, its all "we need to increase growth/productivity..." but no actually suggestions on the "how"

Like i said, higher productivity, will almost certainly lead to higher unemployment, as we are we seeing, less workers but producing the same as before.....

Higher employment costs have a silver lining.

Increasing total output requires a market to sell into and that in a competitive world and out of our nearest and richest one, is v difficult.

Aside, Labours comms yet again, productivity increases don't even get a mention.

Lol! Given the UK had the longest multiple lockdown in almost all of Europe, under Bojo, i think you might be better off directing your criticisms at what really happened, rather than using your vivid imagination.

My European friends were all enjoying foreign travel whilst we were not allowed too.

Why inequality rather than, say, living standards of the poorest quartile or some other absolute measure? Isn’t that a more important goal?

Just look at how bad it was in Scotland under Stergeon and you'll get a taste of what aa Blair lockdown would look like

Yes it depends which direction it goes, we could all be equally poorer but then who pays for the stuff needed in the public sector.

They probably don’t want to mention them because the sparkly headline hides a darker reality. As with so much of what is going on at the moment.

This ‘highest growth in the G7’ mantra only really matters if all the G7 countries are doing well. They’re not. We should be comparing ourselves to other countries outside the G7 which are doing way better.

You also need pretty tight bands on immigration if your top priority is to prevent inequality worsening in the UK. No more investment bankers and certainty almost no asylum seekers.

I disagreed with some of what he said but the rest was very clear and astute.

• policy should come before politics- we are distracted by personalities and their characters when we should be focusing on what policies these people propose. Agree.
• economic growth is key, we can’t afford anything else without it. Agree.
• current policies are not coherent and harm business. There is no clear strategy for growth. Agree.
• net-zero is harming us and makes little difference. It is not a well thought out policy. We are deliberately reducing our quality of life when other countries that actually contribute large amounts of gh gasses are roaring ahead. China will not change its policy because of what ed millibsnd says (they don’t care what uk does). Agree.
• the burden of welfare payments is unsustainable and must be reformed. Agree.
• we couldn’t win a war against Russia without the US so need to keep good relations with them in the long term. Agree.

Personally I think that raising the quality of life of the lowest deciles i s more important than reducing inequality. I’d rather have more billionaires and fewer people in deprivation than no billionaires and still people in deprivation. Try to pull everyone up rather than squash some down.

Yes well said. You sum up why he makes sense. I don’t agree with all from TB, not digital ID for example, but on these points he’s correct.

In the newsagents interview he also talked about the risk of a lack of a clear plan appealing to populist groups (example of migration). He said he found the labels left and right unhelpful and old fashioned, that what matters is getting the policies right in the interests of the country, and that automatically disagreeing with ideas from ‘the other side’ was unhelpful.

He works for Donald Trump so - yes

all mouth no trousers

What was it you were saying earlier about how I insulted you on other threads? 🤣🤣🤣

Like i said, higher productivity, will almost certainly lead to higher unemployment, as we are we seeing, less workers but producing the same as before.....

Correct, less jobs are needed to do the same work. Incorrect unemployment rises in a direct relationship, because although it reduces jobs on the short term in specific areas it tends to increase employment over time through its effects.

Increasing total output requires a market to sell into and that in a competitive world and out of our nearest and richest one, is v difficult.

It is not "very difficult" to export into the EU, it's still by far our biggest export market.

With you on all of that.

😂😆

Great post x