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.

Excellent post, completely agree.

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.

The issue is that there is nobody, not a single person in Labour who sees it this way. They all, Andy, Wes, let alone Angela, Rachel, they all shout about inequality and their way to resolve it is redistribution. If they listened to Tony and actually did something, we'd have a chance to keep Reform out.

Yes - Labour - dragging people down, Never lifting them up.

The poorer and more helpless people feel, the more votes Labour get.

That is their reason for being - these days. Disgusting.

I think Thatcher hit the nail on the head with that one. She said something like "they'd rather the pie was smaller and everybody had an equal slice than that the pie was bigger and everyone had a bigger slice, but some people had a bigger slice than others."

If you think about it - it used to be the case, poorer people vote Labour, wealthier vote Tory.
So Andy, who accused Tony Blair being stuck 40 years ago, is the one who is actually stuck.
Because these days poorer people vote Reform, not Labour. Youngest voters used to vote Labour, but they have Green now. So if Labour were a bit more clever, they'd realise that they need to consolidate liberal middle classes and there is a huge politically homeless centrist vote base, exactly what TB said.
Just reconfirms that there is no real intellectual power in current Labour party. Again, TB was right calling it "intellectual wasteland".
I feel sorry about losing Kier - at least he was good with his international standing. I can't be so sure about the others.

Yes of course, it has always been the 'working class' party. But it was in a different way originally. the Working class then were proud, would never have skived or aimed to live on handouts, or planned families they couldn't afford to raise without state handouts. Worklessness and benefits were not encouraged at all. and for eg. Unions were meant for workers who had no rights in the workplace. It was all for good reasons. But now, all that has gone. Unions are a joke and labour encourage benefit culture for life. People don't have hope anymore - no jobs just benefits. Then once on benefits, stay on benefits.

Someone’s lost the plot yes. It’s not Tony Blair

That’s a highly romanticised view of the past. My dad who was a miner’s son and would have been 110 this year would have split his sides reading that.

Oh really? Fascinating. My grandad was a miner. My grandma was a nurse (an immigrant as well). They were very proud people and labour through and through. They wouldn't support the shit show we see today.

Full on far right. These people are fcking deluded. Frightening. Still it explains a lot...

Is it really necessary to be so snarky? You made a generalised post about a whole sector of society. All I did was point out that someone who was part of that throughout their formative years - he remembered the General Strike really clearly - wouldn’t recognise your description.

You said 'That’s a highly romanticised view of the past. My dad who was a miner’s son and would have been 110 this year would have split his sides reading that.'. That was unnecessary, and rude, from you, and it was also of course untrue (the romanticised bit, the 'split his sides bit' if you say so). So I replied accordingly.

What was rude about it? It is romanticised and my dad would have laughed. I didn’t jeer at you.

Sorry Blossom I'm bored with you now.

Huh? its a saying NOT an insult....

Come up with how you'd improve productivity, as you kep saying we need to do this... or is it a case of "back seat driver"

Exporting to EU costs more, jobs lost, uk firms setting up EU subsidiaries to get round the red tape, prior to Brexit, export to Lisbon was as easy as sending goods to Luton, now its expensive, lengthy and has reduced in volume.

Its the very opposite of improving productivity.

Where does the money come from for everyone's quality of life if the economy is doing badly?

You’re quite obviously brainwashed. A young student bled to death in handcuffs after being stabbed by a Sikh who told the police he’d said some hurty racist words - he hadn’t. He’d been murdered by the Sikh who knew that any shout of racism gets them off the hook.
I hope you’re going to take to the streets over this as you probably did over George Floyd.

Grow up!

I don’t agree with Blair about Iran, but the rest of what he says sounds like good sense to me.

Even the bits where he's akin to the Ku Klux Klan?

Absolutely. He talks common sense, which is always anathema to the far left.

What about Blair's views on dressing up in uniforms and wanting to invade Poland?

I heard that he has sympathy for the far right adjacent media outlets, like the BBC.

Oh, and he just assumes Cherie is a woman even though she has short hair and is ruthlessly ambitious. Bigot.

The UAE too. I’m talking about Westerners. They have no recourse to public education or health etc you bring your non working spouse and you can’t claim benefits for them or your children.

I will not mention the Indian workers as that’s completely different and not something for the UK to emulate.

No, they're not.
You are really showing your ignorance with every post and are avoiding actually engaging with any of the clear, articulate and evidence based replies pointing out your errors.
Which isn't really surprising given your OP.

I'm trying to work out what is driving so many people to bark 'far right!' all the time Like, what psychologically is going on with them? I already think that a lot of people on the left can't handle having their mindsets challenged - they can't cope with having to rethink things and deal with the discomfort that comes from realising you were wrong about some things. Acknowledging these uncomfortable truths means facing possible rejection from the group so they must double down and bark all the louder.