MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Former PM Blair warns Labour not to drift to the left

Blair’s memoirs “A journey: my political life” have become an unexpected success

As voting began in the election to choose a new British Labour leader, former prime minister Tony Blair issued a warning to the party not to drift to the left. Although he made no endorsement in his memoirs, published this week, of any of the five candidates to succeed Gordon Brown, Mr Blair's comments will be seen as a mark of support for front-runner David Miliband over his brother Ed.

The shadow foreign secretary was also boosted by the backing of the Labour-supporting Daily Mirror, which described him as the candidate the Conservatives “really fear”.

In his memoir, Mr Blair left no doubt that he believes Labour lost the General Election in May because it “stopped being New Labour” under Mr Brown's leadership. And he warned: “The danger for Labour now is that we drift off, or even move decisively off, to the left. If we do, we will lose even bigger next time. We have to buck the historical trend and face up to the reasons for defeat squarely and honestly.”

Although his successor was “absolutely right” to intervene at the outset of the financial crisis to prop up banks and stimulate the economy, Mr Brown committed an “error” in going down the road of deficit spending, heavy regulation, income tax rises for the rich and big-state government, Mr Blair wrote.

He came close to endorsing the coalition Government's decision to pay down the bulk of the UK's deficit in the current parliament, warning that: “The danger now is this: if governments don't tackle deficits, the bill is footed by taxpayers, who fear that big deficits now mean big taxes in the future”.

”If we fail to offer a convincing path out of debt, that failure will itself plunge us into stagnation“, he added.

In an apparent rebuke to leadership candidates who have fought on a platform of fighting the coalition Government's program of public spending cuts, Mr Blair warned it would be ”childish“ and ”out of touch“ for Labour to define itself in opposition to its rivals.

”If Labour simply defaults to a 'Tory cutters, Lib Dem collaborators' mantra, it may well benefit in the short term,“ he wrote. ”However it will lose any possibility of being chosen as an alternative government”.