Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the Labor Party's most successful leader, called yesterday for the party to recover from election humiliation by rejecting the "cult-like protest movement" created by outgoing leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Labour's defeat in last Thursday's election was the worst since 1935 and there is currently a battle for control between moderate members and Corbyn's hard-left allies, Reuters writes. Blair, who was prime minister from 1997 to 2007, led Labor to three general election victories and led the party on a centrist, pro-business agenda. He lost favor in the party when he sent British troops to help US President George W. Bush invade Iraq.
Corbyn's supporters say that Blair has betrayed the working class and undermined trust in politicians, and that "Blairism" has been heavily tarnished, both inside and outside the Labor Party.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Conservative Party won constituencies in working-class areas of northern and central England long held by Labour. Blair said that few can now dispute that another decade of Conservative rule is ahead.
"The ultra-left has taken over the Labor Party and turned it into a cult-like protest movement, completely incapable of being a credible government," Blair said. "The result embarrassed us," he added and pointed out that Labor entered the election with a "strategy to lose." Labor won only 203 seats, 59 fewer, and the percentage of votes fell by 7,8 percentage points to 32,2 percent, while the Conservatives won 365 seats, 47 more, i.e. 43,6 percent". Blair said that Labor must now "re-establish itself as a serious, progressive, non-conservative contender for power in British politics, or abandon such ambition", and that in that case it will "be replaced in time".
The former prime minister added that Corbyn has personalized "an idea, a brand, of quasi-revolutionary socialism, mixing ultra-left economic policy with hostility to Western foreign policy" and that his "combination of wrong ideology and utter incompetence" is offensive to voters, Reuters reported.
"To win power we need self-discipline, not complacency," Blair added.
Corbyn, who will step down in the new year, promised a radical socialist program of increased public spending, sweeping nationalization and taxation of the rich.
Blair said that the "wish list" would cause chaos if implemented.
"Any fool can promise everything for free, but people were not fooled. They know that life is not like that".
Blair also said that Corbyn's complicated and ambiguous position on leaving the EU had disappointed both opponents and supporters of Brexit. Always vague about EU membership, Corbyn promised voters a second referendum, in which he would be neutral.
"We went down the path of almost comical indecision, alienated both sides of the debate," Blair said.
He added that the absence of leadership on "obviously the biggest issue facing the country" reinforced all other doubts about Corbyn.
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