Sensemaker Live: Is Blair Right about the Future of the Labour Party

RWriting in the New Statesman this week, former prime minister Tony Blair said, “the Labour Party needs complete deconstruction and reconstruction. Nothing less will do.” His vision seizes on the challenges posed by the technological industrial revolution as “tailor-made for the progressive cause”, and urges “reason and moderation” as weapons to resolve the culture wars which are ravaging the Left. Keir Starmer’s party of 2021 is confusing “abiding values with outdated mechanisms”, he writes. Is he right? Can anything less than a back-to-the-drawing-board approach save Labour?