Blair says Labour needs debate before selecting new leader as he criticises Burnham speech – UK politics live

Ex-PM uses 5,700 word essay to accuse Starmer, Burnham and Streeting of putting Labour’s future at risk

• Tony Blair tells Starmer and rivals: abandon net zero and move closer to Trump

It is not just Keir Starmer and almost every other senior figure in the Labour party who have been getting it in the neck from Tony Blair today. In his Today interview, Blair was asked by Nick Robinson about the Guardian pointing out that Blair is urging the UK government to get closer to Donald Trump. That provoked Blair to reply like this.

The Guardian – you’ve got to love them. I always used to say when I was prime minister that the most the greatest source of election losing advice was always from the Guardian.

I’m not saying the Labour party should love Donald Trump, get close to Donald Trump. I’m simply saying the American relationship matters to Britain.

We put together a plan that ended the war [in Gaza]. Now, at the moment, you’ve still got some fighting going on. You’ve still got a dire situation for the people.

This next week we will have further negotiations with Hamas because we need to move this new government into Gaza. And we need Hamas to agree that this government should be in control of Gaza.

No, I don’t wish I’d done it.

But I think a lot of the issues that were raised at the time are still there and with us.

In public, Blair insisted that he was not in any way “advocating a new party, organising one, or wanting to vote for one”. However, he had concluded that the Labour party was finished, according to someone who shared his views, and was involved in discussions about a new party. “He would tell those who thought otherwise that they were being nostalgic,” said the same associate. “He felt that too many in the party could not reconcile themselves to the reality that Labour was simply irrecoverable, passed its sell-by date.” Continue reading...