Tony Blair has come forward to make one of his big interventions, which excite Westminster but which the country largely ignores. This is because the myth of Tony Blair was busted long ago. But this time he argues that it may never be possible to recover the ‘Labour Party’ from Corbyn, who poses an existential threat from his leadership. This is such nonsense.
Under Tony Blair’s New Labour regime he won his first election with 13.5 million votes in 1997. In 2001 another victory with 10.4 million. Then a further win in 2005 with 9.5 million. Finally Brown lost in 2010 with 8.6 million. You can see that the New Labour experiment saw a hemorrhage of Labour voters , most of whom stayed at home. Labour won elections because the Lib Dems polled well and the moderate right split its vote between them and the Tories, making victory for either impossible.
But make no mistake. New Labour was a disaster and the traditional working class and the young abandoned it. Corbyn has won them back. In 2017 he polled 12.8 million votes. Moreover he now heads the largest political party in Europe with over 600,000 full members and with additional registered supporters, 800,000. This is more than all the other political parties in all parts of the UK put together.
Yes Tony, your hybrid type of Labour is gone. You kept alive all the unworkable nostrums of Thatcherism and prolonged an era when the rich became richer and the poor became poorer and as the gap between them grew, there matured the worst possible kind of economic model. One where the rich become richer at the expense of the poor.
It’s over Tony. Time to shut up.