Wes Streeting casts off ‘Blairite’ image with scathing attack on Tony Blair
Wes Streeting has hit out at suggestions he is a “Blairite” candidate to become Labor leader, attacking Sir Tony Blair’s blind spot on “inequality” in his proposals to fix Britain.
The former health secretary resigned from Sir Keir Starmer’s government last month to prepare for a leadership bid following the Makerfield by-election on June 18.
In his own scathing assessment of Sir Keir’s government’s “lack of vision” and “perversion”, Mr Streeting also turned to Sir Tony’s own 5,600-word critique.
writing for GuardMr Streeting said: “The striking weakness at the core of Tony Blair’s intervention is that, amidst thousands of words about technology, geopolitics and political strategy, the defining issue of our age is barely confronted. Inequality – the economic, social and democratic breakdown gripping modern Britain – is treated as a peripheral rather than a fundamental issue.”
The condemnation came after Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, who is running in the Makerfield by-election and will replace Sir Keir, also criticized the former prime minister.
But Mr Streeting’s intervention may be aimed at those who see the former health secretary as the candidate of the “Blairite” wing of the party.
This means a wholesale rejection of Sir Tony’s demands to cut welfare, scrap the pension triple lock guarantee and halt net-zero spending.
Mr Streeting noted: “Inequality, far from being incidental to the crises that are reshaping Western democracies, is actually the cause of them.
“People are told that Britain is successful but they can’t afford to buy a house themselves, and that opportunity exists even though their children have lower standards of living than their parents did. They are told to work harder as wealth is concentrated ever more narrowly at the top. And they are realizing the injustice.”
“A nurse repaying her student debt sees a larger share of their income taxed than homeowners who benefit from rising property values. People in Britain’s poorest communities are falling into poor health almost two decades earlier than the richest. Most private wealth is now inherited rather than earned.”
The two also appear to be at odds over Brexit. In his first speech since leaving Sir Keir’s government, Mr Streeting made a clear call for Britain to rejoin the European Union.
But in his article, Sir Tony stressed that Britain cannot reset its relationship with the EU while it is economically weak, and rejected the idea that Britain could quickly re-join the EU, despite playing a key role in the campaign to remain in the EU.
Mr Streeting also argued that policy was not made in a worthless vacuum when he claimed Sir Tony put “politics first, politics second”.
Mr Streeting also took umbrage with Sir Tony, saying of Trump that more needed to be done to rebuild Britain’s damaged relationship with America.
Mr Streeting warned that “Atlanticism cannot mean automatic obedience” and that the Iraq war into which Sir Tony dragged Britain was the result of “loyalty rather than judgement”.
