Jeremy Corbyn could be elected prime minister on a left-wing platform, Tony Blair has conceded.
The former prime minister had repeatedly said that it was impossible for Mr Corbyn to emulate his electoral success with a hard-left policy agenda, but after Labour’s unexpected gains at the general election Mr Blair said he had changed his mind.
“You have to say in today’s world now there have been so many political upsets it’s possible Jeremy Corbyn could become prime minister and Labour could win on that programme,” he said in an interview with Newsnight, which will be broadcast on BBC Two tonight.
“For most of my political life I’ve been saying, ‘I think this is the right way to go and what’s more it’s the only way to win an election’. I have to qualify that now. I have to say, ‘No, I think it’s possible you end up with Jeremy Corbyn as prime minister’.”
Nevertheless, Mr Blair insisted, it is still “a surer route to power to fight from the centre”, and the country would be worse off if Mr Corbyn imposed an “unreconstructed far-left programme”.
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In several interviews at the weekend, in which Mr Blair reiterated his opposition to a hard Brexit, he also admitted that he “felt sorry” for Theresa May.
“I know what it’s like to do the job and I think it’s a very unsatisfactory situation where you’ve got the prime minister surrounded by people who are just waiting for the moment they decide to throw her off the ledge,” he told the Sophy Ridge on Sunday show on Sky News . “I think there’s something a little bit unseemly about all of it really and I do feel sorry for her.
“I think she is somebody who has got the best interests of the country at heart, it’s just that I profoundly disagree with her about Brexit . . . I would just like to see more leadership and less followership.”
Mr Blair, a Remain campaigner, said he thought it was possible that Britain could stay in the European Union. He said that Labour was “providing the opposition up to a point”, but that he would like to see Mr Corbyn’s team go further.
“The prime minister is surrounded by people who are waiting for the moment to throw her off the ledgeTony Blair
Rebecca Long Bailey, the shadow business secretary, said that Labour’s Brexit policy was to “have our cake and eat it”. She said: “If we could negotiate membership of the single market whilst dealing with free movement and dealing with the other issues then that would be great, but I think that’s probably unlikely and we’ll have to be looking at a more flexible approach.”
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On the customs union, Labour’s position was very similar, she said. “We want to maintain the benefits that we currently have within the customs union: we want to have our cake and eat it, as do most parties in Westminster.”
Mr Blair also warned about the impact of social media on politics. He said that “the interaction of conventional media with social media is creating part of this polarisation of politics and the sense that you have got two bits of the country really not talking to each other at all. I think that’s dangerous for democracy long term.
