Tony Blair: Moderates may never win Labour back from Jeremy Corbyn

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair has said the Labour Party has undergone a “profound” transformation under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership and suggested that voters would not tolerate the change.

Speaking on the BBC podcast Political Thinking, he said: “It is a different type of Labour party. The question is can it be taken back? And that’s a pretty open question.”

Asked if moderate Labour MPs should consider breaking away from Labour, he said: “I think you have got to distinguish between the individual choice, which you might make on tribal grounds, to stay…

"The type of politics that people like me represent, which I would describe as modern, more moderate, progressive politics, if that isn’t represented in the Labour party, it doesn’t really matter what I think or these MPs think.

“I don’t think the British people will tolerate a situation where, for example, the choice at the next election is Boris Johnson versus Jeremy Corbyn.

“I don’t know what will happen and I don’t know how it will happen, but I just don’t think people will find that in the country as a whole an acceptable choice.”    

He added that although many people feel that the “the Labour party is lost, that the game’s over” he hoped they would be proved wrong.

On the anti-Semitism claims that have dogged Corbyn’s leadership, Blair said he could not have imagined the same row taking place “in the Labour party that I joined”.

“I can’t imagine that we have had three to four months debating over something where we have profoundly insulted the Jewish community in our country,” he said.