Ed Balls said former prime ministers like Tony Blair and David Cameron should not try to return as “figures for the next phase of politics.”
The former cabinet minister’s comments refer to Blair’s upcoming conference on Britain’s future, seen as an attempt to resume centrist policies in the UK, inspired by the success of La République En Marche, the newly formed center-left party that led Emmanuel Macron in power in France.
Bolls warned that the rise of polarized parties that are reluctant to work together has made these “dangerous times for politics”, adding that the United Kingdom and France are “not in a politically healthy place”, while the United States is also deeply divided. “.
He told a Hay audience: “I’m not sure if it makes sense for people like Gordon Brown or Tony Blair or David Cameron, Theresa May to try to be involved in the next phase of politics … it can make things difficult. . ”
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Mr Blair told the New Statesman in March that he wanted to advise the next Labor government. Earlier this month, his think tank, the Tony Blair Institute, produced a report urging Labor to take over the center, rejecting “awakened” policies and focusing on the economy.
Bols said he would not return to politics personally. “I think you have to be really careful in life not to go back and try to change the past. I’m not sure if the return will be reasonable for me or for someone else. “
Although he acknowledged that the Tony Blair Institute, which organized the conference, had “done a great deal of political work”, he doubted that Macron was the right leader to emulate. “You have to be a little careful about comparing Macron. Was he a socialist or was he mainly an anti-political outsider? “
He likened Macron’s decision to create a party outside France’s political mainstream to a broader trend toward “people who rebelled against the main party, the established order, the outside world trying to tear things apart,” illustrated by former US President Donald Trump, former Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn and the impact of Brexit on the Conservative Party.
“[Macron has] “He won again, but where that will leave French politics at the end of his time, who knows,” he said.
Balls said that the main conclusion of his political career was that while “debate and disagreement” can be constructive, in the end, policies that are ultimately enduring are things that become consensus, agreed between the parties. ” referring to the NHS and the national minimum wage. “I don’t think we’ve had that in a long time.”
He added: “We are currently in a phase of politics in which, partly because the parties are in such an internal crisis, people are gaining strength and power from hating the other side and always disagreeing. To be honest, Macron was one of them, too.
An urgent area where politicians had to seek inter-party consensus was around a shared vision for the future of the United Kingdom after Brexit, Bols said. He suggested that Labor caution was an attempt to distance itself from the ill-fated second referendum campaign, but that the party could push for a “more progressive, internationalist” vision and must challenge “ridiculous” political ideas such as a return to imperialism.
He noted that the word “politician” has become a shorthand in society for people who confuse and lie, and asked: “If politics becomes a discredited way of being, where does that lead to democracy?”
He suggested that politicians could change this by being “more open to talking about their lives, their ambitions, their mistakes”.
His latest comments have irritated the audience: “Having the confidence to say we made a mistake, that’s why it happened, we won’t do it again because we will make the following changes, it would be a much better way to do it. policy… if you look at the last few months, we haven’t had much of that. “
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