The shadow of Tony Blair

With Labour’s NEC allowing Andy Burnham to run for selection for the Makerfield by-election and Wes Streeting confirming at the weekend’s Progress conference that he will stand in any potential Labour leadership contest, Keir Starmer is soon to be replaced at the top of the party. But one man’s shadow continues to loom over the top echelons of the party: war criminal Tony Blair.

One of Wes Streeting’s first jobs was a one-year stint at Progress, a New Labour pressure group set up in 1996 to support Tony Blair’s bid for power. Progress was funded by David Sainsbury, another Blair ally who also just happens to be a major backer of Labour Together, and in 2021, the organisation merged with the Policy Network think tank founded by Peter Mandelson, widely seen as a mentor to Streeting.

In 2010, during his first Labour leadership bid, Andy Burnham said that he would be “proud” to be seen as the candidate who would carry on where Blair left off. Burnham described the illegal invasion of Iraq, which he voted for, as giving “20 or so million Iraqis hope of a better life”.

Blair’s rise

Blair’s initial rise to power was largely financed by Michael Levy, also known as “Lord Cashpoint”, who would go on to raise over £100 million for the Labour Party. Blair first met Levy at a dinner party hosted by Gideon Meir, the deputy chief of mission at the Israeli embassy at the time. Levy was “entranced by Blair’s drive and religious commitment”, and would later say that he and the Labour Prime Minister were “like brothers”, whereas Blair,

a politician spellbound by wealth, was in thrall to a rich man whose prodigious fundraising ability had definite promise.

The enduring significance of this relationship should not be underestimated. A 2006 report in the Sunday Times states the “crucial accomplishment” of Levy’s input was:

to cut Labour’s dependence on trade union funding so that the party’s reliance has declined from two-thirds in 1992 to about a quarter now.

Blair and Levy had a mutual friend in Eldred Tabachnik, a former head of the Board of Deputies and a senior barrister at the law chambers at which Blair trained. Michael Levy’s son, Daniel, is a former Israeli soldier who later served as an assistant to Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister who once described Blair as “a true friend of the State of Israel”.

Blair’s Zionist backers

Levy convinced other wealthy pro-Israeli donors to back Labour: Emmanuel Kaye, who is “closely associated” with Labour Friends of Israel; Westfield chairman Frank Lowy, who served in the terrorist Haganah militia (a predecessor to the Israeli army); and Trevor Chinn, a director and funder of McSweeney’s Labour Together.

One of Tony Blair’s first acts upon entering parliament in 1983 was to join Labour Friends of Israel. Lobbyist Jonathan Mendelsohn explained:

Zionism is pervasive in New Labour. It is automatic that Blair will come to LFI meetings.

Through his Red Capital Ltd outfit, now Labour peer Mendelsohn has also funded Wes Streeting.

Business Secretary Peter Kyle, a former vice-chair and current member of Labour Friends of Israel who served as a special adviser under Blair, has celebrated his continued influence. Kyle once opined that Starmer would benefit from having an:

elder statesman … people around the world know and trust.

In 2023, the Tony Blair Institute paid for Kyle and Streeting to attend a conference in Brussels.

On May 3rd, Blair’s biographer Anthony Seldon suggested that Starmer should appoint Blair as foreign secretary to save his own failing government. But in reality, Blair’s influence is “from policy to personnel … everywhere.”

Featured image via Leon Neal / Getty Images