Burnham hits back at ‘out of touch’ Blair and blames centrists like him for rise of Farage

Andy Burnham has hit out at Tony Blair suggesting the former Labour prime minister is out of touch and partly to blame for the rise of politicians like Nigel Farage.

His rebuke comes after Sir Tony warned that when it came to the future of the party and the country Labour was “playing with fire” and urged it not to move further to the left, saying it should instead occupy the “radical centre”.

In an interview with the Observer, Mr Burnham, who is fighting to win a parliamentary by-election to return to Westminster and potentially challenge Sir Keir Starmer for the top job, criticised the former prime minister, who he said did not “mention inequality once”.

“If you don’t get how that’s driving politics now, if you are not rooting your analysis in the fact that people are unable to live and that things that were taken for granted are no longer affordable, then you are not understanding what’s going on,” he said.

Mr Burnham also insisted it is the centrists, like Sir Tony, who had failed voters and fuelled the rise of Mr Farage’s Reform UK.

Mr Burnham said his former party leader “criticises my phrase about 40 years of neoliberalism but the last 40 years has given us wide inequality – that’s what’s responsible for the abandonment of the centre.

“People don’t think the centre has delivered for them in terms of their lives, therefore they’ve gone further to the extremes.”

Mr Burnham also attacked what he described as Sir Tony’s “obsession” with universities.

When he was in office the former prime minister famously set a target of 50 per cent of young people to carry on to higher education.

Mr Burnham, currently the mayor of Greater Manchester, said there should be greater focus on technical education.

“The prioritisation of universities is a significant part of the problem that has left out too many people and has impacted on the welfare system,” he said.

This is a developing news story, more follows…