Labour should not attempt to move away from the legacy of Tony Blair, the party’s leadership frontrunner Andy Burnham has said.
In the first of a series of televised showdowns with the three other candidates vying to take the party’s top job, the shadow health secretary said the former prime minister “did a lot of things right” and had reached out to voters who wanted to “get on in life”.
Shadow health minister Liz Kendall, who is the candidate most closely identified with the Blairite strand of the party, insisted she was “not Blairite, Brownite, Old Labour, New Labour”.
“I want to be today’s and tomorrow’s Labour,” she added.
Ms Kendall appeared to suggest that Mr Burnham and rival Yvette Cooper had “baggage” as a result of their links to Blair and Gordon Brown. “I think we do need a fresh start and I don’t have the baggage of the past,” she said.
Veteran left-winger Jeremy Corbyn said his party had “lost our way” and become “cowed” by powerful vested interests as he set out his stall in the hustings staged by BBC2’s Newsnight in Nuneaton – one of several target seats Labour failed to win in the general election.
Tony was the prime minister that won three elections for Labour
Pressed on how the party should distance itself from the Blair era and move more to the left, Mr Burnham said: “I don’t think we would want to do that because Tony was the prime minister that won three elections for Labour.
“But, he didn’t get everything right so we have to learn from the mistakes of that government. But, he did a lot of things right and he spoke to people’s wishes to get on in life.
“We have to as a party want to be the party that helps everyone get on in life and that’s where Labour has got to be going forward.”
Mr Corbyn won applause from the audience as he said that he had never been a supporter of New Labour. “Why oh why oh why did Blair have to get so close to Bush that we ended up in an illegal war in Iraq?” he said.
“The party has an opportunity now to rediscover its principled roots, rediscover the issues of equality, rediscover the issues of public service.”
Ms Kendall said it was essential that Labour showed it was committed to tackling the deficit if it wanted to regain power.
“Too many people didn’t trust us on the economy or with their taxes,” she said.
“That is the basic test of competence for any party that wants to govern. We have to address that or we won’t win in 2020.”
On the issue of immigration, Mr Burnham said that the party had to show that it understood voters’ concerns.
“Labour needs to get out of the Westminster bubble and this is the prime example. We have not realised how quickly immigration has changed some communities in this country,” he said.
Ms Cooper said that there had to be “sensible” controls to show voters that the system was fair.
“We have got to have a sensible debate about immigration – no arms race rhetoric that just cause all kinds of problems and division.”
Ms Kendall acknowledged public anger on the issue but said that it was important to understand the benefits immigration had brought.
“I will not be a Labour leader who tries to out-Ukip Ukip or pretend to people there is some kind of button we can push to rewind the country and go back to a world that isn’t coming back,” she said.