Tony Blair has been forced by Downing Street to row back from his criticism of the government’s net zero strategy after furious Labour politicians warned he had given a boost to Tory and Reform sceptics on the eve of the local elections.
Climate experts also accused the former prime minister of granting political cover to fossil fuel interests and weakening momentum behind the UK’s legally binding target to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
Senior No 10 officials called the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change [TBI] after he claimed the plans were “doomed to fail”, to urge it to address the fallout.
The Guardian understands that Keir Starmer has not spoken to his Labour predecessor directly but furious government insiders said that Blair had undermined Starmer on a key issue, at a crucial moment. One Downing Street insider said: “Tony fucked up.” Another said: “He has completely lost his touch.”
A third government source questioned whether the decision to release the report on the eve of the elections was entirely accidental. “It’s not the first time he’s written bombastic forewords suggesting we should slow down on net zero. It’s so disloyal to the party.”
Another said they were particularly aggrieved that the words appeared a critique of Starmer himself. “It looks like he is attacking Keir who has only just said climate action was in the DNA of the government.”
Just moments before Starmer took prime minister’s questions in the Commons on Wednesday, TBI issued a fresh statement to clarify that it believed the government’s net zero policy was “the right one”.
Downing Street also defended the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, who has been the target of attacks by net zero sceptics including within the party. “He’s doing a fantastic job, winning the global race for the jobs for the future. The PM absolutely backs him,” Starmer’s spokesperson said.
But Labour insiders warned the damage had already been done, with Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, saying she felt “vindicated” by the comments and Nigel Farage boasting on X that Reform UK was “winning the argument” on net zero.
There are also concerns Labour could lose votes to the Greens, with their co-leader Carla Denyer urging Starmer to distance himself from Blair’s “dodgy dossier” on net zero. “The future is green; Labour must not allow yesterday’s man to drag us back into the dark ages,” she added.
Angry Labour MPs raised questions about the influence that TBI has within the party. As well as the organisation regularly briefing No 10 officials, it has also advised the governments of Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan and other petrochemical states.
One MP said: “We are having PLP briefings organised from people who are essentially fossil fuel lobbyists. If anyone speaks admirably about these libertarian tech bros who think that is what will save us, then the party should be running a mile.”
A second added: “The day before polling day this just gives Reform talking points – Tony should know better. I don’t know what he is trying to do here, unless it’s a desperate search to continue to be interesting. It doesn’t make him relevant though.”
A third MP said: “It’s maddening. Blair parachutes in, and is handing talking points to the Tories and Reform on a silver platter. TBI might want to remember it’s not running the country.”
Writing the foreword for a report from TBI, Blair had called for the government to change course on climate, suggesting a strategy that limits fossil fuels in the short term or encourages people to limit consumption is “doomed to fail”.
The former prime minister said voters were being “asked to make financial sacrifices and changes in lifestyle” that would have “minimal” effect on global emissions. He said the current climate debate was “riven with irrationality” and suggested net zero was losing public support.
Climate experts accused him of playing into the hands of a rightwing narrative to delay climate action. Nicholas Stern, the author of the influential Stern review of the economics of climate change, commissioned by Blair when he was in power, said the TBI report was “muddled and misleading”.
“The UK’s leadership on climate change, particularly the elimination of coal from its power sector, is providing an influential example to other countries. So, too, its climate change legislation and its Climate Change Committee. If the UK wobbles on its route to net zero, other countries may become less committed. The UK matters,” he said.
“And the report downplays the science in its absence of a sense of urgency and the lack of appreciation of the need for the world to achieve net zero as soon as possible, in order to manage the growth in climate change impacts that are already hurting households and businesses across the world and in the UK. Delay is dangerous.”
Lady Brown, of the independent Climate Change Committee, said Blair’s intervention risked sending the wrong message at a crucial moment.
“My concern is that people might take away a message from that report that we should do adaptation instead of mitigation, and that is absolutely the wrong message,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
