Tony Blair claims he is ‘not sure it is possible’ for moderates to take back Labour from Corbynite left

TONY Blair has claimed he is “not sure it is possible” for moderate Labour supporters to take back the party from the Corbynite left.

The former Prime Minister blasted the current leader for presiding over the anti-Semitism crisis engulfing it, calling it "ghastly" and a "matter of great sadness".

And he predicted that if the next election is between Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson, it would be unacceptable to many voters — and promises “something will fill the vacuum”.

He said under the Mr Corbyn Labour is now a "different party" and he hopes it is not "lost".

His comments come after another leading figure of the Blair era, Lord Blunkett, warned that the party is facing "irrelevance" unless there is a rethink of the "Corbyn project".

Mr Blair told the BBC: "I've been a member of the Labour Party for over 40 years. You do feel a strong loyalty and attachment, but at the same time it's a different party.

“The question is, can it be taken back? This is a different type of Labour Party. Can it be taken back? I don't know."

Mr Blair said: "There's lots of people associated with me who feel that the Labour Party's lost, that the game's over. I'm kind of hoping they're not right."

And he claimed he could not have imagined the anti-Semitism row taking place in the way it did "in the Labour Party I joined, all the way through to this moment".

He said: "I can't imagine that we have had three to four months debating over something where we have profoundly insulted the Jewish community in our country.”

Lord Blunkett - a Labour MP for 28 years and a minister for most of Mr Blair's administration – agreed with his old boss, saying he was not sure if he would back the party even if he knew his vote would make the difference between Mr Corbyn becoming PM or not.

Asked what he would do in these circumstances, the Labour peer told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "It would entirely depend on whether my good friends in the Parliamentary Labour Party and the Commons hadn't been deselected and were there to ensure that the sane, rational policies of a Labour Party for the future were going to be implemented."

But a Labour Party spokesman said: "Labour is giving a voice and hope to communities that have been held back and ignored for years.

"Our policies to end austerity and bring water, energy and rail into public ownership are popular and reflect the mainstream of public opinion.

"At last year's election, when all the pundits and critics had written us off, Labour had our biggest increase in vote share since 1945 and deprived Theresa May's Tories of their majority."

And Jon Lansman, the founder of the pro-Corbyn grassroots group Momentum, said the party would "never" return to the former PM's policies, who he claimed “was never in the right party”.

He said on Twitter that Blair-era policies like the minimum wage and Sure Start nurseries should be credited to other leaders, not the three-time general election winner.