Britain’s nascent centrist party has said it has links to Tony Blair and his son Euan as it seeks to win over potential recruits, the Guardian has been told.
Simon Franks, who founded the LoveFilm movie-streaming business, has been working for more than a year with former Labour donors and senior members to create an organisation that could back candidates in a future general election.
The Observer revealed on Sunday that Franks established Project One Movement UK Ltd last summer and the company is expected to be a vehicle for the new party.
One person who was approached to join the fledgling organisation was told Euan Blair was on its board, and his father, the former Labour prime minister, had been helpful in recommending potential donors. Other sources confirmed Euan Blair’s name had been associated with the project.
The 34-year-old runs a tech startup, WhiteHat, which helps to recruit and place apprentices. He did not respond to requests for a statement.
One ally said backers of the new party had been “overclaiming” about Blair’s involvement, and he was simply part of a network of socially minded business leaders keen to develop policy ideas.
Tony Blair denied any direct involvement with the group.
A spokesman told the Guardian: “Mr Blair has no involvement with this. Period.” And Blair himself told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Tuesday: “I’m not advocating it or involved in [it] or certainly not running for its leadership at this or any stage.”
He said, however, that he was trying to re-energise the centre ground of British politics, which he claimed was being abandoned by the two main parties.
“If you leave between the Brexit-dominated Tory party and a hard-left Labour party vast, uncultivated centre ground, at some point someone is going to come along and cultivate it,” he said.
A spokesperson for the new group declined to comment.
Franks’ initiative is one of a number by donors and activists who feel under-represented by an avowedly socialist Labour party, and the pro-Brexit Conservatives.
The project will inevitably conjure up memories of the bitter split in the Labour party that led to the formation of the Social Democratic party in 1981. However, its founders are keen not to be regarded as a vehicle for disillusioned Labour backbenchers.
Instead, the organisation hopes to identify “civic-minded” public figures from outside politics who might be interested in standing for parliament at the next general election, due in 2022.
It is also expected to play up its anti-politics credentials by imposing a two-term limit that would prevent MPs from serving at Westminster for more than a decade.
Franks, who carried out a review of Labour’s business support policies for Ed Balls when he was shadow chancellor before 2015, could also seek election himself, friends believe.
The Guardian approached a number of business people identified by informed sources as potential donors to the new party.
Richard Reed, the co-founder of Innocent Drinks, and Alex Chesterman, the founder of the property website Zoopla, did not respond to requests for a comment.
Two lobbyists and a public relations executive are also involved, as well as a former political editor of a national newspaper, informed sources said.
Labour frontbenchers have dismissed the idea of a new party emerging, with the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, claiming it was “a party for the few, not the many”, and the shadow health secretary, Jon Ashworth, calling it “a daft waste of time”.
The Liberal Democrat leader, Vince Cable, said his party was already the “serious alternative” that “could make good use of £50m” – the funding that Franks and his colleagues are said to have amassed. One person with knowledge of the plans dubbed the new party the “neoliberal democrats”.
While Tony Blair insisted he was still a Labour member and always would be, he also confirmed that the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change was developing a platform for any emerging centrist politicians to use.
“What we are is putting together is a policy platform … that anyone in politics could take if they come from the open-minded approach to the problem, which says that globalisation is essentially a good thing, not a bad thing, but its risks have to be mitigated,” he said.
“It is not a manifesto because it is not for a political party – it is for people whether they are in the Labour party, Conservative party, Liberal Democrats, wherever, who can see the way politics is developing in the country and who think there must be a better set of policy ideas for the future.”
