Some of Tony Blair's oldest and closest ideological supporters in the Labour fold claim he is now endangering the party, eroding trust in politics and embracing a market ideology very similar to the Conservatives'.

The warning comes in Renewal, a quarterly Labour journal which has long backed modernisers in the party.

The prime minister is listed on its editorial advisory board, along with five other serving ministers: Patricia Hewitt, David Miliband, Ruth Kelly, Margaret Hodge and Alan Johnson.

The editorial says: "Recent results and events disturbingly echo the fall of the Tories. First you lose your active members (on current projections we will have no members by 2018), then your councillor base, finally after a moment of epiphany (like Black Wednesday) the fall amongst the wider public is frighteningly far and fast.

"In the party, members simply walk away in silence, leaving behind them an increasingly empty shell - frustrated and disillusioned but, curiously, not especially angry."

The issue of Iraq causes major concern, with the editorial likening it to the poll tax.