KUALA LUMPUR, June 19 — Umno lawmaker Khairy Jamaluddin announced today that he will be launching a think tank next month called "The Centre” to promote centrist policies.

The Rembau MP, who is now perceived to be one of his party’s "centrist” members amid Umno’s shift to the far right, said he and Umno Youth deputy chief Shahril Hamdan wanted evidence-based, rational and innovative public policies.

"In a highly polarised world, @shahrilh and I believe that we need to expand the room for discourse in the centre to counter views from the loud ends of the political spectrum,” Khairy posted on Instagram.

"We believe there is a role for both the state and the markets. With apologies to Yeats, when things fall apart, the centre must hold,” he added, quoting Irish poet WB Yeats’ poem titled The Second Coming that has a line — "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold”.