Tony Blair: The debilitation of Labour is facilitating Brexit

Left Foot Forward

Former PM wants Remainers to 'rise up' against Brexit

 

Tony Blair has launched a scathing attack on both the government and the Labour leadership, accusing them of allowing ‘Brexit at any cost’.

In a hard-hitting speech in London, the former prime minister insisted that the actions of Theresa May and her government show that they ‘are not masters of this situation’.

“They’re not driving this bus. They’re being driven. And as we pass each milestone so the landscape in which we are operating changes, not because we have willed the change, but because this is the direction in which the bus is travelling. We will trigger Article 50 not because we now know our destination, but because the politics of not doing so, would alienate those driving the bus.

Blair also made damning comments about Labour under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, which last week voted to trigger Article 50 despite failing to attach any amendments to the government’s bill.

He said a major challenge in containing the impact of the referendum was ‘the absence of an opposition which looks capable on the polls of beating the government.”

“The debilitation of the Labour Party is the facilitator of Brexit. I hate to say that, but it is true.”

The speech has been controversial. Leavers accuse Blair of contempt for democracy, and even among those who share his views many argue that Blair — a tainted figure in so many ways — will do more harm that good by intervening.

He has also been criticsed for the comments on immigration included in the speech, which seem to defend the rights of EU migrants at the expense of those from other parts of the world. Blair claimed that:

“…for many people, the core immigration question – and one which I fully accept is a substantial issue -is immigration from non-European countries, especially when from different cultures in which assimilation and potential security threats can be an issue.”

However, the former Labour leader remains a powerful orator and dismantled the arguments of prominent Leavers with remarkable clarity.

“Many of the main themes of the Brexit campaign barely survived the first weekend after the vote. Remember the £350m a week extra for the NHS? Virtually the only practical arguments still advanced – under the general rubric of ‘taking back control’ – are immigration and the European Court of Justice.”

He suggested that the actual impact of the ECJ on Britain is minimal, insisting that in his decade as prime minister, there was ‘no major domestic law that I wanted to pass which Europe told me I couldn’t.’

Ultimately, Blair’s goal is to persuade voters that Brexit is a bad idea and force a reversal of the decision, a fantasy most Remainers have already dispensed with. 

That Blair clings to it is a reminder of his extraordinary self-belief, both his greatest strength and greatest weakness as a leader.

Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin is editor of Left Foot Forward. Follow her on Twitter

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15 Responses to “Tony Blair: The debilitation of Labour is facilitating Brexit”

  1. End of History for Blairism

    So, Tony Blair and Hillary Clinton think people are too stupid to make their own minds up and need to be led by the nose by people like them.

    With their records!

    A real pair of charmers, aren’t they?

    In reality, people looked at the options and decided leaving the EU was a risk they were willing to take.

    Only time will tell if that risk pays off, but I simply don’t see how Blair telling people how stupid they are and how intelligent he thinks he is will achieve anything other than cause offence to millions of hardworking and rational people.

  2. Alasdair Macdonald

    Ah! The old straw man fallacy emerging from Jimmy Glesga.

    Much of the EU referendum campaign, by both sides, was a depressing litany of mendacity. There were genuine arguments to be made on both sides, but, these got little coverage.

  3. Jimmy Glesga

    It was not a complicated matter. Either you wanted to remain in the corrupt EU gravy train or leave.
    Strange thing is it is the right who are driving to abandon the EU not the left.

  4. Michael WALKER

    The Left are more interested in identity politics and immigrants and refugees and righting wrongs in other countries than making the people in the UK better off.

    Just look at the articles on this site. When did you last read an article on economics? Or read an article explaining a way of making everyone better off?.

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