Greasy Tony Blair is back. Not happy merely, along with Bush, in bombing Iraq he now wants to overturn a national democratic decision! The British people made a democratic decision in a democratic vote to leave the EU and now shameless Blair and several other Remainer politicians are now trying to get the vote overturned! But instead of overturning Brexit, Blair's intervention will just bolster it even further...
Tony Blair can't stop Brexit. He's the one who caused it
Tim Stanley
25 November 2016
The Telegraph
37 Comments
Tony Blair: 'Reviving his career at this stage in the revolution would be like trying to restore an exiled king to a broken throne' Credit: AFP
Blair is back. He returns with an uncharacteristic flourish of honesty: he says he wants to stop Brexit. Not delay it or soften it, as Remainers claim with innocent faces, but actually reverse it. “We’re the insurgents now,” he has said, which is imprecise. Tony Blair is a counter-revolutionary. He's a Bourbon aristocrat, a white Russian. And about as relevant.
Brexit was first and foremost a verdict on the EU. British voters – who had never much liked the concept of continental domination – judged that they were better off out than in, so they voted to Leave. Blair had ten years in office to convince them otherwise. Not only did he fail but he didn't really try.
He repeated John Major’s strategy of dancing around the issue, spinning the voters about until they felt sick. For example, in the 2005 election he pledged that he’d hold a referendum on the new EU constitution if re-elected. He was re-elected; the referendum never happened. The constitution was rebranded as the Lisbon Treaty and the UK signed the dotted line. In his latest interview with the New Statesman, Blair is, again, surprisingly honest about his motivations: “I could’ve held [a vote] in 2005 and lost one… I thought that was a very, very open question as to whether we were going to win or not.”
Clever Tony. But what seemed smart in the short term, because it avoided proper debate about Britain's role in Europe, proved bad in the long run because it further eroded trust in Westminster. The feeling grew that we were only in the EU because the political elite wanted us to be, and that the elite was willing to lie to keep us there.
Brexit was a rejection of Brussels but it was also a verdict on this condescending consensus. It was a vote against spin, against the manipulation of words and figures by the Blairites and their Cameroon heirs. When liberals complain that we’re now post-truth, they forget that faith in facts was undermined by Tony Blair’s constant abuse of them. Small achievements, though real, were spun into epic victories that the country was encouraged to learn by rote. Decisions were taken that served political need rather than national interest (he’s even admitted that the fox hunting ban was passed to satisfy the Left, that he didn’t agree with it and he cooked up a compromise designed not to work). And what little faith we had left in Number 10 was shattered by the Iraq War.
Even he has to admit that his legacy is controversial. Yes, the economy was sweet. Yes, there were fine pieces of social legislation that guaranteed a minimum wage or gay rights. But the Middle Way was globalisation with a human face, hiding a cold interior. Jobs dribbled overseas: manufacturing accounted for 20 per cent of the economy in 1997, but just 12.4 per cent by 2007. Migrants rushed in. In 2004, Blair unilaterally relaxed immigration controls with the prediction that only a few thousand would choose to cross the English Channel. Instead, annual net migration hit a peak of about 250,000 by 2010. One might cheer these policies as modernisation, as vital for growth. But the communities left behind largely voted for Brexit because they sensed that economic policy was being written to help London and not them.
One image that defines the mistrust many feel towards Blair
Yes, Blair won elections by reaching out to the middle-class. But the steady fall in Labour’s vote from 1997-2010 was partly down to working-class disaffection. The shrinkage of Labour’s proletarian base began under Blair, not Corbyn (and before Ukip there was the socialist rebellion in Blaenau Gwent and the ghastly BNP). The Credit Crunch, unemployment and wage stagnation showed that Blair’s compromise with globalisation just didn't deliver the goods. In 2016, the Remainers pleaded with us to stay in the EU because we have so much to lose if we left. But after two decades of Blairite consensus, millions of Britons had very little to lose at all. So why not take a punt on change? That nihilistic gamble is, on some level, Blair's gift.
Some Remainers charge Leavers with reckless nostalgia for a Britain of guaranteed jobs and harmonious communities that probably never existed. They’re right. But they’re also hypocrites. Many Remainers also have nostalgia for the Noughties, which they imagine was a period of social progress in an integrated, global economy that gave us Starbucks, iPhone and Posh Spice. Thing is, it also gave us ceaseless war, student debt, bad finances, declining trust in political leadership and people moaning incessantly that Blair was utterly disingenuous and couldn't be trusted - and then voting for him in their droves. Well, the alternatives were few and far between. And Blair could sell ice cream to an Eskimo.
But Britain has moved on. Not only could Blair not win an election now, which he admitted to the New Statesman, but – more importantly – neither could Blairism. A constituency exists for his brand of “muscular centrism” but it simply isn’t big enough to carry the entire country. For confirmation of this, Blair should call Hillary Clinton and ask how popular the Nineties are with American voters. Here in Britain, Remainers who genuinely want to influence Brexit to, at least, stay in the Single Market, would do well to cut their ties with Blair. Reviving his career at this stage in the revolution would be like trying to restore an exiled king to a broken throne. I don't think the citizens are going to go for it.
Tony Blair can't stop Brexit. He's the one who caused it
Tony Blair can't stop Brexit. He's the one who caused it
Tim Stanley
25 November 2016
The Telegraph
37 Comments
Tony Blair: 'Reviving his career at this stage in the revolution would be like trying to restore an exiled king to a broken throne' Credit: AFP
Blair is back. He returns with an uncharacteristic flourish of honesty: he says he wants to stop Brexit. Not delay it or soften it, as Remainers claim with innocent faces, but actually reverse it. “We’re the insurgents now,” he has said, which is imprecise. Tony Blair is a counter-revolutionary. He's a Bourbon aristocrat, a white Russian. And about as relevant.
Brexit was first and foremost a verdict on the EU. British voters – who had never much liked the concept of continental domination – judged that they were better off out than in, so they voted to Leave. Blair had ten years in office to convince them otherwise. Not only did he fail but he didn't really try.
He repeated John Major’s strategy of dancing around the issue, spinning the voters about until they felt sick. For example, in the 2005 election he pledged that he’d hold a referendum on the new EU constitution if re-elected. He was re-elected; the referendum never happened. The constitution was rebranded as the Lisbon Treaty and the UK signed the dotted line. In his latest interview with the New Statesman, Blair is, again, surprisingly honest about his motivations: “I could’ve held [a vote] in 2005 and lost one… I thought that was a very, very open question as to whether we were going to win or not.”
Clever Tony. But what seemed smart in the short term, because it avoided proper debate about Britain's role in Europe, proved bad in the long run because it further eroded trust in Westminster. The feeling grew that we were only in the EU because the political elite wanted us to be, and that the elite was willing to lie to keep us there.
Brexit was a rejection of Brussels but it was also a verdict on this condescending consensus. It was a vote against spin, against the manipulation of words and figures by the Blairites and their Cameroon heirs. When liberals complain that we’re now post-truth, they forget that faith in facts was undermined by Tony Blair’s constant abuse of them. Small achievements, though real, were spun into epic victories that the country was encouraged to learn by rote. Decisions were taken that served political need rather than national interest (he’s even admitted that the fox hunting ban was passed to satisfy the Left, that he didn’t agree with it and he cooked up a compromise designed not to work). And what little faith we had left in Number 10 was shattered by the Iraq War.
Even he has to admit that his legacy is controversial. Yes, the economy was sweet. Yes, there were fine pieces of social legislation that guaranteed a minimum wage or gay rights. But the Middle Way was globalisation with a human face, hiding a cold interior. Jobs dribbled overseas: manufacturing accounted for 20 per cent of the economy in 1997, but just 12.4 per cent by 2007. Migrants rushed in. In 2004, Blair unilaterally relaxed immigration controls with the prediction that only a few thousand would choose to cross the English Channel. Instead, annual net migration hit a peak of about 250,000 by 2010. One might cheer these policies as modernisation, as vital for growth. But the communities left behind largely voted for Brexit because they sensed that economic policy was being written to help London and not them.
One image that defines the mistrust many feel towards Blair
Yes, Blair won elections by reaching out to the middle-class. But the steady fall in Labour’s vote from 1997-2010 was partly down to working-class disaffection. The shrinkage of Labour’s proletarian base began under Blair, not Corbyn (and before Ukip there was the socialist rebellion in Blaenau Gwent and the ghastly BNP). The Credit Crunch, unemployment and wage stagnation showed that Blair’s compromise with globalisation just didn't deliver the goods. In 2016, the Remainers pleaded with us to stay in the EU because we have so much to lose if we left. But after two decades of Blairite consensus, millions of Britons had very little to lose at all. So why not take a punt on change? That nihilistic gamble is, on some level, Blair's gift.
Some Remainers charge Leavers with reckless nostalgia for a Britain of guaranteed jobs and harmonious communities that probably never existed. They’re right. But they’re also hypocrites. Many Remainers also have nostalgia for the Noughties, which they imagine was a period of social progress in an integrated, global economy that gave us Starbucks, iPhone and Posh Spice. Thing is, it also gave us ceaseless war, student debt, bad finances, declining trust in political leadership and people moaning incessantly that Blair was utterly disingenuous and couldn't be trusted - and then voting for him in their droves. Well, the alternatives were few and far between. And Blair could sell ice cream to an Eskimo.
But Britain has moved on. Not only could Blair not win an election now, which he admitted to the New Statesman, but – more importantly – neither could Blairism. A constituency exists for his brand of “muscular centrism” but it simply isn’t big enough to carry the entire country. For confirmation of this, Blair should call Hillary Clinton and ask how popular the Nineties are with American voters. Here in Britain, Remainers who genuinely want to influence Brexit to, at least, stay in the Single Market, would do well to cut their ties with Blair. Reviving his career at this stage in the revolution would be like trying to restore an exiled king to a broken throne. I don't think the citizens are going to go for it.
Tony Blair can't stop Brexit. He's the one who caused it
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