The house newspaper of Britain’s left-liberal establishment has published an article by Iraq War architect and former prime minister Tony Blair pleading with voters to stop the rise of Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage.
Blair, the unpopular former Labour premier voted as the country’s “Worst Briton” even during his heyday, begged, “If you care about what the Brexiters are doing to our country, then vote on 23 May” in his Guardian article, titled ‘Farage cannot be allowed to dictate Britain’s future. He must be thwarted’.
The 66-year-old urged readers to consider voting for “unequivocal remain parties – [the] Liberal Democrats, Change UK, Greens, SNP [Scottish National Party] and Plaid Cymru” before recommending Labour — although he did claim he would be doing so himself, and that, despite the party’s “equivocation” on Brexit, he believed politicians would ultimately count Labour votes as anti-Brexit votes in an imaginary “ledger”.
“All that matters is that on 24 May, Nigel Farage and his allies on the far right of the Conservative party cannot claim they speak for Britain” he pleaded, in seeming desperation, as European Parliament election polls point to Farage’s Brexit Party claiming more votes than Labour and the Tories combined.
Blair gave over a large section of his article to complaining about Labour’s approach to Brexit, which it promised to deliver in its 2017 election manifesto.
“What Labour should have done – from the beginning – is to argue that we accept the referendum result but that once any negotiation concludes we should be entitled to compare the future European relationship with what we have now and, if that negotiated outcome is unsatisfactory, reserve the right to give the people the final say,” he suggested, although how Labour could claim to be accepting the Leave vote while also reserving the right to re-run the referendum if the terms of Brexit prove “unsatisfactory” is unclear– especially considering Mr Blair considers all forms of Brexit an inferior outcome to EU membership by definition.
This becomes even clearer in a subsequent passage, where he suggests “We could have made the correct case as to why Brexit is not the answer to anything – the degradation of the NHS, failures in schools, rising crime and social disintegration, the inequalities in our society or, indeed, the climate challenge” — essentially relitigating the referendum, where Remainers advanced this case at length and failed to the electorate.
“There will be a time for examination of Labour’s role in the Brexit debacle,” he concluded, “but for the moment stopping the Brexiters is the priority.”
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.