Dealing with reality; Tony Blair urges Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party to abandon its "timidity" and oppose Brexit, if the Labour Party don't support direct democracy of the referendum vote, why would the public elect it to run this country, Labour has to adopt a united UK front over Brexit, we are all in this together

Dear All

Back in the day, Tony Blair waltzed into Number 10 Downing Street having defeated John Major’s government, it was 1997, the Labour Campaign was based on hope and a feeling that change was needed as the Major Government was seen as weak. We don’t have to go over all Blair’s failures but needless to say Tony Blair didn’t deliver on the promises. At the end of his tenure, he was a liability seen to be in the pocket of the Americans.

Having climbed into bed with the Americans, Blair started to see himself going further, the First President of Europe, except the Germans under Angela Merkel weren’t too keen on the idea.

 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/can-anyone-stop-blair-becoming-the-first-president-of-europe-1750106.html

Despite leaving office, Tony Blair has been hanging around politics picking up odd jobs and trying to get some sort of power from a position. It therefore comes as no surprise that Tony Blair urges Labour to abandon its "timidity" and oppose Brexit. Although Blair wants to feather his own nest, it seems that he is quite willing to try and induce others, in this case, Jeremy Corbyn to make a massive blunder with the people that matter.

In this case, the people that matter to Jeremy Corbyn are the voters!  

Brexit is going ahead, and for Tony Blair to say Labour should take the political “high ground” and oppose it is sheer nonsense, the Labour Party have to look at how it fits in, when the post Brexit landscape emerges. The lead should be developing new ties with the Commonwealth and the development of a new global strategy to fit into the new era of change.

Tony Blair is the past, and his track record speaks for itself, he has already sold out his country and his take that others should do likewise is quite revealing, sometimes in politics, it can’t just be ‘me me me’, what’s in it for me, the public good is served by Brexit. It is the advocating political suicide coming of the former Prime Minister to try and get Jeremy Corbyn to campaign for the country to have the right to change its mind on Brexit.

In order to justify his position, Blair says that the party leadership must attack the current government, he said:

"Labour could mount such a powerful assault on the Government's record from the appalling state of the NHS to crime, which through neglect and failure to support the police is on the rise again, if we were saying to the country: here's the agenda which could be delivered for the people were it not for the fact that all the energies of Government and substantial amounts of cash are devoted to Brexit. And, second, it puts us in a vulnerable position when the Government concludes 'the deal' some time in 2018."

None of what Tony Blair has said here is relevant, and it should be mentioned that the state of all of the above happened on the EU watch! Another part of the pitch which again is meaningless is the demand for full details of the new relationship before leaving.

This can only be his premise for a second vote, either there is a deal and we accept it, or there is no deal and we walk away, there is no third option, no third way, no backdoor trick.

Blair said:

"At every PMQs nail each myth of the Brexit campaign, say why the Tory divisions are weakening our country, something only credible if we are opposed to Brexit, not advocating a different Brexit, and challenge the whole farce head on of a prime minister leading our nation in a direction which even today she can't bring herself to say she would vote for. If we do leave Europe, the governing mind will have been that of the Tory Right.”

This is deception, Brexit isn’t just about the Tory right, the issue is cross party, and there are many people of very different political beliefs who backed withdrawal, and for good reason.

He added,

“if Labour continues to go along with Brexit and insists on leaving the single market, the handmaiden of Brexit will have been the timidity of Labour."

And as if by magic; his Tony Blair Institute for Global Change published a report entitled “Brexit – What We Now Know”. Think of this as just a run of the mill horror story, a new dirty dossier which shows, the eye-watering costs and sheer complexity of disentangling ourselves from our nearest neighbours.

Guess what?

That crap won’t wash!

Blair taking to the stage, isn’t a good thing, he is a man who has had his time, like Angela Merkel is finding out in Germany, there comes a time when the party is over, when new players come on the scene, and you have to accept the game has been lost. The NHS has been used the Remain side as a tool to spread fear, getting people worked up that their health service is in danger, it isn’t, and never was, no matter what colour the government is.

Lord O’Neill, the former Treasury minister has criticised the UK Government's approach to future trade deals after Brexit. He says that it was "mad" for the Foreign Secretary and Liam Fox, the International Trade Secretary, to "spend half of their time travelling to New Zealand" instead of building relationships with the likes of China. The point that O’Neill seems to miss is that the UK Government is from what I can gather rebuilding how it operates within the Commonwealth for trade, and of course, the UK will be getting talks with China who see the UK as a valuable market in which to do business.

So, Lord O’Neill, the former Treasury minister can calm down.

Brexit just didn’t happen, nothing in politics ever does, with the current state of Europe; the right choice was made to protect over sovereignty something which Tony Blair seeks to destroy on behalf of the non-elected of the EU Commission. Blair may think that in return, the EU will embrace him, but the landscape now is different, there is no place for Tony Blair in the EU in any capacity.

Certainly not as President Blair of Europe!

Finally, Paul Schofield in the movie, a man for all seasons used a line that sums up Tony Blair nicely.

Sir Thomas More: Why Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world... but for Wales?

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University