Tony Blair is a maestro singing the wrong tune
His lack of recognition that his own government created the circumstances in which people voted to leave the EU is surprising
aving debated former British prime minister Tony Blair literally hundreds of times, when I was leader of the opposition, I just can’t break the old habit of analysing any important statement that he makes. This may seem sad to some, but even when I was up against him in heated arguments I found him intriguing — and in person, he is always engaging.
Few political leaders in our lifetimes have had such an ability to stand an argument on its head, or to convey contradictory messages with seemingly complete sincerity. So when he turned up on Radio 4 last Sunday, I just had to listen, as a Blair connoisseur, to how he would approach a general election with a Labour leader he must regard as an incompetent extremist not fit to fill his shoes, although he doesn’t quite put it like that. The answer was vintage Blair. While he would vote Labour himself, other people should quiz their local candidates to see who has “an open mind” on leaving the European Union. How people vote is up to them, he said generously, but this issue mattered more than party allegiance in this particular election. It would never occur to most politicians that they could announce they will vote for their party, but that other voters should consider supporting its rivals!
I have never stopped admiring the way Blair, while still in the Church of England, let it be known he was quietly a Catholic and carried the Quran on his travels. He can be in one party while indicating support for the others and still keep a straight face. Yet, there is always a seductive side to what this undoubted maestro comes out with, and it is important to understand the implications of what he is saying. If millions of people were to take his advice, the consequences for Britain would be very serious. Instead of a Conservative majority, there would be a hung parliament, opening up a long and bitter struggle to reverse the referendum result, and probably with Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish First Minister, holding the balance of power.
The most important part of the case he made also has to be confronted, because it is similar to the arguments of the Liberal Democrats, and we will hear it very often over the next six weeks. This is that a big Conservative victory will “steamroller” Britain into a “hard Brexit”. Since some people who voted Remain might fall for this, it is crucial for two answers to it to be explained. The first is that a bigger majority would give Prime Minister Theresa May more freedom of manoeuvre to reach a deal with the EU and win ratification for it, but that is not necessarily a “harder” Brexit. In practice, it would almost certainly mean she could be tougher on some matters and more open to compromise on some others.
A new third way
The second answer is that what is meant by “avoiding a hard Brexit” is that Britain somehow contrive to stay in the single market and customs union even after leaving the EU. Blair was explicit in his interview that this would be his objective. From the master of political triangulation comes a new third way: Britain could still be in the EU even when we’re not. The trouble with this is that it is not realistic or negotiable if we are to have control of our own borders. The EU would not wear it and Britons cannot expect them to do so. If British voters really set about preventing an increased Conservative majority to stop a so-called hard Brexit, they would in reality be preventing British Prime Minister Theresa May from making necessary deals.
A final and striking aspect of the interview with Blair was his lack of recognition that his own government largely created the circumstances in which people voted to leave the EU. His opening up of Britain to much larger scale immigration from Europe and elsewhere ultimately produced the backlash that tipped the scales in last year’s referendum.
Furthermore, he and former British prime minister Gordon Brown refused to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, sending the message that however much power was given to Brussels, the voters would not be consulted. Had such a vote been held, Britain would have torpedoed that treaty. But Britons would not then have been voting in 2016 to leave the EU altogether. Brexit was born in the New Labour years when public concern over rising immigration or loss of sovereignty was deemed not to matter. Now it is a Conservative prime minister who is dealing with the consequences of that, and who needs a strong mandate to do so. Nothing that was said last week, even by the great artist of political positioning, should be seen as a convincing argument against that. William Hague is a former British foreign secretary and a former leader of the Conservative Party.
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