Tony Blair gets it wrong again on EU membership
SAY what you like about Tony Blair but he still knows how to dominate the headlines. Although his interventions in British politics have been rare since he was booted out of Downing Street by Gordon Brown in 2007, when he does speak he makes waves.
So his decision to join the election fray yesterday with a speech in his old constituency Sedgefield injected a spark of life into the campaign.
The problem is that his speech was pure drivel, made up of half- truths, falsehoods, misleading claims and shameless attempts to panic the electorate into fear of an EU referendum.
According to Mr Blair, Ed Miliband has shown “real leader ship” in having “resolutely refused” to support a referendum on our membership of the EU. That’s certainly one way of describing Labour’s idea that voters are too stupid to be allowed a say in our destiny.
The Conservatives’ promise of a vote is, Mr Blair said, nothing more than “a concession to party, a manoeuvre to access some of the Ukip vote, a sop to the rampant antiEurope feeling of parts of the media”.
WORSE, it would be a disaster from the day after the poll should Mr Cameron be returned to Downing Street: “Think of the chaos produced by the possibility, never mind the reality, of Britain quitting Europe. Jobs that are secure suddenly insecure, investment decisions postponed or cancelled, a pall of unpredictability hanging over the British economy.”
Here we go again. Spreading panic and fear is the stock in trade of the Euro- fanatics and Mr Blair is as fanatical as they get. For a man who won three thumping majorities on the back of his instinctive understanding of the electorate Tony Blair has always had a blind spot over the EU.
If it was down to him, don’t forget, we would be using the euro instead of the pound. It was only because Gordon Brown refused to allow it that Mr Blair was frustrated in his plan.
But this is a man who does not just believe we should be