Fury as Blair and Mandy say MPs can ignore public’s wishes on Brexit
TONY Blair sparked outrage yesterday after he suggested MPs could stop Britain leaving the European Union.
The former Labour prime minister said the UK must keep its ‘options open’ as he claimed the ‘will of the people’ could change.
He said ‘ parliament has got a role’, suggesting MPs could ignore the referendum result and block an attempt by the Government to invoke Article 50, which starts the Brexit process.
Mr Blair said ministers should delay triggering the two-year window for negotiations allowing Britain to quit the EU.
This would let the Government recognise any shifts in public opinion, he said.
His comments were met with fury by politicians on the Leave side, who accused him of totalitarian politics reminiscent of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Mr Blair told the BBC: ‘If, as we start to see the details emerge of what this new world we are going into looks like, what are the practical effects, then parliament has got a role. The country should carry on being engaged in this debate, it should carry on expressing its view.
‘If, for example, the will of the people shifts, why shouldn’t we recognise that?’
Lord Mandelson, a former EU commissioner and Cabinet minister, also refused to accept the referendum result. Speaking at the Chalke Valley History Festival, sponsored by the Daily Mail, the Labour peer said: ‘I am one of the 48 per cent rather than the 52 per cent and I don’t believe the 48 per cent can or should go away.’
He argued that a shift in public opinion could be expressed via a general election – for example if Britons voted for a party that said the referendum’s outcome was ‘an absolute disaster’. He added: ‘ You trigger Article 50 and have the negotia- tion. As a result of the negotiation you get an outcome. Now I want people to have the chance to vote by some means on whether they want to embrace that.’
He said this did not mean there had to be a second EU referendum.
Former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg also called for a fresh general election. He claimed the next Tory leader should publish a white paper setting out what Britain’s future relationship with Europe should be, and then seek a ‘democratic mandate’ by going to the polls.
The former Lib Dem leader wrote in The Guardian: ‘The election must be held before any attempt is made to activate Article 50.
‘ Starting that clock ticking before people have had an opportunity to cast a judgment on what life would actually look like outside the EU would be deeply undemocratic.’
Their comments came after tens of thousands of Remain protesters marched through London on Saturday to express their anger at the referendum result.
But Suzanne Evans, the former Ukip deputy leader, accused Mr Blair of ‘trying to force the will of the people to change’. She told BBC Radio 4’s The World At One: ‘It sounds very Nineteen Eighty-Four to me.’
Tory MP Bernard Jenkin, chairman of the Public Administration Committee, said Mr Blair was in ‘denial’, adding: ‘He was wrong about the euro, he was wrong about the Lisbon treaty, he was wrong about the EU referendum and now he is wrong again.
‘When are they going to accept that this is telling us something about what the British people really feel about being in the EU? He needs to smell the coffee. It is the Labour voters that the Labour party failed to represent that has caused the turmoil in the party.’
Tory MEP Daniel Hannan added: ‘I really think Tony Blair should accept the really clear mandate he’s had from the British people.’
Mr Blair said the Government should delay triggering Article 50 ‘for as long as it takes to get an idea of how the other side looks’. He claimed a downturn in the economy, for example, could change voters’ minds on the EU. He told the Murnaghan show on Sky News: ‘Yes, the referendum expressed the will of the people, but the will of the people is entitled to change. ‘Over the next two months, even while this psychodrama within the Conservative party is going on, we’ve got to have the national interest protected by trying to set the scene for any negotiation.’ He added: ‘I don’t think you can override the settled will of the people but it’s 52 to 48 [per cent in favour of leaving the EU]. ‘Supposing some weeks or months down the line ... if it becomes clear these terms are bad for us, if people start to worry about their jobs, we should just keep our options open.’ The referendum result is not binding in UK law, and it alone does not trigger Britain’s depar- ture from the EU. Legal experts have suggested the Prime Minister cannot trigger Article 50 without being given authority to do so by an act of Parliament – with law firm Mishcon de Reya launching a legal challenge to this effect. Most MPs backed Remain, which means they could effectively block Brexit should this happen. The Government has suggested it has sufficient legal authority.
‘Will of the people is entitled to change’