Not him again – now Blair is plotting a comeback!
He tells Labour voters to back TORY remainers ...and hints he may even stand himself
‘Motivated to go right back in’
TONY Blair yesterday threatened to stage a comeback to lead the charge against Brexit as he called on Labour voters to consider backing pro-EU Tories and Liberal Democrats.
The former prime minister declared he ‘almost feels motivated to go right back into’ frontline politics and refused to rule out standing again as a Labour MP.
He insisted that the issue of Brexit was ‘bigger than party allegiance’ and suggested voters look for their most pro-EU candidate locally – even if they are Conservatives.
His comments last night led one of Jeremy Corbyn’s former close aides to demand that Mr Blair is kicked out of the party.
The former Labour leader said he was mulling a return as an MP as he feels ‘so passionate’ about wanting to thwart Brexit.
‘I feel for the first time since I first came into politics, I look at the British political scene at the moment and I actually almost feel motivated to go right back into it,’ he told BBC Radio 4’s The World This Weekend.
‘I just feel we’re allowing ourselves to be hijacked by what is actually quite a small group of people with a very strong ideology.’
Mr Blair added: ‘I agree that someone like Theresa May, you look at her and she’s very sensible, very solid, she’s a perfectly decent person.
‘ I agree with a lot of what she says – what she says about energy costs today, most people would say, “fair enough”. But on this issue, which is the biggest issue of our time and which will have a dramatic impact on our future, on our economy, on our living standards and on the younger people of this country, on this issue she’s not reasonable.’
Asked specifically if he might stand as a candidate at the upcoming election, he replied: ‘Well, I tell you what I fancy, I fancy doing whatever I can to at least make this debate in the election into a proper debate.’
Mr Blair called on voters to choose candidates based on whether they would be prepared to block Brexit.
‘At the moment on the polls it would look like a landslide majority [for the Conservatives], that’s why the absolutely central question of this election is less to do with who is prime minister on the 9th of June and what is the nature of their mandate,’ he said.
‘Is it possible that we can return as many MPs as possible to Parliament that are going to keep an open mind on this Brexit negotiation until they see the final terms?
‘What this election needs is a new dimension in it because otherwise, frankly, we’re going to literally roll through the next few weeks.
‘It needs a new dimension where we put would-be candidates and MPs under pressure to say, are you going to back Brexit at any cost or are there circumstances in which you’re prepared to say this deal is not in the interests of the country?’
The former prime minister added: ‘I personally couldn’t support somebody in an election who was going to say, “I’m just going to sign up to Brexit at any cost”.
‘That isn’t the position of the Labour party, but leave that to one side. This is something that is bigger than party allegiance in this particular election.’
Mr Blair refused to be drawn on how Remain supporters should cast their ballots in individual seats, but he said what he was advocating ‘may mean’ voting for the Liberal Democrat in some areas.
He said he would ‘ always vote Labour’ himself, but that he was willing to ‘work with anyone to get this argument across in the country’.
Asked who would be best suited to become PM, he said: ‘ Because I’ve said I’m not going to get into the discussion of the campaign, I’m not even going to get into that discussion.
‘I’m basing my statements about the campaign really on that if the polls are right – I’m not saying they should be right, I’m not saying they are right, I’m just saying if they’re right – frankly that is not the dominant question in this campaign.
‘The dominant question is what’s the mandate that Theresa May is going to claim on June 9th.’
In response to Mr Blair’s comments, Matt Zarb-Cousin, who was Jeremy Corbyn’s spokesman until a few weeks ago, wrote on Twitter: ‘[ Mr Blair] should be kicked out of the party.’