NAKED TREACHERY

With a shamelessness only he possesses, Tony Blair has told Labour supporters to vote Tory to defy Brexit. MARK SEDDON, a Labour member for 40 years, gives his withering response

THIS weekend we witnessed one of the biggest acts of political treachery in recent memory. Tony Blair, with a shamelessness that defied belief, called on Labour voters to forget party allegiances and consider, instead, backing pro- EU candidates — even if they are Conservative or Liberal Democrat.

What this amounts to is a naked demand for them to vote for candidates committed to reversing the result of a democratic decision by the British people to opt for Brexit, while at the same time potentially condemning members of his own party to defeat at the General Election.

Blair’s call could not be better designed to inflict maximum damage on the party he once led, as it goes into an election arguably even weaker than in 1983 under Michael Foot, when it was trounced by the Tories (and how ironic that 1983 was the year Blair was first elected as an MP — on a manifesto committing Labour to leaving what was then the European Economic Community.

With breathtaking sophistry, Blair claimed he was not calling for ‘tactical voting’ but, instead, that people should vote ‘on an informed basis’ on Brexit. What patronising nonsense from a man who has clearly decided the 17 million who voted to leave the EU last year were too stupid to know what they were doing.

Duplicity

Let us be clear. Blair feels ‘so passionately’ about wanting to thwart Brexit that it matters more to him than the trifling matter of loyalty to the party that enabled him to become Prime Minister — and, subsequently, wealthier than the dreams of avarice.

To add insult to injury, Blair hinted that he was considering a parliamentary comeback. Well, bring it on, Tony. Have the courage of your Euro-convictions. And as you would clearly have to hold your nose to support Labour, stand as an ‘independent’ and be trounced.

Unlike President George W. Bush — Blair’s partner in the Iraq War, the biggest foreign policy disaster of modern times — Tony Blair has not gone quietly into retirement.

Signally refusing to atone for his sins in Iraq, he has spent much of the past two years berating his successor Jeremy Corbyn, who, whatever you think of him, was one of the few brave enough to stand up to Blair’s warmongering at the time of the 2003 invasion.

Any normal human being would have taken one long look at the devastating findings of the Chilcot report — which delivered a withering verdict on Blair’s duplicity and dissembling in the run-up to the invasion and failure to plan for its aftermath — and headed for the hills.

Instead, Blair says he ‘almost feels motivated to get right back into politics’ because of Brexit. Personally, I have little doubt he is trying to build a new pro-EU party behind the scenes with his friends Nick Clegg, Peter Mandelson and George Osborne.

As a member of the Labour Party for 40 years, I am beyond appalled at Blair’s conduct and do not believe he can remain a party member.

Back in 2005, Reg Keys, the father of a British serviceman killed in Iraq, bravely decided to stand against Tony Blair in his Sedgefield constituency as an independent antiwar candidate.

I was then a member of Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee and I wrote to Mr Keys, praising him for his stance and wishing him well in the future. For doing so I was hauled in front of the Labour Chief Whip.

Even though I had not called for people to vote for Reg Keys, it was made very clear to me that as far as the Labour Party was concerned, this level of disloyalty was almost enough to have me drummed out of the party.

What Blair is now calling for is of a different order of magnitude. He says every election candidate should be asked the following deeply loaded and frankly fatuous question: ‘Will you back Brexit at any cost, or are you prepared to say “this deal is not in the interests of the country”?’

Depending on the answer, Labour voters should then vote, according to Blair, for the candidate from any party who gives the right answer.

Advocating a vote for another party is an expellable offence under Labour’s rules and constitution. Any ordinary member committing a similar offence would by now have been marched off to appear before the party’s National Constitutional Committee and probably expelled.

Messianic

Why Blair should be treated any differently is beyond me. If anything, his position as former Labour leader and Prime Minister makes his pronouncements far more consequential, as he has such experience and influence.

Bizarrely, much of the political and media establishment in Britain still takes the pronouncements of Tony Blair as seriously as he does himself.

It seems of little consequence that his ‘ messianic’ attitude towards the EU is invariably glossed over.

Blair, remember, was adamant that Britain should join the Single Currency, arguing that it would be ‘crazy’ not to do so and that MPs who were against it were ‘foolish and backward’.

As we know, the euro has been a calamity. Last year the Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said large parts of Europe had endured ‘a lost decade’ as a result of ‘the fatal decision’ to adopt a single currency. And it is only thanks to Gordon Brown, who as Chancellor realised how damaging the single currency could be to our economy, that we did not sign up as well.

Tony Blair could not have been more wrong then. So why should anyone listen to him now? Yet this master of self- delusion — along with others such as Mandelson and John Major who are furious the referendum should have been allowed — still believes the people cannot be trusted to decide on matters of national importance.

Indeed, Major said Brexit should not be dictated by the ‘tyranny of the majority’.

Disloyal

This is the behaviour of an arrogant British elite at its very worst. Is it any surprise voters are so disenchanted with the political class?

If we are to avoid the farRight and far-Left extremists who wield increasing influence on the Continent, politicians here must not allow themselves to get so out of touch.

Tony Blair used to represent Sedgefield in County Durham, a former mining community which is loyally Labour. In common with much of the traditional Labour- voting North East, most people there voted to leave the EU.

Whether they were right or wrong will be discovered in time. But what is clear is that many Labour voters in such post-industrial areas believe the European Union is part of this country’s problem and not the solution to its ills.

These Labour voters had the temerity to go against the advice of Tony Blair and others who once held high political office. Now Blair — who not so long ago was touting himself as a future EU President — is not only telling them they got it wrong, but urging them to vote Tory or Liberal Democrat if necessary to atone for their sins.

There is no doubt in my mind that Tony Blair is, in fact, the one who has got it wrong. And for his treachery he should be expelled from the Labour Party.