Blair the hypocrite’s warning... on migrants
TONY BLAIR attempted to rally anti- Brexit activists yesterday by claiming they had just weeks to overturn the referendum result.
In the latest stage of an apparently concerted campaign by Remainers this week, the former Labour prime minister called into question the democratic legitimacy of the vote.
And in yet another attempt to frustrate the UK’s exit from the European Union, Mr Blair – who has said he feels duty-bound to lead a Brexit reversal – issued an audacious call for the EU to overhaul its immigration rules, claiming that reforming the bloc’s freedom of movement regime could be the key to halting Brexit.
Mr Blair argued that if ‘comprehensive’ immigration reforms were put forward, voters would
‘There is a way of dealing with it’
realise that their ‘genuine underlying grievances’ could be addressed – despite the widespread view that it was his government that fuelled concerns about immigration by allowing new EU countries unfettered access to the UK in 2004.
Speaking in Brussels, the former Labour leader said: ‘The problem with immigration is that people look at Europe’s borders and they think, we can’t really control this.
‘I think the worry is much less about immigration from within Europe than from outside Europe, particularly, to be very blunt about it, migration from majority Muslim countries.’ The 64-year- old said that this was driven by fears that ‘those who come in [do not] share the same value system’.
He added: ‘It is a problem and there is a way of dealing with it, but it requires us to understand that the fears about immigration are not all prejudice.
‘There are genuine anxieties. We have to deal with the anxieties to stop the prejudice.’
Conservative MP Nigel Huddleston said last night: ‘As Tony Blair lectures today’s politicians on what we should be doing on Brexit, one wonders if he has the self-awareness to realise one of the key reasons we are leaving the EU is because of his inability to control immigration when he was PM for a decade.’
During the speech in Brussels he also claimed that it would no longer require a ‘miracle’ for the divorce from the European Union to be quashed.
In a veiled criticism of current Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Mr Blair said that if he was back in politics he would now be ‘hammering the Tories on the destructive impact of Brexit’.
‘We have months, perhaps weeks, to think, plan and act,’ he said. ‘It’s becoming clear there’s not a majority in Parliament [who want] to do damage to our country. The British people should be given a final say on whatever deal is negotiated. If they’re allowed that say, then Brexit can be averted.’
He also claimed that Brexit was being driven by individuals who want to complete a ‘Thatcherite revolution’.
In his speech, Mr Blair called on European leaders to see Brexit as a ‘wake-up’ call and offer Britain a ‘parallel path’ in a reformed EU.