SO WHO WOULD YOU TRUST?
A manic burnt-out Blair preaching doom, or a rejuvenated Theresa May in touch with the people and urging unity ...
BODY language – it goes a long way in politics.
A quick look at these pictures illustrates all you need to know about the gulf in approaches to winning over the public.
As Tony Blair grimaces in a suit while spreading gloom about Brexit, Theresa May was a paragon of warmth and positivity – meeting young parents in Newcastle and farming families in Northern Ireland.
Her lightning tour of the four countries of the UK – timed to coincide with one year until Britain leaves the EU – aims to rally support ahead of our departure on 29 March, 2019.
Former Labour leader Mr Blair, on the other hand, spoke in London about how the decision to cut ties with Brussels was a disaster.
With a rictus grin, he told academics at a conference called The UK In A Changing Europe how he could foresee the PM’s departure deal being defeated – and Britain forced to hold another referendum.
Mrs May, who once faced criticism about her ‘robotic’ style, kicked off her whistlestop UK tour with a visit to a textile company in Ayr, Scotland. She then attended a mother and toddler group in Newcastle before taking lunch with farmers in Bangor, Northern Ireland.
Next was a round-table discussion with businesses in South Wales, before completing her tour in west London with Poles who have made the UK their home. She insisted the Polish population was still welcome in the UK when she was asked for ‘reassurances’.
FROM the man who once claimed ‘Things Can Only Get Better’ we yesterday heard about ‘The Big Disillusion’. Tony Blair was doing another anti-Brexit turn on the fringes of Westminster. He put forward an almost entirely negative prospectus, spreading gloom in the hope of causing a second referendum.
Brexit was a disaster, he said, and his fellow Remainers would prevail only once the electorate had woken up to the error of its ways. He wanted to string out the Brexit process as long as possible. The Conservatives could ‘go down’ at the 2022 election if Brexit was still an issue then, he said.
How odd to think that Mr Blair’s New Labour once admonished the Right for being downbeat and defeatist. He once understood the importance of optimism in politics. Now it is ‘things can only deteriorate’.
Ageing actress Tony was appearing at an academics’ network, The UK In A Changing Europe. The venue was the Queen Elizabeth II conference centre opposite Westminster Abbey.
I can’t remember the last time Mr Blair stepped foot inside the Houses of Parliament.
Has he been back even once since he left office?
We were promised not a speech but a ‘ keynote conversation’ between him and a slightly matey politics don, Anand Menon.
I was expecting this Menon to be a patsy but in fact he pinged some decently sceptical questions at Mr Blair. The two of them sat in low chairs, Menon with an earring, Mr Blair in black, retro’ Chelsea boots. The old-groover footwear said it all. Although he is still spry – thinner and maybe shorter than in his heyday – the package is now dated.
The smile seems pained, the voice has gone a bit pinched and the grey hair, thick at the back, was blueish under the lights.
His cheeks have done that wrinkled, pouchy thing that happened to Cilla Black towards the end of her days.
Prof Menon began by asking what the next 12 months would bring (it is now a year to our official departure from the EU). Mr Blair coughed up his alternative: ‘That we don’t leave the EU,’ he grunted, avian eyes staring coldly at the floor.
He could foresee a scenario in which Theresa May’s EU departure deal was defeated in Parliament and she was then obliged to hold another referendum. After familiar arguments that Britain hadn’t a hope of succeeding outside the EU, he said Leave voters would be furious when they realised how much less capable we were of fighting globalism once we had lost the protection of the EU.
Leave voters would be short on gratitude and Remain voters would be long on memory.
MENON expressed doubt that Europhile Tory MPs would rebel against Mrs May if they saw it could make Jeremy Corbyn prime minister. Mr Blair did not quite answer that point (perhaps Dominic Grieve has promised him he will oppose Mrs May whatever the deal) but he did sneer lightly about Mr Corbyn. Ditto President Trump, to whom he referred without mentioning his name. A sentence left trailing, a raised eyebrow, a smirk: that is how European Centrists disdain the US president. From time to time Mr Blair reminded us that he had been prime minister for ten years.
We had the usual stuff about the difference between strategy and tactics. He talks about Theresa May as ‘she’, Brexiteers as ‘these guys’. Although he was trotting out pretty standard Remoaner fare, it was done without much zeal. There was a hint of resignation about his performance.
Though he claimed huskily that ‘the Big Disillusion’ would give the Remainers their opportunity to stop Brexit, there was little va-voom.
And he gave Corbynites a tremendous incentive to support Mrs May. If we do leave the EU next March, he said, ‘for me that’s over’. We would ‘ hear no more’ from him about Brexit, or possibly much else.
Tony Blair is promising to quit the limelight? What a wonderful Brexit windfall.