Blair has the right Brexit approach
I FOR one was delighted to see Tony Blair back on TV screens this weekend.
You don’t have to like everything he ever did to recognise that a man who has served this country as its prime minister for 10 years, including a period where the UK held the presidency of the EU, might have something meaningful to contribute to the debate around Brexit.
He used his appearances to argue that we don’t have to leave the European Union in order to address the concerns people have about immigration. He believed it was possible to convince Europe to reform its laws so that what mattered was free movement of workers rather than people.
The idea people could only come and live in the UK if they have a job to come to, combined with Jeremy Corbyn’s focus on tackling the exploitation of workers with higher wages and betters terms, strikes me as absolutely the way to go. Yet he made a wider point about politics and what we should expect of politicians.
He argued that if politicians believe Brexit is wrong and damaging but blindly follow it because the people voted for it, then they can’t expect to be considered leaders.
Yet if they ignore the public’s views and do the right thing, they’re subject to the legitimate charge that they are not listening. It’s a rock and a hard place. Surely we want our politicians to do what they believe to be right?