Blair’s blueprint to block Brexit branded ‘delusional’
TONY BLAIR yesterday unveiled his blueprint for stopping Brexit, setting out his plans to use the NHS, jobs and living standards to make the case for a second referendum or fresh general election. The former prime minister published a 32-page document claiming that Brexit is already damaging the economy by hitting productivity, increasing food prices and deterring investment.
It is likely to form the basis of a carefully orchestrated campaign by Mr Blair and other leading Remain-supporting politicians to secure a second referendum on Brexit as the exit date of March 29, 2019 approaches.
However, Lord Lamont, the former Conservative chancellor and prominent Eurosceptic, said that Mr Blair was “delusional” and branded his blueprint as “Project Fear mark two”. Several of the document’s key assertions were contradicted yesterday. Mr Blair’s report, entitled “Brexit – what we now know”, examines the impact of Brexit on 16 aspects of the economy since the referendum, including financial services, agriculture, construction and the car industry.
It highlights the Government’s “concessions and chaos” over Brexit, and criticises every potential outcome ranging from leaving the EU without a deal to adopting a Norway model.
The former Labour leader’s claims were challenged yesterday morning by John Humphrys, the BBC Radio 4 presenter, in an interview in which he
accused Mr Blair of being “tendentious”, “elitist” and “undemocratic”. He was accused of “conflating two things” after claiming there were “significant staff shortages” in the NHS in the wake of the EU referendum vote. Official figures show that the number of EU nationals working in the NHS increased by 5.4 per cent in the year after the Brexit vote.
Mr Blair was also directly challenged by over his claim that Brexit is damaging the UK’S productivity. Humphrys highlighted that fact that productivity has been a consistent issue in the UK since Mr Blair’s time in office. He told Mr Blair that his plan to give voters the chance to reverse Brexit with another referendum or even a special election risked provoking “civil disobedience”.
Mr Blair insisted that there was nothing wrong with continuing the “democratic debate”. Humphrys replied: “If you don’t like the result of the referendum you have another one?”
The former prime minister said: “The common sense [approach] would be to say if the circumstances change and [we] decide on reflection that that new relationship does not offer us a better way forward for the future of the country, why shouldn’t we be entitled to think again?”
Lord Lamont accused Mr Blair on the Today programme of “attempting to sabotage the result of the EU referendum”.
He said: “This is not about examining the terms of a deal. It’s about opposing withdrawal at all costs. The giveaway is that within hours of the referendum result, people had a petition asking for a second referendum. Are we to have a third, a fourth referendum? When does it stop? He’s delusional. This is Project Fear mark two and the plan for sabotaging the referendum.”
Senior Labour MPS described Mr Blair’s intervention as “utterly unhelpful”. Mr Blair said he disagreed with the Labour Party’s stance, saying it was mistaken tactically: “First, because the Labour Party is saying that we too would do Brexit, we cannot attack its vast distractive impact.
“Labour could mount such a powerful assault on the Government’s record from the appalling state of the NHS to crime, which through neglect and failure to support the police is on the rise again, if we were saying to the country: here’s the agenda which could be delivered for the people were it not for the fact that all the energies of government and substantial amounts of cash are devoted to Brexit.
“And, second, it puts us in a vulnerable position when the Government concludes ‘the deal’ some time in 2018.” ♦ Nigel Farage, the former Ukip leader, is to meet the EU’S Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier on Monday so he can represent “the views of the 17.4 million”. Mr Farage wrote on Twitter that he wanted people to send in their questions for Mr Barnier and promising to pick the “best three”. The anti-brexit pressure group Open Britain derided the decision, saying it was “like sending an arsonist to put out a house fire”.