50-50 chance of another Brexit vote, says Blair
Former prime minister Tony Blair yesterday said there was a 50-50 chance of another Brexit referendum as Prime Minister Theresa May will be unlikely to secure a parliamentary majority for any divorce deal.
Less than six months before Britain leaves the European Union, there is little clarity about how post-Brexit trade between the EU and the world’s fifth largest economy will function.
If May can strike a deal with the EU, her minority government then has to get it approved by a deeply-divided parliament. “Whatever Brexit is on offer today is going to result in significant economic harm,” Blair, former head of the opposition Labour Party and prime minister from 1997 to 2007, said. “I think the odds are now 50% that you will get another (referendum) vote.”
“I still believe it is possible that Brexit is stopped,” he said. “There is no majority in parliament for any proposition that the prime minister brings back.”
Both opponents and supporters of Brexit agree that the divorce is Britain’s most significant political and economic move since World War II, though they cast vastly different futures for the $2.9tn UK economy and the world’s biggest trading bloc.
Leaving the European Union was once far-fetched: Less than two decades ago, British leaders such as Blair were arguing about when to join the euro, and talk of an EU exit was the reserve of fringe politicians.
But the eurozone crisis, fears in Britain about immigration and miscalculations by former prime minister David Cameron prompted Britons to vote 52% to 48% for Brexit in a June 2016 referendum.
A new vote, Blair said, could ask whether voters wanted to exit without a deal or stay in a reformed EU and offer new membership terms.