Make Brexit the Tory Brexit, Blair urges ‘timid’ Labour

0 Tony Blair disagrees with Labour’s stance ‘strategically’ Labour’s “timidity” will have been the “handmaiden” of Brexit if the party continues to go along with leaving the European Union and insists on withdrawing from the single market, Tony Blair has claimed.

The former prime minister criticised Labour’s position and urged the party he once led to instead “make Brexit the Tory Brexit”.

Mr Blair said he disagreed with the party’s stance “strategically”, 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.”

Mr Blair, in an article, urged Labour: “At every PMQS nail each myth of the Brexit campaign, say why the Tory divisions are weakening our country, something only credible if we are opposed to Brexit, not advocating a different Brexit, and challenge the whole farce head on of a Prime Minister leading our nation in a direction which even today she can’t bring herself to say she would vote for.” Machines may take more jobs as a result of rises in the minimum wage, a respected economic think tank has warned.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies said “extremely careful” monitoring of the minimum wage rate is needed as employers cut costs and automatise aspects of business.

Those set to be brought within the minimum wage net in 2020 are more than twice as likely to be in the 10 per cent most “routine” jobs – such as shop cashiers and receptionists – as those who were directly affected by the minimum wage in 2015.

This kind of work tends to be easier to “automate”, according to the IFS.