Blair’s dog-whistle rallying call for ‘Remain’ is another bid to split Labour
In a speech for Open Britain Blair says the nation should stay ‘with the biggest political union on our doorstep’ [Image: D Baratz/Barcroft Images].
He isn’t speaking for Remain to get a better deal for Britain; he’s doing it to undermine Jeremy Corbyn.
Divide and conquer: It’s the oldest trick in the Tory book and Blair was always an avid student of Tory ways.
In contrast, Jeremy Corbyn is trying to bring the UK back together, heal the rifts the referendum created between people, and find a way forward that works for the majority.
Blair doesn’t want that. It could improve Labour’s electability and he doesn’t want Labour to be electable under Corbyn. He wants another pale blue Tory clone leading Labour, who won’t do any harm to the neoliberal economic policies that are ruining the UK but making a few people extremely rich.
So he’s dog-whistling – saying he wants to represent Remainers but actually trying to undermine Labour.
He thinks he’ll succeed because, let’s face it, he fooled many of us that he was a Labour politician for more than a decade.
Don’t be fooled again.
Tony Blair will declare his mission to persuade the UK to stay in the EU today, calling for remain supporters to “rise up in defence of what we believe”.
The former prime minister will make the statement at his first big speech since the EU referendum, arguing that people were misinformed when they voted for Brexit.
“The people voted without knowledge of the true terms of Brexit. As these terms become clear, it is their right to change their mind,” he is expected to say. “Our mission is to persuade them to do so.”
Source: Tony Blair calls on remainers to ‘rise up in defence of our beliefs’ | Politics | The Guardian
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Well there are two troubling parts of what he is doing, firstly isn’t he inciting a coup d’ stat by telling people to rise up and try to overturn a democratic decision, isn’t that treasonable behaviour. and secondly how does a politician get to a point where he can pour £8 million of his own money into this attempted coup? Was he 100% kosher when in power or abusing his position to make a personal fortune?
I’m no Blairite but he’s right that people voting Leave did not know what they were voting for and that there should therefore be another vote when the terms of Brexit have been defined.
By whom?
By the electorate. There will be nothing for Parliament to vote on. The EU is not going to roll over, as the Leave campaign preposterously claimed, and a deal within two years seems highly improbable. In the meantime there will be rising opposition to the reckless alternative of leaving come what may, fuelled by an increasing fall in living standards due to continuing austerity and the weakness of sterling. It also seems likely that an Article 50 invocation will be held to be revocable. In these circumstances there will be a public demand for a second referendum or for the timetabled general election to be brought forward a year as a vote of confidence in the charted course of action.
You think the electorate is going to define the terms of Brexit? Oh dear.
Parliament has given the electorate everything it is going to give, with regard to the EU referendum and Brexit. The claim is that the people have spoken and they are doing exactly what they said they’d do before the referendum – which is, honour it.
There have been calls for a second independence referendum in Scotland. How much credence has Westminster given them?
Well who is going to support a war criminal. The idiot needs to remember that we have long memories of his lies and sophistry and what more we don’t forgive.
I am positing an election/referendum vote in say 2019 to reject leaving with no deal and to remain in the EU following the Government’s failure to achieve a deal. This will be the best outcome for both the UK and Europe.
If anyone follows Blair they would have to be sick
He’s even beginning to look like a Trojan Horse. And there I was thinking this Tory look-a-like had retired, with his missus, counting their cash pile. Tone, you had your chance to show the country what you are made from and eventually you revealed this true very unpleasant substance. This is why any sane person keeps you and your forked tounge at arms length…….with the exception of a few blinkered and bewildered ultra right wing supporters trying to sabotage the real Labour party. .
I can be pro-Remain (even now, though success is unlikely and problematic) regardless of what that Bliar says. It’s sickening that he might take credit for either my views or my confidence in airing them.
It’s like being pro-eugenics and having Hitler say “Well done! I knew you’d change your mind!”?
In many ways it’s too little too late, and Blair is an irrelevance. The time for initial fightback feels like it is gone, and we now have rearguard action and damage limitation to put our energies into. If enough evidence of the economic dangers (big companies pulling out of the UK, loss of investment here, Brexit actually making little difference to migration because of labour shortages in certain industries, rising prices,) it might enable Labour to get more active support for really demanding the best Brexit deal we can get. The alternative of May’s wishy washy approach and the self-interested trio of Johnson, Davis and Fox (especially Fox!) in charge of negotiations is too horrible to contemplate for our children.