Former PM Blair says Britain is a mess

Tuesday, 26 November 2019 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair speaks at a Reuters Newsmaker event on ‘The challenging state of British politics’ in London, Britain, 25 November – Reuters

LONDON (Reuters): Former Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Monday that Britain was in a mess, warning that neither his own Labour Party nor the Conservative Party, led by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, deserved to win a 12 December election.

“We’re a mess,” Blair said at a Reuters Newsmaker event. “The buoyancy of the world economy has kept us going up to now, but should that falter, we will be in deep trouble.”

Blair, Labour prime minister from 1997 to 2007, has repeatedly called for Brexit to be reversed and used his speech to argue for a second referendum on the decision to leave, saying it would need to be followed by another general election.

Britain is holding an election three years ahead of schedule because parliament had become deadlocked over Brexit, unable to agree on the right way to leave the European Union and with some still arguing for the decision to be reversed. The 12 December vote offers a stark choice between a socialist-run state under Labour, which is offering a second referendum on leaving the EU, and the free-market Conservatives, who want to get Brexit done by the end of January.

Blair, who ran a centrist pro-business government, said that current party leader Jeremy Corbyn was promising a revolution.

“The problem with revolutions is never how they begin but how they end,” he said. “The truth is: the public aren’t convinced either main Party deserve to win this election outright.”