3 years ago: Blair blames Labour for facilitating Brexit

DATELINE 18 FEBRUARY 2017: In a speech yesterday, former Labour Prime Minister, Tony Blair, said that a weakened Labour Party was acting as "the facilitator of Brexit".

Speaking in the City of London, Mr Blair said that the British people had made the referendum decision without knowing on what terms Britain would leave the European Union.

He said pro-Europeans needed to build a movement across party lines to challenge Brexit, in the absence of effective opposition in Westminster.

"The debilitation of the Labour Party is the facilitator of Brexit. I hate to say that, but it is true," said Mr Blair, who won three general elections for Labour.

But today, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn responded :

"We are going to be outside the European Union."

At the party's conference on local government at Warwick University, Mr Corbyn described Mr Blair’s intervention as “not helpful”.

Said Mr Corbyn:

“The referendum gave a result, gave a very clear decision on this, and we have to respect that decision, that's why we didn't block Article 50.”

He added:

“The referendum happened, let's respect the result. Democracy happened, respect the result.”

? MY COMMENTARY OF 18 FEBRUARY 2017:

Jeremy Corbyn has told Tony Blair to “respect the result” of the referendum. We’re leaving the EU, says Mr Corbyn, because that was the “very clear decision” of the referendum.

Well, it wasn’t a “very clear decision”.

It was a wafer-thin decision, following an appalling referendum campaign in which the Leave side had to lie and lie and lie to get the result (they only just) achieved.

In any event, losing a vote doesn’t mean giving up one’s beliefs. Losing a vote doesn’t mean you cannot campaign for a different result.

• If it did, it would mean women might never have got the vote – they would have had to respect the 1832 Great Reform Act that specified only men could vote. Did they respect that decision? Did they hell. They campaigned and campaigned to turn that Act on its (male chauvinist) head.
• If it did, it would mean that children might not be educated beyond the age of 10. Parliament voted for the Elementary Education Act 1880 that only provided compulsory education for children aged 5 to 10. Of course, it was down to passionate campaigners to push and push for children to have more years of education than that.
• If it did, it might mean that wearing a car seat belt wouldn’t become compulsory – resulting in around 2,000 deaths a year. From 1973 to the early 1980s, Parliament consistently failed to approve the compulsory wearing of seatbelts. Did that mean campaigners had to give up their beliefs in the necessity of seat belts? No. Because losing a vote doesn’t mean you give up your beliefs.

Jeremy Corbyn should know all about not respecting a vote. From 1983 onwards Mr Corbyn defied his party’s whip 617 times, making him one of the Labour party’s most rebellious MPs. That’s no doubt because Mr Corbyn stuck to his beliefs, despite a vote, and not because of it.

Very almost half of those who voted in the referendum didn’t want Brexit. There is evidence that most of the country now doesn’t want Brexit (almost half of the country couldn’t or didn’t vote).

There is evidence that a number of those who voted for Brexit are changing their minds – and that more may also change their minds when they know more precisely what Brexit really means…

Whatever democracy decides, democracy can undo, if that is ‘the will of the people’. Nothing, absolutely nothing, in a democracy is set in stone, or incapable of being legitimately and democratically reversed.

• Link to BBC news report of 18 February 2017
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