Tony Blair is living in an alternate universe
On Brexit, the former PM is behaving as if the past 20 years never happened
Published
Just as the Conservative obsession with the EU consumed and almost destroyed the party in the latter years of its time in government leading up to 1997, Labour seems doomed to dance pointlessly around the issue for the next few years.
Tony Blair is the culprit this time, having penned an introduction to a report by his own think tank urging Andy Burnham to make rejoining the EU a “cornerstone” of the Prime Minister’s anticipated 10-year plan for government. And he, Blair, has urged Burnham to abandon Brexit “red lines” such as freedom of movement and membership of the single market and the customs union.
It all sounds so simple and straightforward, as if Blair now lives in a comfortable parallel universe where the Brexit Wars never happened and Britain – its communities, workplaces, families and friendship groups – were not torn apart by a toxic debate that smeared half of the population as racist bigots.
It says much about our political establishment that such details don’t offer even a millisecond’s pause for thought. The intensity of the 2016 debate and its appalling, divisive aftermath – made far worse by the obstinate and anti-democratic efforts of pro-Remain MPs and their allies to reverse the result of the referendum – has been memory-holed by Blair, like a popular sketch show might be marked “no longer relevant” by po-faced BBC bosses.
Before the referendum, the EU elites and their allies had a plan for Britain’s continued engagement with the bloc, which included a reliance by the EU27 on Britain’s generous annual contributions to the corporate budget. That that plan has barely changed despite our leaving says much about the arrogance of those elites. Yes, the plebs and bigots voted the wrong way a decade ago, but we can’t allow those kinds of people to divert us from our course.
The sting in the tale is Blair’s advice that Britain should only be willing to rejoin a reformed and reforming EU. Such a mythical beast has long been talked about but never actually sighted, let alone proved to exist. The UK should strengthen its economy to adopt a stronger negotiating position to show it “is prepared to remain independent” if the EU will not reform, said Blair. The report said the EU should seek reforms that would make it more competitive and increase “deregulation and economic insecurity”.
How short our political masters’ memories are. Does our beloved former prime minister not recall his successor, David Cameron, travelling to Brussels, having announced a date for his In/Out referendum, to seek a degree of flexibility from his fellow European leaders on the subject of reform? Does he recall the humiliation that awaited Cameron as every single one of our “allies”, knowing full well that the success of the Remain campaign depended on their co-operation, replied with a unanimous “non”?
Cameron returned to the Commons, tail between his legs, having achieved barely noticeable reforms that were about as significant as a slightly bolder font on European Parliament headed notepaper. But that was as far as the EU could go, so restricted was it politically and culturally. And that has not changed. Blair’s vision of an EU where, in the event of a lack of unanimity on a topic, member states could nevertheless co-operate, is for the birds. It is a chimera, a fantasy designed to tempt voters to embrace a particular path that cannot and would not deliver what is promised.
Europe, after all, has changed significantly since Britain left the EU. Not only do we see an increasing level of popular discontent with EU institutions, but also a rising opposition to immigration and multiculturalism, with Right-wing populists rising in Italy, Germany and, next year, perhaps, even capturing the presidency in France.
And the EU itself has changed. Earlier this year the European Parliament became the latest institution to be captured by the trans lobby, declaring that “trans women are women” as a bold statement of anti-scientific policy. Make no mistake: any EU member state that seeks to advance the cause of women’s sex-based rights in terms of women-only spaces like toilets, changing rooms and prisons, will face strong, probably irresistible legal opposition from the EU.
This is the EU that Blair and Burnham want Britain to rejoin. Yes, freedom of movement was unpopular among working people, especially British tradesmen and women who were forced to compete with rivals from across Europe, rivals who had the same legal rights to work and live here as anyone in Britain had.
And yes, British school-leavers were forced to compete on a level playing field with EU applicants for British universities. And the ending of freedom of movement forced employers and training organisation to face up, finally, to their responsibility to train young people in trades that people actually need.
But get your priorities right. The cost of cleaners and au pairs in north London was so much cheaper.
The vocabulary may be less bombastic and aggressive, but there is little separating the rejoiners’ rhetoric from the SNP’s constant, tiresome demands for a second independence referendum. At what point did our political classes decide that the electorate’s final say was merely another obstacle they needed to find a clever way around?
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I bet Kemi Badenoch would win a snap general election
The Conservative comeback is the most extraordinary phenomenon that British politics has seen for many years
Published
The Conservative comeback is gathering pace. And Kemi Badenoch has a real chance of becoming our next Prime Minister.
The latest YouGov poll of 14,000 voters shows that Mrs Badenoch has pulled off what many believed was impossible. The Conservatives are on course to gain more seats than Reform, depriving Labour of an overall majority.
A year ago, a similar MRP poll predicted that the Tories would be wiped out and replaced by Nigel Farage’s party, which would sweep to victory over the lacklustre Starmer government.
That is all over now. Not only is Mrs B on course to gain 130 seats compared to Reform’s 123, but both the leading Tory defectors, Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman, would lose their seats to the resurgent Conservatives.
For months, pundits have tried to belittle Kemi’s growing popularity, insisting that it would never translate into support for her party. The received wisdom has been that the Tories would never be forgiven by voters.
Now that orthodoxy has been smashed. This poll is hard evidence that the Conservative leader has not only dominated Westminster but is connecting with the electorate, too – especially women.
Another poll this week for More in Common found that, while Labour still leads among male voters, perhaps reflecting Andy Burnham’s blokeish appeal, the Conservatives are now the most popular party among women.
This is crucial, both because female voters have tended to lean Left and are more likely to switch support between parties than men. This shift implies that Mrs B is cutting through with attractive new policies on domestic issues. She needs to broaden her appeal by dissecting Labour’s EU “reset”, which will raise food prices, hurt farmers and undermine animal welfare.
Most importantly, the message that the Conservatives are “under new management” has been received loud and clear by voters. Strong, charismatic leadership is the most important single factor in changing perceptions of parties – and Kemi has delivered that leadership with gusto.
By successfully taking on first Sir Keir Starmer and now Mr Burnham in Prime Minister’s Questions, she has demonstrated a mastery of policy detail as well as repartee, enabling her to take command of the Commons. These are vital qualifications for the top job.
Along with a killer instinct, Mrs Badenoch’s sense of humour has not gone unnoticed. Clips of her performances at the despatch box regularly go viral and she has already proved that her strategy and tactics won’t be blunted by Labour’s change of leadership.
What about Reform? Their decline in the YouGov poll reflects the fact that the party has not stood up well under scrutiny. And voters have noticed. It is simply untrue that, as Mr Farage claims, “nobody cares”.
While he never misses an opportunity to snipe at Mrs Badenoch, she usually refuses to reciprocate. Instead, she wisely leaves it to the press to investigate Reform’s dodgy finances and even dodgier associates, ranging from convicted fraudsters to Russian agents.
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“Kemistry”, her unique political style, is all about practical policies: lifting the burdens of taxation and red tape from ordinary citizens, unleashing the animal spirits of businesses large and small, while policing our borders properly and taking seriously the defence of the realm.
Kemi’s Conservative comeback is the most extraordinary phenomenon that British politics has seen for many years. Andy Burnham would be wise to abandon any notion of going to the country early. Under the pressures of a general election campaign, Mrs B would emerge as the only leader with a coherent, popular and genuinely patriotic platform.
David Olusoga’s new slave trade documentary is unforgivably dull
With little new information and an uninspiring format, this two-part history does a disservice to its subject matter
2/5
Published
You’ll never guess what David Olusoga’s new series is about. It’s Britain’s slave trade. This is, I think we can agree, familiar ground for the BBC historian, yet here we are. This two-part documentary examines the newly created Register of British Slave-Traders, which lists the names of all known investors in the trafficking of enslaved African people. Olusoga, alongside the team of historians who worked on the register, takes us through the history of slave-trading in this country. But is there anyone left who doesn’t know about this part of our history by now?
Getting viewers interested in history documentaries is tough enough. You need to offer them something new. Olusoga tells us here that Bristol, London and Liverpool grew rich on the profits from slavery. Grand houses were built from those profits; benefactors who funded theatre and civic buildings had derived their fortunes from slave ships. Did you miss the hoo-ha when Edward Colston’s statue was toppled and pushed into Bristol Harbour? Then I suppose the contents of this series might be brand new information for you. Otherwise, you know it.
I’ll give you the potted history, as laid out here. The slave trade began as the preserve of the Spanish and Portuguese. (Do those countries do a similar amount of soul-searching about their colonial past?) The English were late-comers, but early Tudor expeditions began to muscle in on the trade. They first captured hundreds of Africans by raiding Portuguese encampments, then carried out their own raids on African villages. Elizabeth I was the first monarch to profit handsomely from such an expedition.
Even back then, some were morally opposed to the idea of trading in human beings. One explorer, Richard Jobson, travelled to the Gambia River in West Africa in 1620 and wrote an account of it. A local African slave trader brought him women to buy. “I made answer, we were a people who did not deal in any such commodities,” Jobson said. But, by the 1640s, the English were transporting slaves to work the sugar cane fields in the Caribbean.
There is a detail in the second episode to bring you up short. A ledger from the South Sea Company includes a logo to be branded on to the skin of men, women and children. There are instructions on how to press the red-hot branding tool into the skin of the slaves’ left shoulder. This was discussed at a meeting, the names of attendees there to see: they include MPs, directors and governors of the Bank of England. These investors knew the barbarities of the slave trade, but cared only for the profits.
Generally, though, the format of the programme does a disservice to the subject matter by being unforgivably dull – just Olusoga and a table of academics, or going through documents, or standing on a beach in West Africa. Occasionally the discussions will throw up something thorny. One of the investors, a woman, is mixed-race with mixed-race children. How to square this? Olusoga isn’t sure. A female historian says that women used the slave trade to gain access to institutions that would otherwise exclude them, such as Oxford and Cambridge colleges, but that’s hardly an excuse.
What to do with this information? That’s a question Olusoga asks. “It’s important to recognise we are not responsible for this trade, but this is our shared past and we are its beneficiaries,” one of the historians answers. But we knew that already.
Both episodes are on BBC iPlayer
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