Results 1 to 23 of 23
  1. #1
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    Chiang Mai
    Posts
    48,094

    Former British Leader Blair Hints at Comeback as Brexit Roils Elections

    LONDON —
    Britain’s Brexit referendum last year was meant to have ended debate about the perennial big question of the country’s relationship with Europe. But as British politicians started this week to campaign in earnest for next month’s parliamentary elections, EU membership remains a dominating issue and is adding to a shake-up of the country’s traditional party politics.

    In dramatic fashion, the pro-EU former Labor Prime Minister Tony Blair has re-entered the political arena, saying it would be understandable for the party faithful to consider tactical voting in the June general election in a bid to block hard-right Conservatives who want a sharp break from Europe from being elected.

    While Blair, the longest-serving Labor Prime Minister in British history, avoided endorsing tactical voting openly, he argued Monday it is “not the time to fight a conventional partisan election.” Blair hinted he was considering making a parliamentary comeback and standing himself.

    Voters, he says, should consider candidates' positions on Brexit, and cast their votes accordingly, backing any candidate regardless of party affiliation on that basis alone. He wants to tie Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May’s hands when she comes to negotiate an exit deal with the European bloc.

    May announced last week a snap poll, flying in the face of previous promises not to call an early election.


    Conservatives June 8 favorites

    With Labor ranks in disarray over the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, a hard-left figure who has seen several rebellions against him by moderate Labor lawmakers, the Conservatives are odds-on favorites to win the June 8 election and to increase substantially their 17-seat majority in the House of Commons.

    Some pollsters predict Labor could see their lowest tally since 1935 when the party secured just 154 seats in a 600-plus seat legislature, after an internecine war broke out in the party during the Great Depression.


    May's strategy

    Meanwhile, with an eye to the success on Sunday in the first round of the French presidential elections of non-traditional contenders centrist Emmanuel Macron and far-right leader Marine Le Pen, the Conservative May appears to be trying to shape a manifesto that will appeal to nationalists on the right of the political spectrum while not neglecting the middle ground of British politics.

    Her policy chief, George Freeman, has spoken of an “insurgency against unaccountable elites,” sweeping across Western democracies. He has argued disdain for the establishment was behind last year’s Brexit vote and the election in the U.S. of Donald Trump.

    The party’s manifesto is likely to see the Conservatives, traditionally pro-business, re-define what they think the relationship should be between big business and the state, and to present May as an anti-establishment candidate.

    According to Rachel Sylvester, a columnist in The Times, the re-definition will build on May’s past calls for companies to show a greater sense of social duty and to act in the national interest.


    Blair vs. Tories

    Blair’s call Monday in Britain’s Guardian newspaper, and May’s moves to redefine how Conservatives view business, are reflections of the breakdown in traditional party politics sweeping Britain and the country's European neighbors.

    Blair argues the Conservatives are presenting the upcoming election as about “strengthening the prime minister’s hand in the Brexit negotiation” with the Europeans.

    He says they are trying to suggest a vote for the Conservatives is the same thing as a vote in the national interest. “We have to expose the fact that the mandate the Tories are asking for is not for an open negotiation in the interests of the country but for a ‘Brexit at any cost’ driven by the ideology of the right of the Tory party,” he argued.

    Blair’s intervention has outraged hard-left Labor lawmakers, who compared it to the break with Labor by Ramsay MacDonald, a founding member of the party who formed a national government with the Conservatives in the 1930s. Mark Seddon, a Labor stalwart labeled it “one of the biggest acts of political treachery in recent memory,” arguing, the former Labor prime minister was “potentially condemning members of his own party to defeat at the General Election.”


    Pro-Brexit politicians targeted

    Blair is not alone in arguing Brexit should be the defining issue for voters in June. The pressure group Open Britain, whose half-million members cross party lines, has drawn up a hit-list of 20 prominent Brexit-supporting lawmakers who represent constituencies that voted to remain in the European Union in last June’s referendum. Most of the lawmakers are Conservatives, but the list includes some Labor MPs.

    With the ultimate aim of limiting the number of proponents of a so-called hard Brexit in parliament, the group, along with two other pro-EU grassroots organizations, has also drawn up a list of 20 Labor, Liberal Democrat and Conservative lawmakers who have been strong advocates of a close relationship with the European economic bloc and says it will do its best to get them re-elected.

    Former British Leader Blair Hints at Comeback as Brexit Roils Elections

  2. #2
    last farang standing
    Hugh Cow's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2015
    Last Online
    15-03-2024 @ 01:44 PM
    Location
    Qld/Bangkok
    Posts
    4,110
    Blair's return would be the biggest come back since Lazarus. I would think that the Iraqi WMD disaster would negate any possibility of a return. But then nobody predicted Brexit.

  3. #3
    Molecular Mixup
    blue's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Last Online
    09-06-2019 @ 01:29 AM
    Location
    54°N
    Posts
    11,334
    I've never heard anyone from any party say if only Tony B lair would make a come back....

    He open Britain's doors to mass immigration to '' rub the noses of British people in Diversity'
    Letting in the worst people from the worst countries.
    To the point where when the Polish etc started arriving we were already overcrowded and sick of any immigrants.

    He started all the pointless illegal wars that led to Muslims flooding into western Europe- Kosovo -Iraq and Afghanistan that also led to the deaths of many British service people.

    In Europe he gave away our rebate that thatcher won back.
    He let East European work in in when all the other big countries like France and Germany delayed them for 4 years.
    He did nothing about those Asian sex grooming gangs , when the BNP exposed them.
    He let his chancellor sell half our gold super cheap.
    Started the housing bubble,
    Made millions of government non jobs to get votes to win elections.


    heres the fucker with Gadaffi


    even Gaddafi hated him
    look how he is pointing the sole of his shoe to Blair

  4. #4
    Thailand Expat

    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Last Online
    14-05-2017 @ 03:18 AM
    Posts
    1,031
    Quote Originally Posted by Hugh Cow View Post
    Blair's return would be the biggest come back since Lazarus. I would think that the Iraqi WMD disaster would negate any possibility of a return. But then nobody predicted Brexit.
    I hear you but voters have short memories...

  5. #5
    Thailand Expat VocalNeal's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Last Online
    Today @ 06:47 PM
    Location
    The Kingdom of Lanna
    Posts
    12,992
    Isn't he more reviled than Thatcher?

  6. #6
    Hangin' Around cyrille's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    Home
    Posts
    33,534
    Quote Originally Posted by VocalNeal View Post
    Isn't he more reviled than Thatcher?
    No. She's one of few people ranking above him for left leaning voters in the UK though.

    He has no platform for a 'comeback' as such though, so that aspect of the 'story' is nonsensical seppo cluelessness.

  7. #7
    Member

    Join Date
    Oct 2011
    Last Online
    04-04-2018 @ 09:53 AM
    Posts
    655
    Thatcher was one of the best UK leaders ever

  8. #8
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    Chiang Mai
    Posts
    48,094
    Blair hints at return to politics VIDEO

    In an interview with Mark Mardell, Tony Blair said he felt so passionate about Brexit that he is almost tempted to return to British politics.

    The former prime minister said: "I look at the British political scene at the moment and I actually almost feel motivated to go back into it. We're just allowing ourselves to be hijacked by what is actually quite a small group of people with a strong ideology."

    VIDEO BBC Radio 4 - The World This Weekend, Blair hints at return to politics

  9. #9
    Thailand Expat VocalNeal's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Last Online
    Today @ 06:47 PM
    Location
    The Kingdom of Lanna
    Posts
    12,992
    Quote Originally Posted by cyrille
    'story' is nonsensical seppo cluelessness.
    Sorry VOA was not quoted in the text. My mistake.

  10. #10
    god
    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    Bangladesh
    Posts
    28,210
    Blair's a bitter loser trying to salvage his wrecked reputation as a leader.

  11. #11
    Thailand Expat
    wasabi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2012
    Last Online
    28-10-2019 @ 03:54 AM
    Location
    England
    Posts
    10,940
    Blair still thinks that he can do better than Corbyn.
    Still I don't think much of the voters knowledge of the election when an old woman said to Me at work " Blairs going to stand as a conservative candidate"

  12. #12
    Excommunicated baldrick's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2006
    Last Online
    Today @ 07:14 PM
    Posts
    24,760
    I wonder if it rankles that the rest of the world now consider the french smarter than the poms

  13. #13
    Thailand Expat
    Join Date
    Oct 2015
    Last Online
    16-07-2021 @ 10:31 PM
    Posts
    14,636
    actually Blair coming back wouldn't be a bad idea, if the UK wants to save itself from disaster

    but it's more fun to watch the UK self destructs so let's hope he doesn't return

  14. #14
    Member

    Join Date
    Jan 2017
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    520
    A war criminal corporate sell out.

    Just what we need

  15. #15
    Hangin' Around cyrille's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    Home
    Posts
    33,534
    Quote Originally Posted by baldrick View Post
    I wonder if it rankles that the rest of the world now consider the french smarter than the poms
    In the view of...an Australian.



  16. #16
    Thailand Expat
    Klondyke's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2014
    Last Online
    26-09-2021 @ 10:28 PM
    Posts
    10,105
    Quote Originally Posted by Dragonfly
    actually Blair coming back wouldn't be a bad idea,
    He knows quite well how to help starting a new war...

  17. #17
    god
    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    Bangladesh
    Posts
    28,210
    General election 2017: Labour leader a 'mugwump', says Johnson

    Boris Johnson has used his first intervention in the election campaign to mount the Conservatives' most personal attack yet on Jeremy Corbyn.
    Writing in The Sun, the foreign secretary accused the Labour leader of being a threat to the UK and described him as a "mutton-headed, old mugwump".
    He cited Mr Corbyn's previous comments on nuclear weapons and Nato.

    Labour said it was the sort of "look at me name-calling you would expect in an Eton playground".
    On a visit to Harlow in Essex, Mr Corbyn said: "We're eight days into the election campaign and the Tories have reduced to personal name calling. I've never been involved in that and never will be."

    The Oxford English Dictionary defines a mugwump as someone who remains aloof or independent, especially politically.

    In a deeply personal attack on Mr Corbyn, Mr Johnson said people did not realise the "threat" posed by the Labour leader.
    "They say to themselves 'He may be a mutton-headed old mugwump, but he is probably harmless'," he writes.

    Labour's John Healey tells Today using "mugwump" to describe Jeremy Corbyn demeans the position of Foreign Secretary

    Mr Johnson suggested that with Mr Corbyn as prime minister, Britain would be ill-equipped to deal with an assertive Russia, North Korea's "semi-deranged regime" and so-called Islamic State, which he described as an "evil Islamist death cult".
    "He seems to have no grasp of the need for this country to be strong in the world," he said.

    General election 2017: Labour leader a 'mugwump', says Johnson - BBC News

    Calling a spade a spade...
    “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’? John 10:34.

  18. #18
    RIP
    Join Date
    Nov 2013
    Last Online
    @
    Posts
    16,939
    Quote Originally Posted by Klondyke View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Dragonfly
    actually Blair coming back wouldn't be a bad idea,
    He knows quite well how to help starting a new war...
    He could pal up with Trump and send over more troops to be massacred looking for WMD'so in North Korea.

    Blair has done more damage than Thatcher ever did at home and around the world.
    He seriously needs to fook off with his millions and keep quiet.

  19. #19
    Thailand Expat

    Join Date
    Dec 2016
    Last Online
    06-11-2022 @ 08:40 AM
    Posts
    1,694
    Blair is another deluded fool who said more than once that Islam is a religion of peace, he is a liar, traitor and war criminal. Promised a crackdown of hate preachers and Mosques after the London bombings, then did fvck all about it.

  20. #20
    Thailand Expat
    wasabi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2012
    Last Online
    28-10-2019 @ 03:54 AM
    Location
    England
    Posts
    10,940
    Blair is an opportunist and he is actually the one who has been responsible for creating the disillusionment of hard core labour voters of today.
    Blair has helped destroy the Labour Party more than anybody else.
    Corbyn is the poor man trying to pick up the pieces.

  21. #21
    Thailand Expat
    Join Date
    Oct 2015
    Last Online
    16-07-2021 @ 10:31 PM
    Posts
    14,636
    Labor should re-invent themselves as the European Party

    this left and right thing doesn't mean anything these days, a 200 year old concept being tested in a truly modern world

  22. #22
    god
    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    Bangladesh
    Posts
    28,210
    A good take on it.

  23. #23
    god
    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Last Online
    @
    Location
    Bangladesh
    Posts
    28,210
    Quote Originally Posted by wasabi View Post
    Blair is an opportunist and he is actually the one who has been responsible for creating the disillusionment of hard core labour voters of today.
    Blair has helped destroy the Labour Party more than anybody else.
    Corbyn is the poor man trying to pick up the pieces.
    Agreed.

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •