Tony Blair launches most critical attack yet on Jeremy Corbyn over Brexit

Tony Blair has launched his most critical attack yet on Jeremy Corbyn’s Brexit policy, claiming it meant the party was “doomed to fail” in last week’s local elections.

The former prime minister and leading campaigner for a second referendum says Labour’s “destructive indecision” of trying to face both ways “pleased no one” and let down the country.

Writing in The Observer ahead of an interview on Sophy Ridge On Sunday on Sky News, Mr Blair says that “despite everything” he will vote Labour in the European elections on 23 May.

But he urges Labour supporters put off by the party’s “equivocation” to vote for one of the “unequivocal Remain parties” – the Lib Dems, Change UK, Greens, Scottish National Party or Plaid Cymru.

Mr Blair’s latest anti-Brexit onslaught comes only days after he was attacked and mocked by Tory Brexiteers for claiming a second referendum would be a “healing process” for the nation.

It also coincides with a new opinion poll suggesting the Conservatives face a near wipe-out in the European elections and Labour is trailing badly behind Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party.

The poll, by Opinium Research, suggests the Brexit Party is way out in front on 34% (+6), Labour on 21% (-7), the pro-Remain Lib Dems 12% (+5), Conservatives 11% (-3), Greens 8% (+2), UKIP 4% (+1) and Change UK 3% (-4).

In his Observer article, the former PM writes: “Labour should never have put itself in such a position of destructive indecision.

“The local elections were terrible for the Conservatives; but, on any rational analysis, devastating for Labour.

“This is a government not in a state of disarray but of profound dysfunction. No one of any age or any political experience can remember anything like it.

“Meanwhile, we are almost 10 years into austerity with the public realm – Labour’s political sweet spot – in disrepair.

“Yet Labour cannot even win the local elections for heaven’s sake.”

Mr Blair says that despite the best efforts of the shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leadership’s “ambiguity on Brexit has brought it confusion, not shelter from principled decision on the most vital question of national interest”.

He adds: “But leave aside principle. Even as a piece of political strategy, it was doomed to fail.”

He continues: “Any strategy which tries to face both ways just ends up looking indecisive or unprincipled or both.

“What Labour should have done – from the beginning – is to argue that we accept the referendum result; but that once any negotiation concludes, we should be entitled to compare the future European relationship with what we have now; and if that negotiated outcome is unsatisfactory, reserve the right to give the people the final say.

“We could have explained the central dilemma between hard Brexit and soft, and critiqued the shambles of the negotiation’s failure to resolve it.

“We could have mounted a proper attack on the nonsensical Brexit negotiating strategy of ‘cake and eat it’ instead of having our own version of the same strategy.

“We could have dismantled the Tories over the distractive effect of Brexit, an argument which would have grown in power over time as the political energy of the entire government got subsumed by Brexit.

“We could have made the correct case as to why Brexit is not the answer to anything – the degradation of the NHS, failures in the schools, rising crime and social disintegration, the inequalities in our society or indeed the climate challenge.

“We could have given leadership to the Labour Brexit vote; instead of which we tried to follow it whilst simultaneously trying to appeal to the anti-Brexit Labour vote.

“Result? We pleased no one; and most of all let down the country.”

Mr Blair adds: “The European elections should have been the occasion for a large unified anti-Brexit vote.

“Instead, many Labour supporters are genuinely conflicted about voting Labour.”

(c) Sky News 2019: Tony Blair launches most critical attack yet on Jeremy Corbyn over Brexit