Britain in ‘a mess’

Former prime minister Tony Blair said yesterday that Britain was in a dangerous mess and that neither his own Labour Party nor Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservatives deserved to win a December 12 election.

Britain is holding an election three years ahead of schedule because parliament was deadlocked over Brexit, unable to agree on how or even whether to leave the European Union.

“We’re in 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, said both major parties were peddling fantasies, adding that if the opinion polls were accurate, Johnson’s party looked likely to win a majority.

Blair, the only Labour leader to win three elections, said his party was now controlled by its “Marxist-Leninist wing” and that its leader Jeremy Corbyn was promising a revolution.

“The problem with revolutions is never how they begin but how they end,” said Blair. “The problem with revolutions is that they always end badly.”

“The truth is: the public aren’t convinced either main party deserves to win this election outright.”

The December 12 vote presents 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, an opponent of Brexit, argued for a second referendum on the decision to leave, saying it would need to be followed by another general election.

Blair cast doubt on that timetable and said there was still a risk that Britain could exit the EU in a year’s time without having struck a deal with its biggest trading partner.