FORMER prime minister Tony Blair said yesterday there was a 50-50 chance of another Brexit referendum as Theresa May appears unlikely to secure a parliamentary majority for a deal.
“Whatever Brexit is on offer today is going to result in significant economic harm,” Blair told Reuters.
“I think the odds are now 50% that you will get another referendum vote.
READ MORE: Tory ministers are ‘not listening to Scotland’ on Brexit
“I still believe it is possible that Brexit is stopped.There is no majority in parliament for any proposition that the Prime Minister brings back.”
Blair has been a constant opponent of Brexit and his think tank yesterday produced a report saying that the service sector – by some way the best-performing part of the UK economy – would be damaged and not easily repaired.
The Institute for Global Change report predicts that GDP would be down by 4.9% in 12 years’ time following Brexit.
Blair said: “Many people may think that though the short-term impact of Brexit will be severe, we will swiftly recover. This analysis demonstrates that this is not the case.
“The pain will go on for a long time and will only be reduced by radical measures of deregulation and cost saving to improve Britain’s competitive advantage with Europe, which run in precisely the opposite direction of the policies now advocated by both main political parties.”
A new vote, Blair said, could ask whether voters wanted to exit without a deal or stay in a reformed EU and offer new membership terms. He said EU leaders would be willing to reform the EU.
Blair added that if the UK exited the EU and the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn won power, the country would face a “truly damaging and challenging situation”.
He said: “This is the problem with the policies of both major parties: they seem to think you can do Brexit and then engage in a whole lot of social legislation to make capitalism fairer and more equal and so on.”
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