TONY Blair has said Britain should consider a second referendum on Brexit as voters learn the “real life implications” of leaving EU.
In an article for the New European newspaper, the ex-Labour leader calls for the 48 per cent of Brits who voted to remain in the EU to mobilise. “We are the insurgents now,” he wrote.
“The issue is not whether we ignore the will of the people, but whether, as information becomes available, and facts take the place of claims, the will of the people shifts.
“Maybe it won’t, in which case people like me will have to accept it.
“But surely we are entitled to try to persuade, to make the argument, and not to be whipped into line to support a decision we genuinely believe is a catastrophe for the country we love.”
He later told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme why the UK should not rule out the possibility of another referendum on the EU. “If it becomes clear that this is either a deal that doesn’t make it worth our while leaving, or a deal that is so serious in its implications that people may decide they don’t want to go, there’s got to be some way, either through Parliament, through an election, possibly through a referendum, in which people express their view,” he said.
“There is no reason why we should close off any options. The country has taken a decision in a referendum, there is no way that decision can be reversed – unless it becomes clear, once people see the facts, they change their mind.”
He also used the interview to attack his successor Jeremy Corbyn saying Labour had moved left while the Tories had moved right, leaving millions “who feel politically homeless.”
He said it would be “a tragedy if we end up as a country with two competing visions of the 1960s”.
A No 10 spokesman said Blair was “entitled to put his views to whom he so chooses”, adding: “But what’s important is the PM has been absolutely clear – the British people have spoken, we are listening, we’re going to leave the European Union.
“And not only has the PM been clear here but she’s also been clear when she’s met European leaders. There will be no second referendum, Britain is leaving the European Union.”
Blair’s intervention received a lukewarm response from Remain campaigners, and a downright furious one from Brexiteers.
Ukip MP Douglas Carswell tweeted that Blair was “seeking to de-legitimise and reverse” the referendum result.
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