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Tony Blair's prescient warning about Brexit
by Guest Fri Jun 24, 2016 11:25 am
Tony Blair has lambasted David Cameron's plan to hold an in-out referendum on Britain's membership of the EU, warning metaphorically that the prime minister could end up blowing out his brains by threatening to leave.
The former PM said he was worried by Cameron's strategy which could lead to the "disaster" of a British exit from the EU.
Blair told BBC Radio 4's The World at One: "It reminds me a bit of the Mel Brooks comedy Blazing Saddles where the sheriff says at one point as he holds a gun to his own head: 'If you don't do what I want I'll blow my brains out.' You want to watch out that one of the 26 [other EU member states] doesn't just say: 'OK, go ahead.'"
Blair praised Ed Miliband, who rejected an in-out referendum at prime minister's questions on Wednesday. Blair said: "He is absolutely right to say: 'At this moment in time what is the point of putting on the agenda the prospect of Britain leaving the EU?' Why would you want to say here is the prospect of Britain leaving the EU when surely the sensible thing is to band together with allies in order to argue the case for change.
"You are creating a situation of huge uncertainty. Why would you do that? There is no necessity to do it. We don't yet know exactly what we are going to ask Europe to do. We don't know what we can get out of it. We don't know what the rest of Europe is going to do. The risk of this is that the 10% of the speech that is really about the Conservative party and Ukip, namely putting the out question on the referendum, that is the thing that worries people because it gives the prospect of Britain actually exiting the EU, which would of course be a disaster for the country."
Blair, who offered a referendum in 2004 on the EU constitution before it was killed off by voters in France and the Netherlands, said it was right to call for change. But he added: "Don't argue it and then say: 'If we don't get our way we are going to leave the EU altogether.'
"To do that at this moment is a worry to any of us who have been through the European mill because right now these other European countries are in a very, very difficult state themselves."
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/jan/23/tony-blair-cameron-eu-gun
The former PM said he was worried by Cameron's strategy which could lead to the "disaster" of a British exit from the EU.
Blair told BBC Radio 4's The World at One: "It reminds me a bit of the Mel Brooks comedy Blazing Saddles where the sheriff says at one point as he holds a gun to his own head: 'If you don't do what I want I'll blow my brains out.' You want to watch out that one of the 26 [other EU member states] doesn't just say: 'OK, go ahead.'"
Blair praised Ed Miliband, who rejected an in-out referendum at prime minister's questions on Wednesday. Blair said: "He is absolutely right to say: 'At this moment in time what is the point of putting on the agenda the prospect of Britain leaving the EU?' Why would you want to say here is the prospect of Britain leaving the EU when surely the sensible thing is to band together with allies in order to argue the case for change.
"You are creating a situation of huge uncertainty. Why would you do that? There is no necessity to do it. We don't yet know exactly what we are going to ask Europe to do. We don't know what we can get out of it. We don't know what the rest of Europe is going to do. The risk of this is that the 10% of the speech that is really about the Conservative party and Ukip, namely putting the out question on the referendum, that is the thing that worries people because it gives the prospect of Britain actually exiting the EU, which would of course be a disaster for the country."
Blair, who offered a referendum in 2004 on the EU constitution before it was killed off by voters in France and the Netherlands, said it was right to call for change. But he added: "Don't argue it and then say: 'If we don't get our way we are going to leave the EU altogether.'
"To do that at this moment is a worry to any of us who have been through the European mill because right now these other European countries are in a very, very difficult state themselves."
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/jan/23/tony-blair-cameron-eu-gun
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