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Tony Blair’s Democratic Insurrection

The former UK leader’s recent call for voters to rethink leaving the EU is an Emperor’s New Clothes moment. Blair is now an unpopular figure, but his voice is loud enough to carry above the crowd of flatterers assuring Prime Minister Theresa May that her naked gamble with Britain’s future is clad in democratic finery.


LONDON – Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s recent call for voters to think again about leaving the European Union, echoed in parliamentary debates ahead of the government’s official launch of the process in March, is an Emperor’s New Clothes moment. Although Blair is now an unpopular figure, his voice, like that of the child in Hans Christian Andersen’s story, is loud enough to carry above the cabal of flatterers assuring Prime Minister Theresa May that her naked gamble with Britain’s future is clad in democratic finery.

The importance of Blair’s speech can be gauged by the hysterical over-reaction to his suggestion of reopening the Brexit debate, even from supposedly objective media: “It will be seen by some as a call to arms – Tony Blair’s Brexit insurrection,” according to the BBC.

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