Election: Blair’s Return Becomes Clear

Two weeks after promising to “get his hands dirty” by rejoining domestic public debate as a fierce opponent of Brexit, Tony Blair is finally starting to show what he has in mind.

When Blair said on May 1 that he would throw himself into Brexit and the general election he declared that he would be “getting out more and reconnecting with voters” even though he knew that meant “the moment I stick my head out the door, I’ll get a bucket of wotsit poured all over me.”

“I am going to be taking an active part in trying to shape the policy debate and that means getting out into the country and reconnecting … This Brexit thing has given me a direct motivation to get more involved in politics. You need to get your hands dirty, and I will.”

But Blair is dodging the wotsit. The most effective political communicator of the past generation has not been touring the TV studios and newsrooms, let alone campaigning on the doorstop alongside anti-Brexit MPs.

While the bedraggled and leaderless pro-EU camp desperately needs a champion with even half his persuasive skills Blair has accepted with some frustration that his conduct of the Iraq War has left him too tainted for that sort of role, even after a decade of political purdah.

Finding a Role

Instead the former PM’s most direct intervention came a fortnight later in the lofty and safe environment of a meeting room in Ireland full of centre-right political leaders from around Europe.

His chosen topic was the impact of Brexit on peace in Northern Ireland, the sort of comfortable “specialist subject” that Blair might choose if he was a contestant on Mastermind, given his role in overseeing the Good Friday Agreement.

Addressing a like-minded audience of political professionals, Blair said that allowing Brexit to force the return of a hard border between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland would a disaster and the answer was for Ireland and the UK to make their own deal to head that off.

“If the UK and the Republic were able to agree a way forward on the border, then we would have the best chance of limiting the damage. It is in the interests of us all, including our European partners, for this to happen,” he said.

“Some disruption is inevitable and indeed is already happening. However, it is essential that we do all we possibly can to preserve arrangements which have served both countries well and which command near universal support.”

“A Blair-Shaped Hole”

Blalr’s vow to throw himself into Brexit and the election campaign was a painful reminder to voters who were around during the late-1990s glory days of New Labour of just how much the pro-EU camp is handicapped by the atrocious communication skills and strategic nous of Jeremy Corbyn and the Lib Dems’ Tim Farron.

Corbyn’s fear of antagonising pro-Brexit Labour voters has compounded his usual inability to appeal to the centrist voters who determine all British elections. Blair highlighted the absence of any resistance to Theresa May’s “Brexit means Brexit” non-arguments by making the simple point that no sensible person would decide to move out of their home unless they had at least seen the new house they were buying. It was the sort of “common sense” analogy that might have had an impact during the Brexit referendum.

Research with focus groups carried out by HuffPost concluded that there is a “Tony Blair-shaped hole” in the UK’s political landscape. “There is no politician with his rhetorical skills or the ability he once had to connect with the common sense of the time,” pollster James Morris concluded.

But Blair’s chances of filling that hole himself through an active round of public campaign appearances may have been killed by the press and social media reaction to his promise to “get his hands dirty”, when one of the most common retorts was that his hands were already covered in blood.

“I am probably not the right person to be saying these things,” he acknowledged with obvious frustration in an interview with the New Yorker. “O.K., let someone else say them. But they’re not.”

Keeping a safe distance from the “wotsit” does not mean that Blair is going to disappear, as Corbyn may discover after the election. The expected trouncing for Labour on June 8 is likely to spark a renewed battle for control of the party, with rumours that moderate MPs will resign from the party enmasse or seek some new grouping with the Lib Dems, and there are already rumblings that Tony Blair and his well-funded private think-tank may play an important backroom role when the wotsit hits the fan.

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