Claim: Blair and ‘Prince of Darkness’ Mandelson Advised Remain Alliance on Stopping Brexit

LONDON, ENGLAND - MARCH 01: Lord Mandelson delivers a keynote speech during an event hoste
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Victoria Friedman

Sources have claimed that Tony Blair and former Cabinet minister Peter Mandelson, dubbed the ‘Prince of Darkness’, have been the “puppet masters” behind parliamentary attempts to stop Brexit, including the recent bill blocking no deal.

A source told The Telegraph that Blair and Mandelson have been sending emissaries to Labour and the Liberal Democrats, saying: “Blair and Mandelson are pulling the strings. Mandelson is the puppet master, he has had meetings via proxy with all the parties involved in the Remain alliance and sends emails with ideas. Blair’s people have been speaking to Jo Swinson’s people.”

Current leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn has been challenging the Conservatives to a General Election for years — a reported 50 times this year alone — but came under criticism last week for being the first leader of the Opposition in parliamentary history to reject an election. Prime Minister Boris Johnson called for a snap election for mid-October in an effort to clear out the lower house of Remainers who were blocking Brexit which he had pledged to deliver by Halloween.

Before the vote, Mr Blair had publicly advised Labour against voting for an election, worrying it would result in a “comfortable Tory majority” because the public may “fear a Corbyn premiership more” than a no deal Brexit. It has since been claimed by the source that shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer and other New Labour Blairites have pressured Corbyn into rejecting an election until after Johnson had been forced to seek a Brexit delay.

One Remainer insider told the newspaper that Mandelson had sent representatives to the weekly meeting of the Remain Alliance, while another said Blair’s former special adviser Lance Price held meetings with staff working for the Liberal Democrat leader.

This week, both Labour and the Lib Dems upped their anti-Brexit game, with reports Labour is considering voting down the Queen’s Speech next month and toppling the Conservative government with a confidence vote, while the Liberal Democrats are rallying behind revoking Article 50, cancelling Brexit entirely.

Tony Blair, a progressive-globalist who headed Labour during its radical centrist era, is an avowed Europhile, who has said of Brexit that “up to the very end I am going to do everything I can to stop it” and has called for a second referendum so that the British people can “change their minds” and vote to stay in the European Union.

In 2017, Peter Mandelson, a former member of the Young Communist League, told hardline Remain campaigners to “Resist, Renew and Reorganise”, writing in the leftist New Statesman, which has its roots in the socialist Fabian Society, that “We have vocally to oppose what we don’t agree with… That is why pro-refugee, anti-Trump demos, the Gina Miller case, new newspapers or campaigns against hard Brexit are so important.”

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