Blair Claims Resistance to Globalisation Risks Political ‘Return to 1930s’

Article 50 - A Year On - UK In A Changing Europe Conference
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Virginia Hale

Resistance to mass migration and to so-called free trade deals risks taking the world ‘back to the dynamic of the 1930s’, according to Tony Blair.

In a speech set to be delivered to globalist think tank Chatham House on Wednesday, the former Prime Minister will rail against populism and demand the UK government delay Brexit, claiming he has “never been more worried about the future” of the UK, The Guardian reports.

“Globalisation and its advocates are on the back foot,” he is due to say. “Populism of left and right meet at a certain point in denunciation of free trade arrangements, migration and international alliances. All are portrayed as contrary to putting individual national interest first.

“Once it is clear [that] populism isn’t working because, ultimately, it offers only expressions of anger and not effective answers, the populists may double down, alleging that failure is the result of half-heartedness and that only more of the same will work.

“Who knows where the dynamic of that scenario takes us. Then the comparisons with the 1930s no longer seem far-fetched,” Blair will say.

The staunch Remainer will also use his address to the globalist think tank to insist that Britain hold a second EU referendum, alleging voters “have the right to decide what version of Brexit they want or whether in the light of all they now know they prefer to remain.”

“We cannot go on like this,” Blair is expected to declare, in an expression of distress at the current state of Brexit negotiations. “I have never been more worried about the future of our country than now, with competing emotions of anxiety and rage.”

Speaking in Brussels on Tuesday, Labour’s shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer claimed there was a “real danger” that “deadlock” in talks between Brussels and Westminster risks fueling “right-wing and authoritarian” forces he said were driven by “public anxiety and alienation”.

“Progressives and socialists across Europe should all be concerned about this,” said the Labour MP, blasting the UK government for its focus on negotiating EU withdrawal rather than “tackl[ing] the root causes of the referendum result”, which he claimed were based on “deep inequalities within our country”.

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