On the eve of the 1997 landslide that brought New Labour to power, this newspaper published a remarkably prescient editorial.
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newspaper → bring → editorial
It warned that Tony Blair’s ‘ruthless’ outlook, his headlong pursuit of devolution and European integration, ‘could destroy the United Kingdom’.
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outlook → warn → Kingdom
In sober but vivid language, the editorial concluded: ‘There is a terrible danger that the British people, drugged by the seductive mantra that “it’s time for a change”, are stumbling, eyes glazed, into an election that could undo 1,000 years of our nation’s history.’
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that → conclude → history
How accurate those words turned out to be.
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words → turn → ?
Perhaps the greatest fallacy in recent political history is the claim that Blair, that deeply strange individual, was some kind of ‘moderate’ who merely shifted his party back to the centre-ground after the Loony Left excesses of Labour town halls and the impotent socialist posturing of Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock.
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who → shift → Foot
A revolutionary to his core, he signalled his desire to break with the past by extolling a vision of Britain as ‘a young country’.
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he → signal → country
Britain, including its great constituent nations, is an ancient land with a formidable history.
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Britain → include → history
Yet Blair saw that – and wanted to shape it into something new.
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Blair → see → something
Despite the years passing, Tony Blair still likes to show his political muscle on the world stage
In this ambition, he has never stopped.
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he → pass → ambition
On the eve of Labour’s recent party conference in Liverpool, the ex-PM was busy publicly urging his latest successor Andy Burnham to overturn Brexit and put rejoining the EU at the heart of the party’s plans.
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PM → urge → plans
This, said the ex-PM, should be set out with clarity and pursued with resolution.
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PM → say → resolution
‘There is no point in inching towards Europe as we feel what British public opinion might accommodate,’ he declared in a report for his modestly named think-tank, the Tony Blair Institute For Global Change.
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he → be → Change
Sure enough, Burnham used the conference to reopen for the first time since 2016 the debate around overturning Brexit, refusing to rule out a commitment to rejoining in the next manifesto.
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Burnham → use → manifesto
It is almost two decades since Blair officially held office but the 73-year-old has lost none of his messianic self-belief, his fondness for power or his love of money.
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old → hold → money
As the Daily Mail’s Richard Eden reports today, Blair’s ‘institute’ turned over an astonishing £137million last year.
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institute → report → 137million
Needless to say, despite his near-incalculable riches, you and I are still paying for the security and perks afforded to him as to everyone else on the growing roster of ex-PMs.
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you → say → PMs
Nor has his europhilia slackened since his days in Downing Street, when he dreamt of a continental federal superstate and of dragging unwilling Britons into the single currency (only to be thwarted by his chancellor, Gordon Brown).
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he → slacken → chancellor
This mix of zeal and towering ambition not only made Blair a formidable politician: they made him a dangerous one.
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him → make → zeal
His globalist eagerness to end for good Britain’s ancient independence was matched by his mission to reshape the constitution of the United Kingdom, to create a new social order and transform the demographic fabric of our country.
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eagerness → end → country
His impatience for revolution shone through his 1999 speech to the Labour conference in Bournemouth, where he described his refashioned party as ‘the new progressive force in British politics which can modernise the nation and sweep away those forces of conservatism’.
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which → shine → conservatism
Just a year after he became Labour leader, he said: ‘I did not come into politics to change my party.
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I → become → party
I came into politics to change my country.’
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I → come → country
He certainly did that.
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He → do → that
During his ten years in office from 1997, Blair left a trail of destruction across the public realm.
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Blair → leave → realm
Thanks to his ill-conceived policy on devolution, nationalist movements have never been stronger in Wales and Scotland, and the bonds that hold together our kingdom have never been weaker.
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that → conceive → kingdom
Yet the advance of Plaid Cymru in Cardiff and the SNP’s stranglehold on power in Edinburgh has worsened the quality of governance in both nations.
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advance → worsen → nations
Over the last fortnight, for example, official reports have highlighted the disastrous impact of the SNP’s policies on education, a sector in which standards have plummeted, and illegal narcotics, where its soft-touch approach has turned Scotland into the drugs death capital of Europe.
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approach → highlight → Europe
In another flawed experiment, this ex-barrister overturned centuries of tradition by downgrading the role of Lord Chancellor, abolishing the Lords of Appeal, and establishing an American-style Supreme Court, which has turned out to be an engine of judicial activism, thereby undermining the democratic authority of Parliament.
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which → overturn → Parliament
Blair claimed that he was instituting a programme of constitutional reform but to his many critics he was engaged in constitutional vandalism.
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he → claim → vandalism
A further, even more damaging element of his plan was his decision to incorporate the European Convention on Human Rights into British law.
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element → incorporate → law
This was achieved via the 1998 Human Rights Act, which was hailed by supporters as a humanitarian triumph.
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which → achieve → triumph
In practice, it took a wrecking ball to the foundations of our legal system.
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it → take → system
The big winners were Left-wing human rights lawyers like his wife Cherie, as well as criminals, illegal migrants and social justice warriors, who found new protections and scope for litigation.
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who → find → litigation
The big loser was the British public, which saw morality turned on its head.
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morality → see → head
In the twisted world of the Human Rights Act, brave, professional soldiers found themselves in the dock for doing their duty for their country, while judges barred the deportation of foreign offenders.
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judges → find → offenders
The former prime minister's New Labour swept to power in the late 1990s bringing big changes
Blair has always displayed globalist eagerness to end Britain's ancient and loved independence
When the act was passed in 1998, then Home Secretary Jack Straw described the measure – proudly and without irony – as ‘the single most important change in the relationship between the citizen and the state this century’.
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Straw → sweep → citizen
But by 2024 Straw himself was complaining that it should be amended because it was being abused ‘in ways that were never, ever intended’.
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that → complain → ways
The scale of the havoc wreaked by Blair is astonishing.
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scale → wreak → Blair
He grievously undermined the integrity of our democratic process by the introduction of postal votes on demand, which led to widespread abuses and dangerously empowered self-appointed community leaders in our inner-cities.
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which → undermine → cities
He also removed most of the hereditary peers from the House of Lords but did nothing to enhance the democratic accountability of the second chamber, which is unelected to this day.
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which → remove → day
…and 35 more, not listed.
The Aporia
