FLASH
Shkruar nga Chris Nineham
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is facing fresh criticism after the publication of an essay on Britain's political future, as his opponents accuse him of continuing to exert too much influence over British politics.
A new ghost is haunting British politics, and it's named Tony Blair. Speaking like a figure from the past, Blair appeared on the BBC on Wednesday to promote his 5,700-word essay on the leadership of the Labour Party and how Britain can emerge from its current crisis.
Driven by the enthusiasm of Nick Robinson, who has managed to turn the Today show into a platform for his political beliefs, Blair presented a program that would make even Donald Trump proud.
Forget politics and the traditional left-right divide. Let artificial intelligence develop without limits, cut disability benefits, overhaul the pension protection mechanism, curb minimum wage increases, abandon net zero targets, increase defense and security spending, and get closer to Donald Trump.
It is remarkable that this political relic continues to have a place in public life, let alone be invited into the BBC studios to air his views. Outside the Westminster bubble, Blair is widely regarded as a war criminal. Even the Chilcot report concluded that he misled the public into leading Britain into the disastrous Iraq War.
Between the Iraq disaster and the publication of the Chilcot report, Blair spent years as the West's envoy to the Middle East. During that time, he strengthened ties with Israel, pressured governments in the region to normalize relations with the Israeli state, and helped create the conditions that led to the violent developments of the past two and a half years.
A year after being heavily criticised by the Chilcot report, he founded the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, which later secured funding of around £250m from Oracle's Larry Ellison and other donors.
As it stated in the interview with Robinson, this semi-state organization now employs about 1,000 people in about 40 countries around the world. It promotes skepticism about climate policies and sells artificial intelligence and data management technologies to some of the world's most authoritarian regimes, from Saudi Arabia to Rwanda, on behalf of some of the richest people on the planet.
Blair himself justifies this approach with the argument that: "If we don't work with any country where there are human rights problems, the list of countries we can cooperate with will be very short."
A close friend of Jared Kushner, Donald Trump's brother-in-law, Blair is cited by the Financial Times as one of the architects of post-war plans to create a "Trump Riviera" in the Gaza Strip, including an "Elon Musk manufacturing zone." The project reportedly included payments for Palestinians to permanently leave Gaza.
This colonialist, business-centric centrism is not much different, in essence, from the right-wing populism that Blair claims to be challenging. It is no coincidence that he declared that he did not particularly care which party was in power, as long as it implemented his objectives.
Andy Burnham and others have described Blair's latest intervention as detached from reality and ineffective. At first glance, his figure seems like a ghost from another era.
Yet his influence remains staggering. Keir Starmer has often consulted with Blair as an unofficial advisor, and many of the policies he promotes continue to dominate British political debate. Behind the rhetoric, almost all the main parties support a similar growth-oriented economic model, with a reduction in the welfare state and policies close to the US and Israel.
Blair's obsession with security and rearmament is also reflected in most of the candidates for the Labour leadership, while few of them show a willingness to take on Donald Trump or Benjamin Netanyahu.
Tony Blair dragged Britain into a disastrous war, the consequences of which are still felt today. He transformed the Labour Party into a supporter of free-market globalization and military intervention.
If the British want to free themselves from the ghost of Tony Blair, they must clearly break away from the worldview he continues to represent. / Adapted from "Counterfire"
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