Tony Blair warned today that the UK was headed for ‘lower league” status due to Boris Johnson’s incoherent strategy.
Former prime minister stated that Britain’s position on the international stage would continue to slide if there was not a radical change in its governance and politics.
Sir Tony said ‘maybe Boris Johnson goes and maybe he doesn’t’ over the Partygate scandal ‘but the real problem for Britain is the absence of a Government plan for Britain’s future’.
Sir Tony spoke out about three major strategic problems facing the country: the Brexit, technological advances, and climate change “three revolutions”. However, he stated that the Government was ill-prepared to tackle any of them.
These comments were made during Sir Tony’s first speech after a fierce backlash against his knighthood.
A petition was signed by more than 1 million people calling for the New Year honor to be “rescinded” due to the role of the ex-premier in the Iraq War.
An earlier YouGob poll found that 63% of Brits don’t approve of knighthood, while only 14% support it.
Tony Blair has warned that the UK will be relegated to the ‘lower League’ because Boris Johnson doesn’t have a clear strategy for the country’s long-term development.
Sir Tony said ‘maybe Boris Johnson goes and maybe he doesn’t’ over the Partygate scandal ‘but the real problem for Britain is the absence of a Government plan for Britain’s future’
Sir Tony delivered the speech this morning at an event hosted by the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London.
He stated that “we are experiencing three revolutions simultaneously” and were “ill-prepared for any one of them”.
He said: ‘There is a gaping hole in the governing of Britain where new ideas should be.’
Sir Tony acknowledged that Mr Johnson’s anger over Partygate was understandable, but said the real problem is PM Johnson’s failure to create a future plan.
‘I understand completely the rage against what happened in Downing Street during lockdown and how the country feels,’ he said.
‘And maybe Boris Johnson goes and maybe he doesn’t. But the real problem for Britain is the absence of a Government plan for Britain’s future.’
Sir Tony said turning the nation’s ‘fortunes around’ will require ‘hard’ choices because ‘old ways, old interests, old thinking, don’t go gently’.
‘But neither should a country, especially one with such a proud history as ours, slip gently into a lower league without a strenuous effort at least to prevent it,’ he said.
‘Yet without a radical change in the governing of the country and its politics this is where we are headed and this is the debate in my view that Britain needs.’
Sir Tony claimed that the Government fails to recognize challenges across many policy areas.
‘The point is we can’t go on as we are, even in an area as politically delicate as the NHS, and you could make this case across the whole of public policy,’ he said.
‘We need to apply technology to areas like crime and immigration where the only sensible way of preventing illegal immigration is a system of digital identity.
A YouGov poll from January showed that almost three quarters of Brits don’t approve of Sir Tony being awarded the honor.
‘We need to shift tax from labour and capital, especially post-Brexit, find other sources fo revenue so that our tax system is not colliding with our competitiveness.
‘And to rethink pensions of the next generation where apart from the burgeoning cost, the circumstances of retirement will be completely different in the next generation from today.
‘Fuel duty will probably have to be replaced by some form of road pricing and the point is this list is not exhaustive.
‘But not a single thing we need to do to turn our fortunes around will come without political pain and our politics show few if any signs of preparedness to tolerate that pain.’