London - Former British Prime Minister Tony
Blair on Thursday warned voters that time was running out to
reverse Brexit, a folly he said would torpedo Britain's
remaining clout and be regretted for generations to come.
More than a year and a half since the 2016 Brexit vote, the
United Kingdom remains deeply divided over the planned EU exit
that Prime Minister Theresa May says will take place on March
29, 2019.
Both opponents and supporters of Brexit agree that the
divorce is Britain's most significant geopolitical move since
World War Two, though they cast vastly different futures for the
$2.5 trillion UK economy and its relation with the world's
biggest trading bloc.
Blair, Labour prime minister from 1997 to 2007, said Britain
would be poorer, weaker and warned that May had solved none of
the problems over Northern Ireland's post-Brexit status.
"We are making an error the contemporary world cannot
understand and the generations of the future will not forgive,"
Blair said in an article published on his website on Thursday.
"2018 will be the last chance to secure a say on whether the
new relationship proposed with Europe is better than the
existing one," Blair, 64, said.
Leaving the European Union was once far-fetched: just over
15 years ago, British leaders such as Blair were arguing about
when to join the euro, and talk of an EU exit was the reserve of
sceptics on the fringes of both major parties.
But the turmoil of the euro zone crisis, fears in Britain
about immigration and a series of miscalculations by former
Prime Minister David Cameron prompted the United Kingdom to vote
52 to 48 percent for Brexit in a June 2016 referendum.
Blair has repeatedly called for reversing Brexit, echoing
other opponents of Brexit such as French President Emmanuel
Macron and billionaire investor George Soros, who have suggested
that Britain could still change its mind.
So far, opinion polls show little sign of a change of heart
and it is unclear how Brexit could be stopped if both major
political parties officially support the divorce.
Half of Britons support a second vote on whether to leave
the European Union and a majority think the government may be
paying too much money to the EU to open the way to trade talks,
according to an opinion poll published last month.
Supporters of Brexit dismissed Blair and said he was
undermining both the British negotiation and the will of the
people.
"Blair and his elitist gang are damaging our negotiating
strength, thus damaging our national interest by their
continuing efforts to undermine democracy," said Richard Tice,
who helped found one of the two Leave campaign groups.
"History will not forgive them," Tice told Reuters.
Blair is unpopular in Britain for his decision to back
then-U.S. President George W. Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq and
the justification he used for going into a war that cost the
deaths of 150,000 Iraqi civilians and 179 British soldiers.
But he has become increasingly outspoken about Brexit.
He implored his Labour Party, which is now led by socialist
Jeremy Corbyn, to join the fight to stop Brexit.
"Make Brexit the Tory Brexit. Make them own it 100 percent,"
Blair said. "If Labour continues to go along with Brexit and
insists on leaving the Single Market, the handmaiden of Brexit
will have been the timidity of Labour."