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Blair Hints a Comeback in British Politics | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair speaks as Reuters Editor-at-Large Sir Harold Evans (not pictured) moderates a Reuters Newsmaker conversation “Politics on the Edge,” in Manhattan, New York, U.S., September 20, 2016. REUTERS/Bria Webb


London- Britain’s late Labour Party leader and PM Harold Wilson once said that “a week is a long time in politics,” referring to the crazy world of politics, in which in a short period of time a limitless number of earth-shattering events can take place.

After resigning from his post as prime minister in 2007, Tony Blair has openly and surprisingly suggested that he could make a comeback to British politics as he spoke out in frustration at Labour’s drift away from the center ground.

The former prime minister told Esquire his future is an “open question” as he dismissed Jeremy Corbyn’s chances of ever making it to Downing Street.

“I don’t know if there’s a role for me,” he said. “There’s a limit to what I want to say about my own position at this moment. All I can say is that this is where politics is at. Do I feel strongly about it? Yes, I do. Am I very motivated by that? Yes. Where do I go from here? What exactly do I do? That’s an open question.

“There’s been a huge reaction against the politics I represent. But I think it’s too soon to say the centre has been defeated. Ultimately I don’t think it will. I think it will succeed again. The centre ground is in retreat. This is our challenge. We’ve got to rise to that challenge.”

In a candid interview Blair said the Tories were running a “one-party state” while Labour pursued a set of policies which took the party “back to the sixties”.

“Frankly, it’s a tragedy for British politics if the choice before the country is a Conservative government going for a hard Brexit and an ultra-left Labour party that believes in a set of policies that takes us back to the 1960s,” he said.

Now Blair has spoken wearily of Labour’s failure to provide a coherent opposition over the last few months.

It was the week the Conservative Party reeled violently to the right with a series of policy announcements on immigration seemingly designed to sow fear and unease among foreign workers.

But it was also a week where Corbyn’s Labour retreated further to the sideline following a re-shuffle which sought to underline the party’s leftist credentials.