Tony Blair is to announce his "mission" to persuade Britons' to "rise up" and change their minds on Brexit.
The former prime minister will say in a speech later that people voted in the referendum "without knowledge of the true terms of Brexit".

He will say he wants to "build support for finding a way out from the present rush over the cliff's edge".

But former Cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith said Mr Blair's comments were arrogant and utterly undemocratic.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38996179

Democracy is on the line .... should the unthinking be allowed to destroy the economy?

Maybe time to re-think one-man-one-vote and go back to the time when only those who had a vested interest in society had any say (a time which also saw Britain rule the world!)?

Yes we agree on this ITK; democracy doesn't work when you allow uneducated and ill informed morons to choose direction, complex economic answers, who should govern us (pretty, young, good teeth, nice hair)...

During the "shall we bring back hanging" debate it was always accepted that MPs should vote on conscience - and that the subject was too complex for the ordinary voter to be listened too (even though all polls showed a huge public majority in favour of hanging).

I hope that this country has learnt its lesson on believing anything the Tony Blair says.

Perhaps these "convincing" arguments should have come out before the referendum instead of the scare mongering predictions that have so far failed to materialize.

Blair makes great sense and is quite right to say this. And I reckon the majority in the UK agree with him.

Most people knew what they were voting for, and why.
We don't need some washed up would-be-dictator to tell us otherwise.

It's an insult to suggest people are 'informed morons' just because they don't agree with you.

Uninformed morons - and many are, not because they don't agree (many Remainers are equally uninformed morons). This is far too complex a question to be answered by the uninformed - like myself. That's why I didn't vote in the referendum; I elected people to become experts, learn both sides and act accordingly.

And Blair's metaphor about buying a house and changing minds when examining the new property was very good.

In The Know wrote:
Tony Blair is to announce his "mission" to persuade Britons' to "rise up" and change their minds on Brexit.
The former prime minister will say in a speech later that people voted in the referendum "without knowledge of the true terms of Brexit".

He will say he wants to "build support for finding a way out from the present rush over the cliff's edge".

But former Cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith said Mr Blair's comments were arrogant and utterly undemocratic.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38996179

Democracy is on the line .... should the unthinking be allowed to destroy the economy?

Maybe time to re-think one-man-one-vote and go back to the time when only those who had a vested interest in society had any say (a time which also saw Britain rule the world!)?

Sounds like like ITK wants the Empire back.

PaulB wrote:
Most people knew what they were voting for, and why.

It's an insult to suggest people are 'informed morons' just because they don't agree with you.

I question that !

And, just as many now deny having supported Blair in the Iraq war (around 50% did at the time), many people now deny having voted for Brexit (now they have seen prices rocket / pound slump / 41% cancel holidays etc ... and we haven't even left yet lol !)

That percentage will rocket in the coming months.

They will bury their heads in the sand and blame the government !!!!

SpectrumIsGreen wrote:

Perhaps these "convincing" arguments should have come out before the referendum

... very hard for an ex-Labour leader to propose a different agenda to the sitting Loony chief !

I question that !

And, just as many now deny having supported Blair in the Iraq war (around 50% did at the time), many people now deny having voted for Brexit (now they have seen prices rocket / pound slump / 41% cancel holidays etc ... and we haven't even left yet lol !)

That percentage will rocket in the coming months.

They will bury their heads in the sand and blame the government !!!!

It is also possible that in 10 years time when Britain is thriving on its own you will be hard pushed to find someone who will admit to voting Remain!


... very hard for an ex-Labour leader to propose a different agenda to the sitting Loony chief !

Isn't that exactly what he is doing now?

Everyone seems to be going on about whether Brexit is a good or a bad thing. My point is that it should never have been the subject of a referendum - and actually, though I'm pro remain, I think it's terribly unimportant. There are many more far more important questions that need immediate government attention.

SpectrumIsGreen wrote:
It is also possible that in 10 years time when Britain is thriving on its own you will be hard pushed to find someone who will admit to voting Remain!

well ... it took the Canadians 10 years to negotiate their trade deal with Europe (and they are only a small player in comparison to us) ... will the Brexiteers still be around ?

Isn't that exactly what he is doing now?

No - he didn't interfere with the election (he probably assumed - unwisely - that the British had more brain cells than to dump their biggest customer and start importing food from the other side of the world ! Have you noticed how much food has increased lately? - and we are not "out" yet !)

JK wrote:

Blair makes great sense and is quite right to say this. And I reckon the majority in the UK agree with him.

I’m most certainly no fan of Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, the telegenic and beliefless actor who New Labour potentates ensured was appointed to perform his way to victory at the General Election.

I appreciate that I may be expressing an unpopular view, but he performed his role adeptly (he helped win three lections in a row, after all) and he was NOT solely responsible for that debacle in Iraq. We forget that it was public opinion – the will of the people - and the servile majority of Members of Parliament (including, if I’m not mistaken, that inveterate opportunist Boris ‘Al’ Johnson) who voted overwhelmingly in favour of that ruinous adventure, which is worse that Suez in my opinion.

But I dislike the tendency to dismiss views on the basis of who expresses them. I suspect that I could never again be persuaded to vote for Mr Blair (I did so, I confess, when he first took possession of the keys to No. 10, but very quickly realised how deluded I'd been). Yet I confess that I found it impossible to disagree with anything he said in his speech today.

I remain to be convinced that the Brexit vote was as large as it was because of informed reasoning and a learned grasp of the labyrinthinely complex issues. It seems to me to have been borne of inarticulate rage at being ignored by the political elite (a just grievance) and foul, ignorant nationalistic prejudice (an unjust grievance).

I suspect the majority of the ill-educated, economically depressed, foreigner-despising end of Brexiteer spectrum will regret their decision when they find their already barely existent prosperity declines even further, when they find that their children can’t find jobs, and when their sovereign government resorts to all manner of intrusive, privacy-destroying tyrannies that the EU might have frowned upon. The apparent benignity of the immediate post-vote climate seems to me to be resemble those cartoon scenes where a coyote runs off the edge of a cliff but carries on running for a while until he looks down - and then crashes precipitously into a puff of dust at the bottom of the chasm beneath him.

The idea that the centuries-old tradition of liberty on these islands has survived the last few decades seems to me to be a tragic delusion. Our rudderless politicians will assiduously proceed with “getting the job done”, as that job is defined by populist media influencers and over-influential, unaccountable PC lobbyists.

For the first time in 20 years, I find myself in agreement with Mr Blair.

Its not actually asking for another referendum, just asking for people to rise up against a hard brexit.
I don't think people did know what they were voting for, my mate said he voted for brexit because he didn't like Cameron. From my understanding the question wasn't "Do you like question?".

robbiex wrote:
Its not actually asking for another referendum, just asking for people to rise up against a hard brexit.
I don't think people did know what they were voting for, my mate said he voted for brexit because he didn't like Cameron. From my understanding the question wasn't "Do you like question?".

and my friends voted Brexit because they think the Poles have taken everything they should have.

I don't like Blair nor do millions of people but he still has extraordinary support within Labour..perhaps more than Corbyn does so he is really saying this for the significant numbers of Remainers who if organised, could form a powerful lobby group.

This battle is no-where near over.

Ian Duncan Smith?..an example of the utter revolting types that have taken over the Conservatives. An appalling man.

# ITK owes me several expensive lunches. Someone make him send me a large cheque or I'll send my debt collector White Dee around to see him and she'll tell everyone in his street she is a god pal of ITK's and from the local Conservative party office.

robbiex wrote:
my mate said he voted for brexit because he didn't like Cameron.

.. what have I always said about the great uninformed majority ?

Will your mate like the fact that food will cost 30% more ? (pound has slumped 30% already)

Will your mate be able to afford a foreign holiday this year (41% of Brits have switched plans)

Should your mate be allowed to destroy our lives - simply because he has a vote (but no brain) ???

In The Know wrote:
During the "shall we bring back hanging" debate it was always accepted that MPs should vote on conscience - and that the subject was too complex for the ordinary voter to be listened too (even though all polls showed a huge public majority in favour of hanging).
Maybe the death penalty will be the next referendum topic in Brexit Britain.

BBC: The link between Brexit and the death penalty

"Immediately after the vote, commentators said it was about class … But according to Stian Westlake, Head of Research at the think tank Nesta, this is not the case.

"If you look at someone's class status and their income, and you try and use that to guess whether or not they voted Remain, it turns out it's not that much better than guesswork. It gives you around 55% accuracy, and obviously a guess would give you 50% accuracy," Westlake says. …

"If you look at attitudes to questions such as, 'Do you think criminals should be publicly whipped?' or 'Are you in favour of the death penalty?' - those things are much better predictors, and you get over 70% accuracy," he says."

Interesting and troubling:

www.opendemocracy.net/uk/peter-geoghegan...ave-campaign-adverts