Labour MP Kate Hoey – who served as a minister under Tony Blair – today pours scorn on his visit to her native Northern Ireland, where he and John Major will try to scaremonger voters into staying in the EU.
Pro-Brexit Hoey does not hold back.
And why would she? Blair, who was desperate for Britain to join the single European currency, has a credibility problem thanks to continued questions over whether he lied about taking Britain into the Iraq war.
And Major is the man who cheated on his wife with Edwina Currie and then helped take Britain into the ERM, triggering a financial crisis and saddling Britain with a £3.3 billion bill.
He then led the Tories to their worst defeat for 90 years.
They are yesterday’s men meddling with tomorrow’s affairs.
Ms Hoey says:
“John Major and Tony Blair today join a list of yesterday’s politicians determined to spread fear in Northern Ireland.
Both demonstrate their economic illiteracy in predicting a break-up of the UK if the people vote to leave on June 23rd.
As both ex-Prime Ministers know, the Good Friday Agreement described Northern Ireland’s position within the UK as ‘the settled will of the people of Northern Ireland’.
All polls show that this remains the case, and Brexit will not change this in any way.
Northern Ireland’s prosperity remains totally tied to its position within the UK.
While Northern Ireland receives a net contribution from the EU of only £100 per person per year, the contribution from the UK is £5,000 per person year and pays for around half of all public spending in Northern Ireland.
This will not change, and everyone knows that, except apparently Major and Blair.
Nor will Brexit lead to border problems in NI. The Republic will remain outside the Shengen Zone and will thus retain its border controls. This will allow it to prevent Dublin becoming a back-door into the UK. Personal travel between NI and the Republic has always been easy, in or out of the EU, and even during the Troubles there were few difficulties. Even if some documentation of freight trade is required, in the age of the internet this will not involve hold-ups at the border.
Major and Blair’s economic illiteracy also extends to Scotland. The idea that Scotland will vote to leave the UK after Brexit is fantasy.
The voters of Scotland rejected independence in 2014 because they did not want Scotland to become an oil state, with its prosperity tied to the world oil price.
That was when the oil price was $100 a barrel. With the price now half that, Scotland could not survive economically.
Scotland’s voters know that and so does Nicola Sturgeon.
If Tony Blair spent more time in the UK, he would know that the cautious Nicola Sturgeon always says that Scotland ‘could’ have a referendum post-Brexit, not that it ‘will’ have a referendum.
The more Blair talks about the need for Britain to remain in the EU the more the public will be persuaded to vote Leave.”
