Hello and welcome to The Economist Asks.
I'm Anne McElvoy head
of The Economist Radio.
As part of our open future season
we're asking, should Britain
vote again on Brexit?
Our guest is the former Prime Minister
who's a proponent for the second vote
on whether the United Kingdom should
or shouldn't leave the European Union.
He was the special
representative of the quartet
of international powers
seeking a peace agreement
between Israel and the Palestinians.
And he runs the Institute
for Global Change advocating
for the benefits of globalization.
He still finds himself
drawn into heated debate
on his support for the war
in Iraq and its consequences.
Tony Blair welcome to The Economist Asks.
Thank you.
We're meeting very exciting time in terms
of British politics, some
people think too exciting.
Calls for a second
referendum on leaving the EU
are in the air, just lay out
your position on that for me.
So I've said for quite some time now
there should be another
vote which isn't a rerun
by the way of the 2016
referendum, it will be a judgment
on what we've learnt in the last two years
and how we resolve the essential dilemma
at the heart of the Brexit negotiation
which is that if you want
to stay close to Europe
after Brexit you're
gonna end up in some form
of arrangement where you're
abiding by Europe's rules
but you've just lost your say over them
in which case the argument will be,
well what's the point of leaving?
Or alternatively you're going to be
where a lot of the hard
line Brexiteers want us
which is with a clean break Brexit
where you get out of Europe,
out of its single market
and customs union structures
in which case you're
going to do short term
at least, possibly medium term,
possibly long term damage to the economy
in which case the question
is, what's the price?
So what's the point versus
what's the price leads you to a
I think to a gridlock in Parliament
which I think you can
see increasingly happen
and I've been saying
this now for over a year,
there is not in my view
a majority in Parliament
for any one Brexit proposition.
So at a certain point there
is going to be no recourse
except to either have a general election,
which would be a mistake
for the Conservative Party
of course do or to say, no we're
gonna go back to the people
and give them the final judgment over
whether they prefer the deal
that's being offered to
them or they prefer to stay.
Right, let's get to what
the desirability if you like
of this in a moment but on practicality
and you're a good and
skilled process politician
from where Theresa May is now
and we have this gridlock in Parliament
which doesn't look like
getting cleaned up,
she put forward a deal,
said called Checkers deal
has left both leave and
remain in Parliament
very dissatisfied so
what would be the route
to another referendum, would it be to say,
we simply can't find solution
so we're going to put
through legislation for
that and in that case,
how does it fit around the
fixed terms Parliament acted
and the other, the furniture
if you like of our democracy?
I mean I think once you
end up with a gridlock
in Parliament so that you
can't get an agreement
on what the new relationship in Europe is
and Parliament can't agree
then the obvious thing
is to send it back to the people and say,
look you're gonna have to
tell us whether in the light
of what's happened in the last two years
and where we are in Parliament today you
want to proceed with
Brexit or you want to stay.
And this is a judgment not
the same as the judgment made
back in June 2016 where we
no idea what the process
would involve and what was the final deal
that would come out of it, this
will be a very simple thing
which is to say do you want to proceed
in these circumstances or
not given that the Parliament
can't agree.
But I was interested in how
you thought Theresa May, if she wanted to
would make that argument in Parliament.
First of all, she has to
get it through Parliament.
I don't, I think once
Parliament is paralyzed,
I don't see what alternatives there are.
Well there are three
actually, you crash out
without a deal which would
be, I think a disaster
and I'm sure Parliament
would not allow that.
Or alternatively you
have a general election
and I cannot see the circumstances
in which the Conservative Party would want
to have a general election
around the Brexit issue.
I mean they got into enough
trouble last year doing that.
I don't think they I want
to repeat that mistake
and in any event the logical
thing is to say to the people
look, you gave the original
mandate to do Brexit,
it's proved impossible to get a Brexit
that even all the Brexiteers agree on
in which case you're gonna
have to decide for us
which way you want to proceed now.
I mean, it's actually a
very rational thing to do
and I know rationality
is not much in vogue
in today's politics but it's
a completely rational way
of dealing with this
issue because otherwise
even the Brexit people can't
agree as to what Brexit means.
So how can you possibly say
they've mandated one form
of Brexit over another.
But let's look at a couple of
challenges to that position
even assuming that Theresa May or indeed
whoever was that was
Prime Minister by the time
this happened came into force,
a referendum was promised, it was held,
it was described by David Cameron
as a once-in-a-generation vote.
You yourself talked in the early 2000s
about putting the European question,
albeit it was old Constitutional change
but you were thinking
of going to the country
and saying can you
please make up your minds
how close you want to be
to the EU or you don't.
Both of you flirted with
the idea of a referendum,
David Cameron went ahead,
did he get it very wrong?
Well it's not, I mean look,
I think I was the only person
who actually made a speech on Europe
of any significance in
the 2015 election saying
why I thought a referendum was a bad idea
and that in itself tells you something
in the 2015 election
which David Cameron won
and won with the majority,
Europe wasn't really much
of an issue but anyway
for whatever reasons,
I understand the reasons,
the referendum was was held
but the referendum was held as to
whether Britain should
leave the European Union,
the referendum that I was
positioning us to have
over the so-called Lisbon treaty,
was a referendum about whether we changed
the status quo in order
to get closer to Europe.
So if the country had voted,
if we'd had that referendum,
we didn't need to,
'cause France and Holland
said that they didn't want
this Constitution anyway, but
if we voted and we voted no
to that the status quo carries on.
The problem with this referendum is
you're disentangling
45 years of membership
of the European Union in which
particularly economically
we have become intertwined
with the continent of Europe
in commercial and trading terms
and this is the first time
any modern developed country
has literally tried to
de-liberalize its trading system
on this scale given that
virtually half our trade is
with the European market
so it's, a it's a world
away different because it's--
But it's not a world way different
from the referendum that
took place two years ago
in which people were asked to vote
and with about 1.1 million
votes in it, decided to leave.
Now what I don't hear, I hear
a strong case of advocacy
for the position of a second vote
but what I wonder what
your mind the status
of that referendum is or whether one
in the way that has been
known done before the EU,
we just ask and ask again til
the electorate's get it right.
No I don't think that's
what we're doing at all
in this instance, back in June 2016.
Okay, we knew we were voting
to leave the European Union.
We didn't know what the new
relationship looked like.
What the the next two years have taught us
and let's be clear,
everybody now knows more
about this issue than they
did back in June 2016.
I know more about this issue
than I did in June 2016.
I was Prime Minister for
10 years so we now know
that disentangling ourselves
from the single market
and the customs union
is short term painful.
Brexit was sold on the basis
you get an immediate boost
of money to the health service
and that it would be, you know
a relatively painless idea
to leave the European Union.
It's now, whatever else
is clear and you know,
I understand the long-term
vision of Britain leaving Europe
and going its own way but
whatever else is the case,
short term we now know,
one there's not more money
for the health service, actually
is a 40 billion pound bill
for leaving, secondly
we've gone from being
the fastest growing economy
in G7 to the slowest,
third our currency is down
substantially devalued,
literally since the day
after the referendum
and forth, short term if
you do a clean break Brexit,
you're going to do economic damage.
There's no, no one can
seriously dispute that.
Now you may decide there's--
Currency devaluation is not necessarily
the worst thing that has happened, is it?
It is the worst thing.
Because we did need need
the correction to the past.
Yes, but this was a correction not
because the market decided
that the market circumstances of the UK
had changed in an objective sense.
It was a devaluation because
of the markets belief
that as a result of Brexit,
we're going to be poorer
as a country in the long term.
So this was a completely
different, this is not
like a normal market correction at all.
This was a correction as a
result of a political act.
So, the point is very simple, in the end
what we have known over
these last two years
and the divisions as to what Brexit,
the type of Brexit that
we want mean that you,
this is the reason you've
got paralysis in Parliament.
We don't know which way we want to go.
So the only way of resolving it,
when you started this
process with the referendum,
is to go back to the
people and let them vote.
What's the question for this referendum?
Well that is a good question in itself
and it could be one or
two different things.
I mean the most obvious thing frankly,
is that it goes back to the people with,
if there's no agreement
as to what a soft Brexit
really means and I don't think there is,
I think the obvious thing is to go back
with a simple referendum choice
which is staying possibly
within a reformed Europe
by the way and we can
come to that in a moment
or a clean break Brexit
which is what the main
people advocating Brexit really want.
But you could have you could
have a different question
which is, you actually
have the soft Brexit option
that Theresa May is trying to put forward.
You could have that's an alternative too
or some form of it, I
mean these are questions
that you can get to at a later stage but--
But surely if you're
advocating for this vote,
you must know what you
want the vote to be no.
Yeah, now you do know
what the vote will be on.
It'll be stay versus some form of of leave
or possibly an option as to which form
of leave you want but you
know these are things that--
Are you suggesting a multiple choice,
when you say an option?
Well, you you might have three choices.
You could have you could
have a simple choice
between two alternatives
so you might have three
but you can discuss that at
the later time and by the way--
But I'm asking you what you think there.
Would you favor a three,
a multi part answer?
Because I think it depends really.
If you, if you end up, I think you know,
this is obviously you, you've
got to see the circumstances
that you get to but I
just don't believe myself
there's really any feeling in the country
for what is called the soft Brexit.
In other words you stay
linked to Europe like Norway
or Switzerland in some relationship
where you are still
abiding by Europe's rules
and you've lost your say over those rules.
I think the country will just say,
well that's the worst of both worlds.
Why is it the worst of both worlds?
If we look at, we've
looked with various layers,
The Economists will find
more acceptable than others
and Norway is one that we've
given a pretty fair wind to
because we think it
does satisfy the desire
to be further away outer
core as we used to call it
in sort of EU terms
but still firmly linked
into the trading system and
on sort of peaceable terms
with the EU, what's so wrong with that?
Because I think if you're talking about,
does that fulfill the mandate of 2016,
I think it's very hard to say that really
because you know you're,
you're coming at this
from a perfectly rational point of view
which is say that our
preference is to stay
but the second-best to
stay is stay at least
in the economic structures,
I understand that.
The problem is the case
of the Brexiteers is
that the reason they want out of Europe
is because of the rules that you have to
and the regulations you have to apply
that come from the single market
and from the fact you're
in a customs union
with the rest of Europe
and therefore don't strike
your own trade deals so
it's very hard to see
how you, you square a soft Brexit
with the the main case
that these people make
and understand the reason they make it,
is one of the myths that--
But we don't know when people voted
their version for Brexit we don't know
how many were hard and how many were soft.
I mean that's another way that you could--
I agree and that's why I say to you,
you know you could make an argument
that you have three alternatives you know.
Stay, soft or hard but--
Like eggs.
Yeah, I don't know what the stay version
of that would be but I think it depends,
I've got a feeling that
in the end this this
this will clarify so that
if you reach paralysis
so there's no real agreement for any form
of Brexit in Parliament
then I think people will
I think the British people
in the end will want to make
the final say and to make
it in a clear direction
and the problem with this, the soft Brexit
as I've said right from
the very beginning,
is that in the end what's the
point of Britain getting out
of the political structures of Europe
and staying in the economic structures
with all the obligations
but without the seat
at the table, I mean it's a crazy thing
for the country to do and so I understand
from the business point of view you know,
in The Economist newspaper and so on,
I completely get it that they say,
well look, it's better
than the alternative.
But I think as a political decision,
the British people will
feel, well this is just.
Well I think, first we haven't
ruled out a second vote
at all but it's really
a question of how you go
through the process, do you
look at soft Brexit first
before you move to it.
And to put you a bit on the spot, I mean
what would your date be for this?
Can people who want, advocates
of a second referendum
like yourself really go
around for much longer saying,
well we'd like it sometime,
we will sort out the question
a bit later, shouldn't
you put your date forward
and your idea forward?
Well, by the way it's not
us driving this agenda,
I mean this agenda is
being driven by government
in more chronic disarray than
any government I've literally
ever seen in my lifetime
in the Western world,
I would say in a major developed country.
And but, no you can get to, you may look,
you may end up having
to postpone Article 50.
You may end up being in that
position but the point is,
you know, when people say to me,
why don't you just get on with it,
which is a very common thing
you'll hear amongst people
what I say to them, I'm afraid, I'm sorry,
this thing's too complicated
just to get on with it
because it won't be
gone on with in that way
because until you've resolved
where you're going to go
in the fundamental questions
and frankly the government's not,
you know the Checkers statement
was an attempt to come down
on the side of staying close to Europe.
I mean we all know that--
Do you have some sympathy with that?
Yeah, no of course, look by the way,
let me make one thing
clear, I think Theresa May
is a well-intentioned
person, I think she's got
the least enviable job
in Western politics today
trying to steer her way
through this morass.
I have complete sympathy
for her at a personal level.
I know how difficult it
is to be Prime Minister,
but the trouble is what
she wants won't work
and it won't work because
there is no way of squaring
this circle, there is no way
of staying close to Europe
and being part of a
frictionless border with Europe
and going your own way
with your own trade rules.
It just, it's literally and
every time the government keeps
saying, well this is what we want,
they describe it as a policy.
It's not a policy it's just a statement
of incompatible objectives
and at some point
and this Checker statement
was an attempt really
to pull her side into it, okay
let's stay close to Europe
to minimize economic damage.
If it was down to you, would you advocate
for delaying Article
50, not leaving the EU,
not yet moving that leaving date
in order to open up the
space for second referendum.
If I was if I was Prime Minister
at the moment what I would
do is say the following,
we've had two years trying
to reach an agreement,
it's now absolutely clear
that the choice we face
if we're going to do Brexit
is between a soft Brexit
that keeps us close to
Europe but unfortunately
it means that we have to
abide by Europe's rules
and therefore lose our
say or alternatively
we can do a clean break but
you've got to be very clear.
Here are the economic
consequences of doing that.
And I would say in these circumstances
because both of those
things aren't unpalatable
for different reasons,
I think it's sensible
we negotiate with Europe
a different option
which is Britain staying in a Europe
that also has to reform, has to reform
around issues to do with immigration
and freedom of movement--
Precisely what was not happening
and precisely what the drift
of the European Union was not
in the last few years.
Well, this is I think what
the European Union is going
to have to do it knows
itself now it's got to,
look the European Union has
got exactly the same problem
that Britain had in relation to Brexit
which is around immigration.
So the freedom of movement commitment
which Angela Merkel and
others but particularly
I think Angela Merkel sticks on,
she says it's fundamental
she says it's one reason
she couldn't give more
leeway to David Cameron to,
to come up with a more
bespoke deal on that
in the run-up to the referendum.
You think that itself is
in danger as a European?
No I don't have a principle
of freedom movement's
in danger because the
principle's perfectly sensible
and by the way most British
people would support
the principle it's a question
of how it's implemented
and for example president Macron of France
is already suggesting that
there should be provisions
in Europe that prevent, you
know the import of cheap labor
in order to undercut wages
in the more wealthy countries
of the European Union.
You know, by the way
countries like Belgium insists
that once you come to
Belgium if you're another
from another European
country you come to Belgium,
you haven't found a job within two months
they put you back again, I mean there
are whole sorts of ways
we could deal with this
and the principle immigration problem
by the way in Britain and elsewhere
is not really from Europe
it's from outside Europe
so I think there are two big questions
that I think will dominate Europe
at the moment, one is immigration
which is exactly referral
to the type of feeling
that gave rise to Brexit
and the second is the other
unresolved question in Europe,
which is how do you
make sense of the Europe
in which the Eurozone and the countries
in the single currency
are bound to integrate
at a different rate in a different way
from the countries
outside, so there's lots
of different issues that in a sense should
according to any sensible view of Europe,
given what's been happening for example
in the Italian election should
result in Europe reforming
at the same time as Britain reconsidering
and that would be frankly
the perfect way out of this.
Last point on referendum, do you not worry
that given the division in the countries,
it's not going to be
possible to satisfy everyone
or even perhaps a clear
majority on this issue
that referendum two, and you
are calling it a referendum now
not people's vote or any of that.
Well, people's vote's
the same thing I mean--
Well a referendum sort of
says go or stay doesn't it?
A vote can simply say
we don't like the deal,
there is a difference.
I don't think, that's just a
difference in the question.
Look there's no point
treating people like idiots.
It isn't a rerun of the
June 2016 referendum
but whether you call it a
people's vote or a referendum
or a plebiscite or, it's just language.
The fact is, it's, it's an acceptance
that the confusion is such
you need to have a final say,
given to the British people.
What would you do in the event
the final say went against your position?
Then is, then it's the end of it,
if the British people vote for leave
in circumstance--
again.
Yeah, again where they
know, they now know exactly
what they're going to be
getting as a result of that,
we let all the experience
of last couple of years,
that's an end of it, I mean
I've made this absolutely clear
in my view once you put alongside,
leave it, leaving the European
Union the actual alternative
the new relationship
once that is a clear vote
and the British people then decide,
look we've heard all the
arguments we still want to leave
that's the end of it,
then we'll have to forge--
a new future for ourselves.
But there's some people
that think the division is
for that second argument
and vote would create
would actually lead you
to more of even more
of a populist backlash
a more proto-Trumpian
backlash than we have already.
I don't, it's a it's a,
first of all by the way,
the country there's no
way getting around this
the country's bitterly and deeply divided
and it is, but I'm, I'm a skeptic
that if you go back and
say look, in the light of
what we now know here's the choice
and you the people made the choice
that people are going
to consider it an insult
to be asked I don't think they will.
Let's talk more broadly
about center politics
in the guise of our open future season
which is looking at it
broadly at the future
of liberalism and and the the center.
You have stood for a certain
kind of center politics
very electorally successful yourself in,
in power for a long time
in Britain and others
in Europe, Bill Clinton in the U.S.
This feels like something
that has been not
just under attack but has
been sort of crumbling
from within for quite some time.
Is central politics dying or reviving?
I don't think it's
either dying or reviving.
I think it's never gone
away, I still think
there's a majority for it,
I think the Macron election
in the sense is one indicator of that
but I think the way modern politics works,
political parties can be taken over
by those from without outside the center
and then the choice for the people,
I mean the choice for the
British people is pretty grim
if it's a Brexit dominated Tory Party
versus a Corbyn led Labor Party, it's a,
I mean that is a choice
of two extreme positions
where I think the reserve and
majority of British people
that would not really want
either of those two things
if they have an alternative.
Which would then be a
case for electoral reform,
I'm sorry, voting system reform.
Whether it's voting system reform
but it's, it's a question
of, I mean my preference
is the Labor Party sorts itself out
but I have to say that looks unlikely.
Sorts itself out as in
returns to the center ground,
gets rid of Jeremy Corby as leader?
Well look, it's, it's not
a question of getting rid
of them as leaders much
more fundamental than that,
it's a question of whether
the Labor Party understands
that it, it won power,
I mean remember we were
in power as a Labor
government for more than twice
as long as the next Labor government ever.
We were the only political
party, Labor Party
to win two consecutive terms,
never mind three consecutive terms.
This is 1997 to 2000?
Yeah and we did it from the center
but by the way David Cameron
won from the center in 2015
so it's not as if this
is you know politics
that has had its day and and you know one
of the fascinating things when you look
at the recent OECD report, the country
that did best in terms of social mobility
from the late 1990s to 2010 the country
that did best of all the
Western developed countries
was Britain and that was
because you had a progressive
center-left party that was
keeping the economy strong
but nonetheless making real social changes
and this politics is still the politics
that I think, it's a combination of people
who believe in a strong enterprise sector,
believed deeply in social
justice are socially liberal
that is a constituency today
that probably is a new,
you know electoral
constituency and frankly
at the moment it's pretty
much underrepresented.
Do you think Jeremy Corbyn
could win the next election?
Has your view changed on
the probability of that?
I think it's, look first of
all you can't say anything
is not possible in politics
today and certainly I didn't,
I thought Labor would get badly beaten
at the last general election, now I think
there were many very special factors
in that election, not least Brexit.
The Conservative manifesto which
was a sort of disaster area
and the way they fought the campaign.
So I you know personally I think
with this government in
this disarray we should be
15, 20 points ahead,
we're not but who knows.
It's possible yeah, it's possible
he becomes Prime Minister.
And if we look to the context
we're speaking in now,
is just after Helsinki and that summit
between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin,
do you think actual harm has
been done of that summit?
Opinion's divided on whether this was
just another Trump show
as usual or whether,
you know whether you feel a real harm
is done to the security
architecture of the West?
Well I think, you know
President Trump has his
own way of doing things for sure
and I think it's it's hard
right now to see exactly
what the implications of
it are but my reflection is
more to this point that it shows
why it's so important today
that Europe stays united.
It's why Brexit is not
just an economic disaster,
it's it's a geopolitical
disaster for Britain
and for Europe and it shows I'm afraid
that in today's world
the interests of America
may lie elsewhere and I'm not sure
this is completely
connected to Donald Trump
by the way I think for the moment
for whatever reasons America
wants to look after itself
and its own interests, its big focus is
its relationship with China,
this is, the America China
relationship will be the pivotal
geopolitical relationship
of the 21st century and I
think my reflection is is,
less to do with critiquing his position
because there are plenty of people
who can do that as well as I can.
It's really to do with how Europe reacts
and you know right at this moment
if Europe wants to stay powerful,
it's gonna have to stay
united and strong economically
and politically and this is the tragedy
of what is happening in
Europe at the moment.
You're known for your
international network,
how connected are you to the Trump team?
I think you met some of his advisers.
Yeah, no, I, you know particularly
on the Middle East where
I remain very active
on the Israeli Palestinian
question I remain
in contact with them
and you know I'm also,
because of the work--
With Jared Kushner specifically?
Yeah.
His son in law.
And with other people on the team there
and you know I, because I'm,
my institute is very active
in Africa we've got teams in
14 different countries today
and you know I'm active
with different parts
of the American system and I keep closely
in contact with it and
you know, I haven't met
President Trump himself but yeah
of course, I stay connected.
But you would meet president
Trump if the occasion arose?
Well if I had the right thing to discuss
and he wanted to it would
depend on what the issue was.
But Jared Kushner his designate to deal
with the Middle East is
himself in the firing line
over the Mueller investigation,
isn't he into the backwash
of the allegations
of Russian interference in the election
and sort of stringing pulling
through the Trump businesses?
Yeah but you know for me
the important thing is
if I'm working on the
Israeli Palestinian issue
in this and these are the people
who are designated as dealing with it,
it's important you keep in contact.
And what difference you
think that the Donald Trump
being in the White House
and a shift on the way
to handle the Middle East
has made to the chances
good or otherwise of achieving anything
in the Middle East in terms of a deal?
So I think that that, I
mean you know it's it's,
as I always say to people
it's hard sometimes to have
a rational conversation
about Trump's policies
because there's so much
focus on on the personality
and the character, I think the
one thing the administration
has correctly understood
is the future of resolution
for the Palestinian issue lies
in the Israeli Arab
relationship and not simply
in the Israeli Palestinian relationship.
I think that they've understood correctly
and they've got immensely strong ties
with both the Israeli leadership
and the Arab leadership.
However I don't think
you will get a resolution
of the Palestinian question
unless you build it
from the bottom up as much
as trying to negotiate it
from the top down I think the problems
are deep politically and economically
between Israel and the
Palestinian territories
and I could bore you endlessly on it
but I don't think we will get a resolution
unless we do it through the
Israeli Arab relationship
and by the way I think this has to start
and start urgently with
what is happening in Gaza
which is a catastrophe
and extremely dangerous
and needs to be handled with urgency.
You think we're looking towards
a Netanyahu era now and do you see anyone
on the Israelis side that you think
might be able to take on that process?
I think it's far too early to say that
and you know Israeli politics
is a study all in itself
but no, he's, you know Bibi Netanyahu
is there and that's
the Prime Minister that
that you know he's been there
now for a considerable period
of time, has huge experience obviously
and I don't think there's an
election in the offing, so.
We're sitting here in a different office.
I think the one I
visited you in last time,
we spoke to you for The Economist Asks
you've consolidated a
lot of what you do now
into this Institute for the Global Change.
You have closed pretty much all of your
sort of consultancy work, is that a sign
that there had been a bit of Blair sprawl
and you were doing too much?
You know I tried to do something
since leaving office because you know,
you're gonna find this
with Prime Ministers
and the presidents who leave office
when they're relatively
young and the circumstances
where friendly people can remain healthy
and active much longer, you
know I was never going to
end up retiring as Prime
Minister then just going
on the speaking circuit so I
have I built a whole series
of different organizations
and then I had a business side
who I think I explained
to you in an interview
we did a few years back,
its purpose was always
in order to better fund
the the charitable work,
the, so I made two mistakes really,
first of all I think having
these different organizations
in retrospect and this would
be my advice to anyone else
doing this, put it all in one institute
and we have this one
not-for-profit institute now
which is a much much better
way of doing the work we do
in the Middle East and
Africa around governance,
counter extremism and
coexistence in this new part
we're doing which is about
renewing the center ground
of politics in the West
so it's much better done
as one institution and secondly,
frankly people you know
with the business side you're
always going to get people
who misunderstand your
motives or misdescribe them
and you're just get into
a run of trouble over it.
So I think what we did was, we transferred
what all the substantial
reserves we've built up
in the business side into the Institute
that allowed us to get these offices going
and get moving and now you know, we've got
round about 250 people working for us
in about 30 different countries.
I was first teasing you,
I could see you kind of
come around to the view
that we discussed then.
There was a bit of a problem
between the balance of Mammon
and good works in your life.
Well it was it was more
to do with the way it was,
could be presented or
misrepresented but yeah,
no I, if I was doing it
again I'd set it up as it is,
as it is now but you know
no one's ever tried to build
an organization as a former Prime Minister
and the thing that people
have never understand is that
you stop being Prime Minister right,
your infrastructure goes, everything goes
and you may have a name
but you are nothing else,
so you've got to go and fundraise for it,
you've got to either make
the money or raise the money
as a large organization operates
in many different countries
and it takes a lot to build
but the work we're doing here
is is really fantastic and
I think in time we will,
I hope we can lead to a
shift of global politics
or help in a shift of global politics
back to support for what I
call the open-minded view
of the world, the
international liberal order
and the politics that
says globalization is
actually basically a good
thing but you need to deal
with its risks in order to
access its opportunities.
You're 65 now, only 65 I should say really
because there's a bit quite
a long time since you were
Prime Minister and
you've done a lot since.
But it is a good time to to look back
and did, what do you regret?
Um well I was think, one
of the interesting thing is
is you go, you stop being a Prime Minster,
you go out into the world and
you learn an immense amount
so I have learned a huge
amount in the last 10 years
about how the world works which you just,
you know if you're in politics
especially I came in 1997
I never been a minister before,
you're Prime Minister
okay, 10 years you learn
a huge amount so there are
things that I can regret
in domestic policy around reform
I think the biggest regret
post 9/11 was misunderstanding
the depth of the problem
of sort of radical Islamist influences
and therefore when we, we
thought when we changed regimes
in Afghanistan and Iraq,
gave the people the chance
to improve their lives
then surely this would work
but there were many forces that
were trying to disrupt at us
they still are today but you know,
I also look back on the things that we did
that are on the more positive side,
the big changes in society
that we introduced in the UK,
you know the radical
reductions of poverty,
the improvements in schools and hospitals,
the minimum wage, the Northern
Ireland peace process,
bringing the Olympics to
the UK, I mean there's a lot
that we can be proud
of as well as obviously
I don't think anyone's
in power for 10 years
without there being things
that people disagree with.
Tony Blair, thank you
very much for joining
The Economist Asks this week.
Thank you.
