Pic:Ex.British prime minister Tony Blair
Political reporter(wp/es):
Tony Blair has confirmed he will return to politics in a bid to fight Brexit, 20 years after he first stormed to power.
The divisive former Labour Prime Minister said Britain’s decision to exit the EU and Theresa May’s embrace of a hard Brexit had given him a “direct motivation” to get involved.
In an interview with the Mirror to mark two decades since his landslide first election win, Mr Blair said he wanted to shape the policy debate in Britain.
He told the paper: “This Brexit thing has given me a direct motivation to get more involved in the politics. You need to get your hands dirty and I will.
"I am going to be taking an active part in trying to shape the policy debate and that means getting out and reconnecting.”
"I know the moment I stick my head out the door I'll get a bucket of wotsit poured all over me, but I really do feel passionate about this,” he added.
"I don't want to be in the situation where we pass through this moment of history and I hadn't said anything because that would mean I didn't care about this country. I do."
Mr Blair, 63, warned that Britain would be worse off outside the EU and suggested the country may eventually wish to return.
"The single market put us in the Champions League of trading agreements. A free trade agreement is like League One. We are relegating ourselves," he said.
"My prediction is it may take another generation but at some point we will want to be back in the EU - there is a direct link between the number of people and the size of an economy."
The former PM has been widely-criticised over the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq in 2003 and subsequent years of turmoil in the region.
And Mr Blair admitted that 10 years after leaving office, he still found it hard to cope with the idea that he was a hate figure to some people.
"Yep, it's hard. It's all about coming to terms with the fact that when you're running for power you can be all things to all people," he said.
"But when you achieve power you have to make decisions and when that happens, and the process of government is your life, you become less popular.
"A lot of the attacks on me are because I am the representative of that type of centre left politics.
"People on the right are desperate never to have my politics come back to the Labour Partybecause they know it can end in a Tory defeat.
“And then unfortunately it has always been the way of the left that it tends to attack its own.
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