Tony Blair – Slugger O'Toole

Blair and “Humanitarian Intervention”

Jay Burbank on January 11, 2022, 8:16 am | Readers 1646

Controversy has generated around the inclusion of Tony Blair on the new year’s honours list. During his time in power he devised a strategy of “humanitarian intervention” beginning in the Balkans for strong moral reasons and ending with a military quagmire in Iraq. It is important to understand the legal context of why he did this and reflect upon the complicated picture of this period of western history. Since the end of the second world war in 1945, it has …

Tony Blair calls for extension of Article 50

David McCann on January 17, 2019, 2:03 pm | Readers 463

Extending the #Brexit deadline is “inevitable” says Tony Blair: “If I was the government now, I would already be having discussions with Europe about the terms of an extension” #r4today https://t.co/55w4Ws2GFr pic.twitter.com/lxWzAYZr4x — BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) January 17, 2019 David McCannDavid McCann holds a PhD in North-South relations from University of Ulster. You can follow him on twitter @dmcbfs

What was that again about a breakthrough?

Brian Walker on November 5, 2018, 12:16 am | Readers 1567

Yesterday to the Sunday Times, the British side was talking up the prospect of neutralising the backstop and forecasting the emergence of a winning formula. Today EU sources were clear that they were keeping the backstop in reserve and fully charged, while back home, the reported formula was being attacked by Leave and Remain. By Tuesday we should know if there is enough agreement to call an EU special summit on 21st November. Full marks to Patrick Smyth of the …

RTE’s celebration of John Hume feels like nostalgia for a time that has gone

Brian Walker on August 7, 2018, 8:59 pm | Readers 2307

RTE have just screened a documentary In the Name of Peace; John Hume in America by Maurice Fitzpatrick which the film maker has kindly drawn to my attention. Being in London I cannot access it yet nor have I read his accompanying book. But from the YouTube trail, this is a major celebration of John Hume’s life and work. Anybody who was anybody is in it, led by Clinton and Blair, although Jimmy Carter was not quite so dazzled. As …

Clinton: “Keep the cranes up. Keep the voices free. Keep the votes fair. You’ll figure it out.” #GFA20

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on April 10, 2018, 5:31 pm | Readers 1354

Political leaders of old and today gathered at Queen’s University, Belfast for a day of events focussed on the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said that people “should realise that this agreement was never going to support all the problems of Northern Ireland” while former US President Bill Clinton had a triptych of advice for NI: “Keep the cranes up. Keep the voices free. Keep the votes fair. You’ll figure it out.”

New book on Martin McGuinness launching this week

Chris Donnelly on March 20, 2018, 7:45 am | Readers 3111

Martin McGuinness’ untimely death has loomed large over the suspension of our political institutions and the collapse of trust that has defined the period since. His elevation as a statesman in the post-Good Friday Agreement era surprised many and it is no exaggeration to say that he will be remembered in time as the pre-eminent figure in the early devolution period who more than anyone else kept the institutions afloat and worked power-sharing between the most unlikely partners of …

Tony Blair assures EU that May is sincere about a frictionless border; sees need for small amendment to the GFA

Brian Walker on May 12, 2017, 2:09 pm | Readers 1491

Am I on my own in becoming weary of yet another of the great and good speaking in general terms about the future of the Border? Tony Blair, addressing a European People’s Party gathering in Co Wicklow was at pains to declare his confidence in Theresa May’s sincerity over wanting a “ frictionless “border, even though by rejecting continuing membership of the single market and free movement she has made it the problem without a solution so far. “I …

Fianna Fail must not make the same mistake with Bertie, that Labour have with Blair

David McCann on May 7, 2017, 2:46 pm | Readers 1541

1st May 2017, marked the 20th anniversary of the election of Tony Blair as British Prime Minister. For the current Labour Leadership, a huge part of their existence is owed to a repudiation of the Blair years with its mix of missed opportunities and misadventures such as the War in Iraq. Fianna Fail and Ireland face another anniversary over the coming weeks as the 6th June marks the 20th anniversary of the 1997 General Election which brought Bertie Ahern to …

Tony Blair has made the case for a rethink on Brexit and Northern Ireland will need a new financial deal. Is anybody listening?

Brian Walker on February 17, 2017, 6:01 pm | Readers 2271

Hurtling at us like a comet but unnoticed by the local worthies is the prospect for repatriating powers direct from Brussels to Stormont, Holyrood and Cardiff Bay. Among them are powers over agriculture and energy, which in Ireland are linked or integrated north and south. How they’ll be divvied up is hasn’t even been examined. The British government retain a substantial interest in these areas where powers currently rest with Brussels as it negotiates new trading arrangements to replace membership …

The past, present and future of Tony Blair

Samuel Thompson on July 8, 2016, 11:17 am | Readers 927

He could have gone down as one of the great Prime Ministers of all time, a man who took over a fractured and beaten political party, won three consecutive elections and as the Prime Minister that brought peace to Northern Ireland. These are enormous achievements for any politician but instead he will be damned as a man who led his country into an unnecessary and illegal war, some allege he is a unrepentant war criminal lacking only a trial and a cell. …

US President Bill Clinton: “We’ve all taken our licks for Gerry”.

Pete Baker on January 7, 2016, 4:06 pm | Readers 2456

The BBC’s freedom of information specialist, Martin Rosenbaum, has been reading through transcripts of calls and meetings between US President Bill Clinton and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, between 1997 and 2000, which were released following a BBC freedom of information request to the Clinton Presidential Library. As he notes, [The transcripts] contain substantial redactions, especially of Mr Blair’s remarks… From the BBC report Much of their discussion was about the Northern Ireland peace process, in which President Clinton played a significant part. …

On the anointing of Corbyn

Turgon on September 13, 2015, 4:32 pm | Readers 1146

At 11.30am yesterday in the room where the Labour leadership result was to be announced there was an uninvited guest: a spectre who had hovered over every party gathering for almost twenty years. Then when the result was announced an older yet spritely man strode forward to do battle with the spectre. Wearing his priestly garb of not a tie (though he did have a dark sports jacket and had removed any Lenin style hats) he approached the lectern. Then …

Thoughts on Jeremy Corbyn and Labour’s un-electability

Turgon on August 10, 2015, 3:30 pm | Readers 1601

I have been trying to write something on the Labour leadership election for a while now but keep getting put off. Rather than look at the election itself it might be interesting to look at two of the supposed truisms with surround the election and specifically Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign: that Corbyn as Labour leader would be unelectable and that only a Blairite Labour position can win a UK general election. The standard view is that Corbyn is unelectable. He is …

Return of Blair: “This is what I call the theory that the electorate is stupid…”

Mick Fealty on July 22, 2015, 9:20 pm | Readers 877

So, in a world of blandness, an old New Labour blade returned to a rather more public sofa at a Progress event today, coinciding with a poll that suggests the Labour masses prefer a little old left Labour grit in their leadership cocktail… Here’s some clips from YouTube before the main event… “We should use defeat as an opportunity….” “This is what I call the theory that the electorate is stupid…” “So yes, move on. But don’t, for heaven’s sake, …

Tony Blair: Believed OTR Letters were essential in getting Sinn Fein on board and left to DUP there would’ve been no peace process

David McCann on January 13, 2015, 4:50 pm | Readers 2267

Tony Blair stepped up to the On The Runs Committee today to give evidence about the now infamous letters issued partly under his administration. Between the hard questioning led by Naomi Long and Ian Paisley Jnr, the most important pieces of information throughout the entire day came from a slightly softer approach adopted by Sylvia Hermon and Alasdair McDonnell. Blair told MPs that there was a point in December 2006 where he believed that they almost lost the entire peace …

Jonathan Powell: The Lessons of Northern Ireland

Soapbox on October 15, 2014, 7:59 pm | Readers 1395

Following the launch of his new book ‘Talking to Terrorists,” former Chief of Staff to Prime Minister, Tony Blair, Jonathan Powell, writes exclusively for Slugger about the lessions he learned from his time working on the Northern Ireland peace process The Northern Ireland negotiations were the most difficult and frustrating challenge I faced in my life, but also, at least in retrospect, my most important and satisfying achievement. Since leaving government I have set up an NGO, Inter Mediate, to …

Victims of Gadaffi’s arms imports to the IRA shouldn’t get their hopes up

Brian Walker on May 4, 2014, 12:42 pm | Readers 64

This is one of the most acute problems of Northern Ireland today- politicians raising hopes for victims that stand little or no chance of being fulfilled. As an anti-cynic I’m prepared to believe that David Cameron’s meeting with a DUP delegation over reviving compensation claims against Libya disclosed in the Sunday Telegraph wasn’t just a clumsy diversion effort from the Adams arrest (wrong constituency and timing ).At least it got Peter Robinson into Downing St, a rare occurrence these days. It reads like …

OTR crisis begins to abate: totally inappropriately

Turgon on March 4, 2014, 9:39 pm | Readers 77

The crisis has begun to abate, without the direct threat of Stormont collapsing in the immediate future. Despite various claims from the predictable sources in both former government and pliant media circles this was and remains a major scandal and a colossal indictment of the whole political process. The first suggestion at minimising the relevance of these events has been that the suggestion that these letters to suspected terrorists as arranged by Sinn Fein (was the old term Sinn Fein …

“Just to confuse matters, some elements of the tale of the On The Runs appear to have been hidden in plain sight.”

Pete Baker on March 1, 2014, 4:26 pm | Readers 157

BBC NI political editor Mark Devenport with, perhaps, the best description of the mechanism used to address the issue of on-the-runs. From Mark Devenport’s BBC blog While republicans insist unionists knew all about what was happening to the On The Runs, that is not strictly true. Senior PSNI officers answered some questions posed by Northern Ireland Policing Board members and the scheme got a glancing reference in the voluminous Eames-Bradley report on dealing with the legacy of the Troubles. But when former …

#ShinnersList: “…old hatreds have not been buried. The old injustices have been replaced by new ones.”

Mick Fealty on March 1, 2014, 7:24 am | Readers 74

Charles Moore in the Telegraph reprises Peter Preston’s 2007 theme of poisonous foundations: On one thing, Jonathan Powell is quite correct. The indignation of Unionist politicians in Northern Ireland, notably the First Minister, Peter Robinson, is utterly synthetic. Mr Robinson says he was not informed – and that may, strictly speaking, be the case. But he could have found out about these comfort letters in 10 minutes if he had tried. It was much more convenient for him not to …