It’s not too late to stop Brexit says Blair

Ben Silbermann, co-founder and CEO of Pinterest,  Tony Blair, former UK prime minister, Margrethe Vestager, the European Union Commissioner for Competition, Sophia the Robot from Hanson Robotics, chess genius Garry Kasparov and Paulo Rosado, CEO of Portuguese unicorn Outsystems topped the bill at the third day of Web Summit on Wednesday.

Former UK prime minister Tony Blair said at Web Summit on Wednesday that it is “not too late to hold a second referendum” on Brexit.

Affirming his 100% opposition to leaving the European Union Blair said that the justification was that things had changed since the referendum in 2016. “I am 100% against Brexit” he said to a round of applause. “I still think it’s possible to stop because it’s in our economic interest” he said.

Tony Blair, who governed the United Kingdom between 1997 and 2007, said it was not wrong to hold a second referendum because so much more information about how damaging Britain’s leaving the EU had come to light.

“I feel sorry for Teresa May, she is in an impossible position but I think a general election is highly unlikely because of the state of the Conservative party,” he said.

“Brexit is not in our economic interests, it’s not in our political interests, I think it weakens Britain and I think it weakens Europe,” he continued.

“Having no deal is obviously absurd, I think at least she (Theresa May) should have the chance to go back to the people. This is not undemocratic because in the two years or more since we have had that vote, our knowledge of what it means has been hugely enlarged.

“There are five different versions of Brexit on offer. If Theresa May does the deal that she wants — and I say this with no disrespect to her , she is in a difficult position and is doing this with good intentions — the deal she is trying to do is an attempt to find a way around this dilemma and there is no way around it” said Tony Blair.

The former prime minister said the Government either did Brexit that kept it in line with EU rules to minimise economic damage, and that is the pointless Brexit. Because if you are in step with Europe’s rules, why are we leaving?”

The alternative is to do a deal that wrenches us out of the European single market altogether and the custom’s union which will result in real economic damage, which is he painful Brexit. So we have the pointless versus the painful which is senseless,” he concluded.