Tony Blair: We Can’t Get Stuck on the Hard Shoulder of Nostalgia

Susan Glasser: I’m Susan Glasser, and welcome back to The Global POLITICO. I’m very honoured that our guest this week is the Honourable Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister of Great Britain. We’re meeting here in New York, and I have to say, you’ve had a nice welcome to New York. You seem to be right back in the middle of the news, whether it’s on the cover of The New York Times, or in the midst of the usual London tabloid uproar over your comments—your recent thoughts on how to get out of Brexit.

So, we might as well start right ahead with that. What’s it like always to be in the middle of the storm? And what do you make of the latest controversy over your views on Brexit?

Tony Blair: Well, thank you, Susan, and thank you for interviewing me. You know, nowadays, if you step out at all into any area of public controversy, you’re going to get a bucket of something unpleasant poured over you, so you just get used to that. And I think if you’re feeling strongly enough about something, then you want to participate, and I had no intention of returning into the British political debate, really at all, even though I’ve obviously got very strong views on it, until Brexit happened, because I think Brexit is a destiny-changing decision for my country.

And I really do believe that there is a better way to deal with the problems of the country than Brexit. And I feel so strongly about it that I’m prepared to have that controversy. And of course, there’s a section of the right-wing media in the UK that’s controlled, frankly, by a handful of individuals who are, to put it quite bluntly, old men who are in favour of Brexit. So, you’re going to get fierce denunciation from those quarters if you speak out against it, but I feel so strongly that I want to.

SG: Although even many liberals that I’ve spoken with, who are very against Brexit, they say, “Okay, well, Tony Blair is back in the game. Great, but we don’t understand his plan.” What is the mechanism by which you are actually going to accomplish pulling back from Brexit, short of a second referendum?

TB: Yeah, so that’s an absolutely correct question to ask. Here’s the thing: the problem with the Brexit vote—it was a bit like having a general election or someone running for re-election as president, where the question is: Do you like the president, not do you prefer this president to that possibility as a president? Or do you prefer this government to another alternative government?

We obviously could have no idea when we voted for Brexit what the alternative arrangements for our relationship with Europe looked like, and my point is very simple, that over time now, we will look at those and see whether they measure up to our expectations to what we were told during the referendum campaign. And more than that, I think what drove Brexit, very similar to the issues playing in your politics, were issues you can deal with better by other means.

So, the purpose of my intervention on immigration was to say, “Look, if your anxieties are about immigration, first of all, most of the immigration and actually that which the British public is most anxious about, is not from Europe.” So, Brexit is not going to answer those problems at all, and insofar as it is about immigration from within Europe—from within the European free movement space, there are ways you can deal with the problems without abandoning the whole principle, and certainly without getting out of Europe, which is going to be damaging for all sorts of other reasons.

SG: Well, you mentioned what’s going on in our politics, which is a very diplomatic way of talking about a similar kind of disruption here in the United States. So, how do you compare Brexit and Trumpism? Are they similar phenomena?

TB: Yes, absolutely similar.

SG: Have you met Donald Trump?

TB: I haven’t, but like everyone else, I’m finding it an unusual and different experience to look at the politics that’s developing here. But it’s exactly the same phenomenon. It’s people feeling marginalised; groups of voters that feel left behind; people that look upon globalisation not as an opportunity but as a threat; people worried culturally as well, about the changing nature of their society, and worried economically because there are communities that have been left behind.

So, I think the same feelings that gave rise to Brexit gave rise to the election of Donald Trump. In my view, the important thing for those of us from the progressive side of politics is not just to go in head-on opposition to all that, but to try and work out why it happened, and how we meet the anxieties of people without getting into the politics of fear.

SG: Well, that’s what happened, right? That’s the title of Hillary Clinton’s new book, and I have to say, I know you’re still in touch sometimes with Bill Clinton, with whom you had a close partnership when you were both running your respective countries. I have this image of you and Bill Clinton sitting down and saying, “What happened?” Have you compared notes?

TB: Yes. I mean, it’s obviously—private conversations should remain private, but look, I think the most fruitful thing is to try and understand those forces that have driven this powerful and quite unusual reaction against the political class; to analyse it and then try and work out, well, how do we channel these feelings into something that is more productive? Because I have a very plain view about this, that in today’s world, with these great populist currents of feeling, you can either ride the anger, or you can provide the answer.

At the moment, there are many politicians that are riding the anger. It’s those people that might have the political position to try and understand that anger, and then provide an answer. Because frankly, if you take Brexit, Brexit’s not going to solve the problems of people in the northeast of England who are unemployed and can’t find a job, and who believe their children are going to not find a job either.

Brexit is no answer to that at all. In fact, it’s probably going to make their situation worse, not better. So, in the same way, frankly, you’re not going to bring back the jobs of yesteryear. But you may—

SG: You don’t think Donald Trump is going to reopen our coal mines?

TB: I think in the end, you can do what you can in the current circumstances to help people and maybe in some way you can protect industry for a short period of time, but you’ve got to take a step back and look at the great changes that are sweeping the world. And the next generation of technological change—AI, automation, big data—this is going to revolutionise the world of work.

The sensible thing for politicians at the moment is to be working out how do we stay by people’s side, and help them through this process of change. How do we ensure that as our economies adjust, there is a fair and equal chance for people to succeed in this new world? So, this is the challenge; not trying to pretend that you can go back to 30, 40 years ago.

The world is moving so fast, if you get stuck on what I call the sort of hard shoulder of nostalgia, the world is just going to pass you by.

SG: Well, you talked about riding the anger; that that is, in a way, what Brexit is, it’s what Donald Trump is doing here. Let’s talk about the consequences of that. You’ve watched the international scene evolve, and what do you think the real consequences are for America’s reputation in the world, for it as a partner to the UK? I’ve talked with many world leaders in the last few months who are literally besides themselves. They don’t understand—is America a laughingstock now, or is it something even more threatening than that?

TB: Well, America is never a laughingstock because it’s too powerful for that. But people do want clarity and consistency, and they want to know America is going to stand by its allies, and is prepared to stand up in a coherent way to those that threaten us. And look, I think President Trump has got the opportunity, if he wishes to, to come to what I would call a somewhat more traditional view of Republican foreign policy, and so on and so forth, which then people will kind of know where they are.

But that’s really what people want. From the outside world, you can have all the fun of the sort of Trump phenomenon, and obviously, this is something—I’ve never seen anything quite like it in my political life. But the most important thing, if you’re being really serious about your politics for a moment, is to say, “What does it mean for the world?”

So, this is where I think people—they know at this moment in time, we really need America to be engaged with the world. Now, if “America First” means looking after American interests, okay, we all understand that. All countries look after their own interests. If it means a retreat from the world in any way, that would be worrying to people. If it meant protectionism, that would be worrying to people.

If it meant that those new forces that are rising in the world, and they are, and are going to create a 21st Century politics completely different from that of the 20th Century, if those new powers don’t fuel the force of America and Europe standing together around certain values, then the world becomes dangerous.

SG: So, on Trump, a few months ago, you were saying, “Wait a minute, American liberals—Democrats are a little too hysterical here,” and I think you did an interview with Alastair Campbell, your former communications director, and you said, “What is up with—I come to America and the Democrats go crazy if I suggest that—” Are you still of that mind? Or have events convinced you that they were right to be that concerned?

TB: Look, I was a Hillary person and I have known Hillary for—I don’t know, it must be 25 years, and I’m a big admirer of her. Always have been, and always will be. So, there’s no doubt where my politics lie. But it’s just—for me, because I’m an outsider, not an insider—okay, for me, as someone who’s the former Prime Minister of Britain, who’s out there in the world and seeing all these immense challenges, I just want you to succeed.

So, I can’t afford to be in a position of just treating President Trump as if he’s part of a sort of interesting comedy show. I’m looking upon him as the American president, and I’m hoping that you end up in a situation where there are good and right decisions taken. Because everything else is too important. So, whereas, for example, I would disagree very strongly with the withdrawal from the climate change agreement, and I hope, in time, by the way, you can find a way of finessing that, which I think is possible, if the president wants to.

I think in other arenas, for example, in the Middle East, I think putting greater American emphasis on that has actually been helpful. So, all I’m saying to people is, it’s too important just to go in flat-out opposition. Where it’s possible to work with someone even if you disagree with them, do it.

SG: The big debate here in the US is that is all well and good, except that it risks normalizing behaviour that by any standards is extraordinarily unusual in America.

TB: Yes, and that’s where—when things—when you disagree, you should say it. My point is just very simple, what I would say is almost plain common sense. If you disagree, disagree, but if something happens that is good, then don’t disagree with it just because of its author.

SG: I’m trying to imagine what Donald Trump’s Twitter nickname for you would be if you were in American politics. You mentioned the Middle East; you’ve been very active in the Middle East, and the negotiator for what’s called the Quartet. You met recently at the Trump White House with Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, who’s been given the brief. What did you come away with thinking about their approach? And you mentioned that you think there has been some helpfulness or some progress made by having Trump re-engage with the Middle East. What do you mean by that?

TB: What I mean is I think in the Middle East, and I’m there probably once or twice every month, so I spend a lot of time there. I think there is an extraordinary and one-off opportunity, because in a strange way, precisely because of the turmoil in the Middle East, to form a new alliance in favour of religiously tolerant societies, rule-based economies, and against the extremism and the ideology of Islamism.

And I think in relation to the peace process, there is an opportunity for this presidency, indeed for any presidency, to get an alliance between the state of Israel and the Arab nations, provided you can deal with and resolve the Palestinian issue in a fair way. But there is a greater willingness, I think, from the Arab world, to reach an agreement, and to move on, and to focus on those twin objectives: connected rule-based economies, religiously tolerant societies.

There’s a great desire there particularly with the new leadership in the Middle East than there’s ever been, so I do think there’s a big opportunity there, and I think that the White House understands that, and the question is obviously how you implement it.

SG: Is it possible while there are so many questions about what the next generation of leadership of the Palestinians will be? Do you believe that Abu Mazen has the ability, at this point, to make some kind of an arrangement like that?

TB: Well, I think that’s a very good question. I think in the end, you’re going to have to find a path to peace. I don’t think it’s just going to happen through putting the Israelis and the Palestinians around the table in some conventional peace negotiation. And I think part of the destinations along the way of that path will be an evolution in Palestinian politics, where you’ve got a Palestinian politics that is unified, but unified around a leadership that is committed to peace.

SG: So, why are leaders in the Middle East—why did they sour so much on Barack Obama?

TB: I think—look, by the way, as I know well from my own history as prime minister, the Middle East is a difficult place to do anything in, so I think we’re putting it too much to say they all soured on his leadership. I think if you’re from those Arab nations very worried about the strategic threat of Iran, then you saw the Iran nuclear deal as basically a negative.

Now, I know all the answers to that, by the way, but that is how they would perceive it. Likewise, if you’re the Prime Minister of Israel. I think, though, more profoundly, not so much around President Obama’s policy or politics, and I have a huge respect for him, by the way, and what he did, but more I think to do with what is the fundamental question you have to ask about the Middle East, which is what is the source of the problem?

And I think there is a developing consensus in the Middle East, which I personally share, that the root of the problem is this politicization of religion, and of the religion of Islam. And that really, it’s not, as it’s sometimes portrayed, about a struggle between the Iranians and the Saudis, or Shia and Sunni; it’s not really about that, or the Middle East peace process, and the Palestinian issue.

It’s actually a profound cultural question, which is are those societies going to reach for an open-minded approach to religion, and to culture, and to faith? Or are they going to go into a politicization of their religion, which then is turned into an ideology that becomes totalitarian? Now, that is the essential divide, in my view, in the Middle East, and on that side of the divide, I’m clearly, obviously with the open-minded people. And I think it’s incredibly important the West understands that that’s what at stake, because, by the way, this will—the outcome of that struggle will dramatically affect our security, for sure.

SG: Well, you’re already seeing how much Europe is affected by the unravelling of Syria and other parts of the Middle East. But what do you think about the Iran deal? President Trump is clearly signalling in every way possible that he is not committed to it, that he’s looking for a way out. Lots of people saying that’s not really feasible. It seems to be headed towards another decision point in October. What’s your view of what the consequences of an American withdrawal from the Iran deal would be?

TB: I think my view would be, despite all the hesitations over the deal, it would be to keep it, but enforce it strictly. And then to push back against the power of Iran elsewhere in the region, which is the real issue. I mean, the nuclear question is important, in respect to Iran, but for those of out in the Middle East the whole time, the real issue is the destabilising policies of Iran, right across the region, whether it’s their attempt to take over control in Iraq, or it’s what they’re doing in Syria, or in Lebanon, or down in Yemen.

Or what they’re trying to do through various proxies, to the stability of those Arab nations. And so, you’ve got the nuclear deal on the one side, and as I say, I think given the history, the sensible thing is to keep it and enforce it. But what I would want to see is a very active U.S. and European push to say to the Iranians, “What you’re doing, and trying to export, this sheer Islamism across the Middle East, is wrong and it’s something we’re going to resist.”

SG: A lot of people, I’m sure, probably get riled up still to hear you commenting on the Middle East, and to those who believe that Iran is really the winner of the last decade of politics in the Middle East as a result of the invasion of Iraq, I’m sure you’ve thought very deeply on this subject.

TB: For sure.

SG: What is your view of that?

TB: My view of that is you can argue about the rights and wrongs of what happened in 2003, but you know, the answer to the power of Iran is not Saddam Hussein. That was the answer we tried, by the way. That’s why we armed him and supported him in the 1980s; the result was an eight-year war with a million casualties and the birth of the Iranian nuclear program.

So, I think you can argue about the history of this, and obviously I have one view, other people have another view. For me, the most important thing is to understand now—if you look at Syria, you look at Iraq. There’s only one prime minister who’s turning up to the UN this week.

SG: The Prime Minister of Iraq.

TB: And talking to world leaders as the recognised legitimate prime minister; recognised as legitimate, by the way, by the Saudis and by the Iranians. So, my view has always been if the Arab spring had begun in 2011, and you’d still had Saddam there, you would have had a huge problem. But you know, you can’t—there’s no point in trying to relitigate this, because people obviously have strong other points of view, and also, who knows what should have happened.

SG: And nonetheless, people want to relitigate it. It was interesting to see when I asked for questions from the Twitter audience, about what we should talk about in our meeting today, many of them were very thoughtful questions—we covered them—but at least half were about this deal. And this is from an American—primarily—audience. Why do you think the invasion of Iraq continues to occupy such a polarising role in the politics, both here in the United States—Donald Trump brings it up all the time, by the way. And of course, in the UK Why is it still stuck in people’s craws?

TB: Because it was a hugely contested decision, and because the intelligence turned out to be, in many cases, faulty, and obviously that’s a huge issue for people. But it’s also because I think it raises in a very profound way, what is the answer to the problems of the Middle East? And some people say, “Well, the problems of the Middle East all stem from—you wouldn’t have this extremism but for the invasion of Iraq.” You have to go back to people and say, “9/11 happened before any of these things.” And in the end, in my view, it’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what’s been happening over half a century, which is the build up of this, as I say, this idea that the religion of Islam should be turned into a political ideology.

And this is—but this is so contested, I think in time, by the way, and I can see this beginning to happen, particularly as the result of Syria, where people can see also the costs of non-intervention. I think people are coming to a more measured analysis, but I think this debate will continue until the history of the Middle East settles.

SG: So, you’re never going to be able to get beyond it. I imagine you can’t go anywhere without being asked about it.

TB: No, and I’m perfectly happy to be asked about it, because it’s something I think about a lot, and all I ever say to people about it is, “Whatever else you do understand, that I took the decisions I took on the evidence available at the time, and I took them in good faith.” And there is a—we’ve tried three forms of intervention in the Middle East; we’ve tried full-on intervention in Iraq, we’ve tried semi-intervention in Libya, and we tried non-intervention or very limited intervention in Syria. All of them are difficult.

SG: Does it liberate you, though, in a way, to speak out? You’re speaking out now about British politics and the consequences of the Brexit. You’re no longer worrying about your standing in the popularity polls.

TB: Yeah, one should never exaggerate this, by the way. I mean, I did win three elections in the UK I’ll use them.

SG: Of course.

TB: But part of the trouble when you’re in my position is the way the media has changed, because in the UK—I don’t know whether it’s true here, but in the UK, you’ve got a group of right-wing newspapers that are profoundly hostile to that modern, progressive politics that I represented, because basically, it put the Tories out of power. And then you’ve got a left group that really believe, obviously, support Jeremy Corbyn now in the Labour Party very, very strongly.

SG: Right, it’s really moved to the extremes.

TB: And there isn’t really a constituency in the media in the middle. So, it’s—but there is a constituency in the country.

SG: Well, that’s my question about politics, both in the UK, and more broadly, Europe and the United States. Is the centre dead? Richard Nixon used to talk about the “silent majority,” and in a way, he meant a different kind of silent majority, but a lot of people are asking that, and that was the number one question people wanted me to ask you. What happened to the centre?

TB: We became complacent; we became the managers of the status quo, not the change makers, and we’ve got to renew the centre. And part of what my institute is doing now in our work in the UK but we also want to build alliances and interactions in America and the rest of Europe, to say, “What is the policy agenda that is going to rekindle the politics of hope, and show people there are ways of dealing with the problems we face that remain true to our values, but make sense in the modern world?”

And I think the centre can be renewed, the victory of Macron in France in many ways shows that. But we’ve got to renew it, in the US, and in the UK, because if we don’t, our politics carries on being profoundly polarised. It’s going to do immense damage to our countries.

SG: Do you see the Democratic Party here and the Labour Party in the U.K. as being able to do that, at this point? Or will it be a new vehicle?

TB: You know, they’re both—I mean, look. I think when people talk about new parties, there are enormous headwinds to establishing something new. But I think for the Democratic Party and for the Labour Party, the choice is very, very simple: you can go to a kind of mixture of what I would call identity politics. You know what I mean by that? In other words, you sort of just line up all the different minority groupings, and then you say, “Right, now we’ve got a majority to govern.”

And you can go for what are very good-sounding things like, we’re going to abolish tuition fees, or we’re going to give you this for free, or that for free. Okay, so that’s one way you can go, and definitely, in today’s world, and in particular, in the absence of a vigorous change-making centre, that’s very attractive. But I don’t think it’s answer, and I’m not sure it would win an election.

Maybe it would, but even if it did, it would worry me. Because in the end, I think a lot of these solutions aren’t really progressive. And they don’t correspond to what the problem of the modern world is, which is the problem of accelerating change. And so, the solutions that kind of look back to the ‘60s or ‘70s, they get a round of applause, but I just don’t believe if you—

SG: You’re not a Bernie Sanders liberal.

TB: Look, I admire what he has done, and actually, even though I disagree with Jeremy Corbyn a lot in the UK, I have an admiration for their ability to generate that enthusiasm, particularly among young people.

SG: Sure, but neither one of them really sort of projects the future, right, when you’re looking to a sort of angry grandpa mode.

TB: Right, that’s my worry. What they’re—it’s a populism of the left in the same way that the populism of the right doesn’t really provide an answer. I think that populism of the left doesn’t really provide an answer, either. And the question that I—the things that I would be looking at, if I was back in government today, is the relationship—what are you going to do about the communities left behind?

So, education becomes of fundamental importance; infrastructure; tax reform; making sure your welfare systems are properly up to date and correspond with the way that people live their lives, and dealing particularly I think with very specific measures for that small but very ingrained part of the population that just gets left behind, generation after generation. And then I’d put an enormous focus on technology.

Technology is changing the way we live and we work and we think. It’s going to transform the world, and yet I think there is an alarming sort of disconnect between the world of public policy-making, and the world of technology, which is—

SG: That’s right. Silicon Valley is its own planet.

TB: Right, and I’ve said to this a lot to the people in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. “You guys are really—you’re making a big mistake in the way you’re approaching this, because you keep thinking because you’re in jeans and a t-shirt and sneakers, people think, oh, well, that’s cool.” No, today, you’re big, big powerful corporations; you exercise an enormous amount of power over people’s lives.

You’re going to change the way the world is. You’ve got to start talking to the people in the public policy sphere, and those in the public policy sphere have got to be in a position where we can help people through the technological change that could affect them adversely, but then utilise the immense benefits of technology, in healthcare, in education, in the way government works, in order to change the way that we run our societies.

And this is—could be an enormously powerful agenda, but it’s basically not part of the political agenda. Certainly, in the UK, no one really talks about this. And I sort of say, “Well, this is ridiculous. We’re living through the industrial revolution, probably the most important since the 19th century, and yet we’re not really—we’re not engaged with it.”

SG: Well, that’s right. It’s part of the backlash. I think that’s why people are eager to hear from you, and thinking back to the third way, and in a way, the partnership that you and Bill Clinton established at a similar moment of disruptive change in the late 1980s. So, are you going to team back up and—what comes after the third way?

TB: The third way—it was a concept, and I think like any of these things, it has relevance provided it’s not rooted in the policies for a particular era. So, your values are constant, but your application of them should be ever changing. And I would have a different view of government today than I did 20 years ago. I’d probably want a much more active and strategic government than then. Then, we were living in more liberal times, I think, in the economic sense.

I think today you—people really need to feel that there is someone on their side strong enough to take on vested interests, and clear enough in their understanding of the future to be able to guide them through it, and help them through it.

SG: Okay, so if you were doing things differently, you’d have to deal with Twitter, if you were the prime minister of the UK right now. What would you tweet at Donald Trump, if you were tweeting at him?

TB: I wouldn’t be tweeting.

SG: Even if you were prime minister, you wouldn’t use it as a tool?

TB: No, I think—look, one of the things that’s really important in this is to understand the—

SG: It’s certainly a good mental health policy.

TB: Well, the thing is this: it’s—what you learn about politics, particularly when you come to power after a sort of great election victory. Maybe it’s as mine was, a big landslide victory; his is an unexpected victory, right? So, there’s a mode of operating which is the campaign, and then once you win, you have to begin this process of graduation from campaigner to chief executive.

That’s what you are as—of a country. Okay, you should give leadership and vision and so on, but you’re also the chief executive of the country, making the decisions. I think it’s really important you make that switch, and the things that served you well as a candidate and campaigner don’t necessarily transfer to being chief executive.

So, for me, you know, look, it’s entirely up to the president. He likes his tweeting, and there it is. But personally, for me, I wouldn’t be tweeting at all.

SG: Well, you mentioned, and I know we—this is a good note to end on, because I’ll get in big trouble if I don’t ask you something about the British royalty. Your own transition from campaigning to governing came exactly 20 years ago, with the death of Princess Diana, in many ways, was at the very beginning of your prime ministership. I recently re-watched that excellent movie “The Queen,” which I learned in Maureen Dowd, you’ve never watched. It really is a very, very favourable portrayal of you, but the movie that portrays your effort to persuade Queen Elizabeth, very delicate diplomacy, to be a little bit more forthcoming and sharing in the national grief over Princess Diana’s death. How does that look to you, two decades on? Was that a key moment in your political career?

TB: Well, it was a key moment, because obviously her death was such a trauma for the country, and it was a global event of massive significance. So, in that sense, it was obviously momentous, even though it fitted into a completely different character from the normal decision-making of government.

And you know, I think it was a moment when I thought it was important that the country stay together, and that it united around the Queen, and for all that’s made of my so-called persuasion of Queen Elizabeth, actually she worked it out herself as to what she needed to do, and that’s one of the reasons why she’s been such a successful monarch. Because she has an extraordinary sensitivity to the wishes of her people.

But it was a difficult situation. They were grieving their loss, she had to look after her grandchildren, who were at a very delicate stage of their development, and then she had to respond to the grief of the nation. Now, it took a little time to adjust to it, but she did adjust, and when she did adjust, she adjusted magnificently.

SG: A note to end it on. Prime Minister Tony Blair, we’re incredibly grateful to have you as our guest this week on The Global POLITICO, and of course, we’re grateful to our audience. You can listen to us on iTunes, or your favourite podcast platform, and email me any time at sglasser@politico.com. Prime Minister Tony Blair, thank you so much.

TB: Thank you.