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| Britain | ||
| Blair was ’set to quit’ over Iraq | ||
| 2003-04-18 | ||
| Tony Blair has claimed he was ready to quit Number 10 if the Commons vote on war with Iraq had gone against him. The prime minister said he had told his officials to be prepared in case he had to resign. He had even sat down to tell his children the vote would be "very difficult" and he feared he might be finished. In an interview with the Sun newspaper Mr Blair said he kept going despite "extraordinary" opposition to the war because he believed armed conflict was the only option. The prime minister said his wife Cherie and his three elder children had been an immense support as had the attitude of people in the armed forces. Mr Blair said: "There were so many people against something that seemed to me in principle so obviously right. "I found it very frustrating and... extraordinary." You weren't the only one, Tony. How's work on the contagious stupidity vaccine coming on? Mr Blair added he had been "very upset" by the UN's failure to back a second resolution authorising military action. But he praised his Spanish counterpart, Jose Maria Aznar, for backing Britain and the US although just 4% of Spaniards supported the war. "That's even less than the number who think Elvis Presley is still alive," Mr Blair reportedly told him. The prime minister also said Labour MP George Galloway, who urged British soldiers not to fight, would be dealt with by the party's National Executive Committee. "His comments were disgraceful," said Mr Blair.
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| Posted by:Bulldog |
| #9 A suprising number of men used to phanticise about Mrs T. 'It takes all sorts!' as my mother used to say! |
| Posted by: Phil B 2003-04-19 01:42:19 |
| #8 the EU's trade rules are unfairly harsh IMHO. I mean: they only allow straight cucumbers of standard dimensions and they all come wrapped in plastic. Too many regulations, no freedom. Yet, understandably, Britain does not want to fall between two stools. |
| Posted by: anon1 2003-04-18 20:16:42 |
| #7 Phil B, that is an excellent analysis of the situation. As someone who lives in Britain, I can tell you that the anti-Europe feeling here is on the rise. The EU was originally called the 'Common Market' and was about trade. We certainly didn't sign up to have our sovereignty leeched away by non-elected officials. There is an excellent article in The Spectator about this issue. http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old§ion=current&issue=2003-04-19&id=3005 Here in Blighty, we have a few serious decisions to make. Whether to give away the last of our sovereignty, our currency and, perhaps even decisions over the defence of the realm to a Franco-German vision of a super European state that is in essence a chimera. My worry is that Blair (he is an internationalist and Europhile) may use his own increased popularity from the war to force an early vote on the Euro, and will try to reform the EU 'from the inside'. |
| Posted by: Tony 2003-04-18 18:52:58 |
| #6 Thanks for the insight Phil. As an aside....I have the Union Jack flying at my crib as well as the Stars & Stripes. Additionally, My fiance wants to dump me for Tony...if only Thatcher was still running the place...we'll I just don't think I could do that... |
| Posted by: Porps 2003-04-18 18:29:08 |
| #5 I thought I read in the blogosphere that the Senate passed TAFTA - Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Agreement. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-04-18 18:12:40 |
| #4 I am baffled that the UK would want to put itself in the position of playing second fiddle to a corrupt, socialist Axis of Expediency led by France, Germany and- God help us all- Belgium. Why? Why?? As Brit who has lived outside of the UK for a long time, maybe I can shed some light on this. And its an important question! Back in the late fifties and early sixties the UK was getting rid of its empire and looking for its future role. At the time the USA/UK relationship was at a low point in the aftermath of the Suez debacle and general lack of concern by the USA. By the late sixties the EU was seen as the only game in town for the UK. All that was required was to overcome - guess what! - French obstructionism. At the time the USA was pre-occupied by Vietnam and saw a united Western Europe as a bulwark against the Soviet Union. Also Kennedy and then Johnson didn't view the USA/UK alliance as particularly important. Had Margaret Thatcher and George Bush senior come along 10 or 15 years earlier, it is easy to imagine a different outcome, and many at the time (myself included) felt Britain should have stayed out of the EU and cultivated closer ties with what is now being called the Anglosphere. The reality was that the USA wasn't interested. Thirty years later the EU has grown to include the Scandinavians, Spain, Portugal and now the Eastern European states. The EU now has its own significant momentum and may well end up somewhere quite different from what the French/Germans want, but undoing the EU's history will be hard and take a long time. I hope the Iraq war will be a watershed away from UN/EU multi-lateralism and towards a more Anglophone view of how the world should be run, i.e. cooperating sovereign states rather than supra-national authorities like the UN and the EU. The USA as the most powerful single state in the world as well the most powerful anglophone country needs to take the lead. Offering the UK (and possibly a few others like Australia, Spain and Poland) membership of NAFTA (or NAFTA type deals) on the table would hugely increase the UK's leverage within the EU. Much of EU's, and therefore Franco-German, power stems from the view that a European super-state is inevitable. The solution is to make it just one of several options available to sovereign states. The EU is not going to go away and, at least in the short term, the UK is not going to leave. What is needed is to break the Franco-German dominance. Step 1 is to throw France out of NATO. Step 2 is to remove France as a veto wielding member of the UNSC. The Iraq war was just an extension of what has been ongoing since the fall of the Soviet Union. The fear of nuclear armagedon kept the world in stasis for 40 years. Now that is over, the world is starting to fix all the other problems that were previously seen as not important enough to disturb the over-riding concerns of the cold war. The USA is taking the lead and offering others the opportunity to come along, and by implication be left behind if they don't. Now the USA has shown it is prepared to act decively, I think we will be pleasantly suprised by those who are willing to follow the USA's lead. |
| Posted by: Phil B 2003-04-18 18:02:23 |
| #3 I am baffled that the UK would want to put itself in the position of playing second fiddle to a corrupt, socialist Axis of Expediency led by France, Germany and- God help us all- Belgium. Why? Why?? WHY???????? Great Britain is still great. Keep it that way. |
| Posted by: Dave D. 2003-04-18 13:07:39 |
| #2 That is the same thought that has been rolling around my head the last few days, B-A-R. The UK is at a crossroads, and as a Yank with my own preferences, I would not like to see the UK selling out its sovereignty to a socialist superstate with little accountability with its people. I hope that Blair really thinks this through before he commits his country to this one-way ride. Maybe Bulldog Will can shed some light on this situation... |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2003-04-18 13:00:45 |
| #1 Now if he could only get over his EU and UN fetish..... |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2003-04-18 10:50:27 |