A historic negotiating success, to be claimed and defended despite the repercussions of Brexit, and capable of representing both a source of lessons "for the Palestinians" and a model of solution for other crises affecting the world today: but not for the war in Ukraine, at least until "Russia's aggression" is repulsed.
Word of
Tony Blair,
interviewed by ANSA and the other three major continental European news agencies (Afp, Dpa and Efe) in view of the imminent 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, the peace agreement which on Good Friday of 1998 put an end to the bloody season of the Troubles between Catholic nationalists and Protestant unionists in Northern Ireland;
An agreement that Sir Tony pins to his chest as "the most indisputable legacy" of his political and government legacy.
However, without hiding the unknowns of today, in an exclusive all-round interview.
Speaking of the 25th anniversary, Blair admits that the Good Friday Agreement may be subject to "changes in a changing reality" in Northern Ireland, both in the balance of power between unionists and republicans, as well as in the "in some respects positive" rise of forces interfaith parties such as the "Alliance Party".
But he points to the post-Brexit
"the most immediate challenge to be faced":
praising the recent Windsor agreement between the Tory premier Rishi Sunak and Ursula von der Leyen for the revision of the Northern Irish protocol as a "beginning" of solving some of the problems current;
and provided that it is "sensibly applied".
However, the negative judgment on the separation from the EU remains, from whose overall consequences "one cannot escape".
And which, in his words, is now the prime cause of relaunching the debate on the reunification of Ireland itself.
The former premier's prediction is that "in the end, Northern Ireland will remain in the United Kingdom",
but only if the problems related to the need to keep Belfast linked to the single European market, and the border with Dublin open, will be resolved under the banner of "stability" and the recomposition of a local government: as "convenient" in the first place interests of the recalcitrant unionists of the Dup.
On the subject of the impact of Brexit on the whole Kingdom, Tony Blair, a supporter of a second referendum at the time, recognizes on the other hand how this hypothesis, in spite of the increasingly evident "disadvantages" of divorce in this phase, is not more topical at the moment.
"The debate on whether and how the United Kingdom can possibly re-join the EU will be for a future generation", he cuts short, instead saying he agrees with the
The question of the "technological revolution" is, according to him, also vital for the future of European progressive forces.
Asked to give an opinion on the election of Elly Schlein at the top of the Italian Democratic Party, he takes refuge behind a no comment, saying he "hasn't done it yet".
In any case, his suggestion remains that of
"accepting the changing reality" and of choosing the path of pragmatism
in defending the historical values of the left.
Values that can no longer be based, he insists, on public "taxes and spending";
that they must combine reference to the role of the state where it serves a robust private economy;
that they do not refuse migrants but neither do they "immigrate control".
Under penalty of suffering competition from "centre" formations such as the one that, for example, "my friend Matteo" Renzi is promoting in Italy.
In a context in which, on the other hand, priority goes to the major global geopolitical clashes underway.
In this regard, Sir Tony shows no hesitation about the position
to take on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
A conflict with respect to which, he ruled, the Northern Irish peace cannot be a model since in Ulster "politically reasonable positions" were opposed, even if they were also carried out with weapons such as "violence and terrorism";
while "there is no reasonable justification whatsoever in invading an independent and sovereign country that gave no problems to anyone".
Hence the refusal of any negotiation with Vladimir Putin - of whom Blair was also one of the first privileged Western interlocutors in past years - "until the aggression" is stopped and Moscow is in a position not to be able to try again to he makes threats against Kiev or other smaller eastern nations in the name of "a frankly bizarre concept" of rediscovering "imperialism in the 21st century".
Condemnation without appeal from which
the former New Labor leader
does not withdraw even when asked if he does not acknowledge at least in retrospect that he contributed to providing "an apology" to the Kremlin with the Iraq war that began just 20 years alongside the US without UN mandate and on the basis of justifications that proved to be unfounded.
"Had Putin not used this excuse - his response - he would have come up with another; and, even if we were completely opposed to the ousting of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the argument loses weight in the face of the idea that it is equivalent to removing a dictator bloodthirsty who had brutalized its people and unleashed two regional wars and attack a country led by a democratically elected president who, as far as I know, has never attacked any neighbors".
