Blair insists UK can avoid Brexit if public opinion shifts

Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has insisted that Britain could remain a European Union member state, despite the referendum result in favour of a Brexit, if public opinion shifts in the next few years.

Speaking to French radio station Europe 1, Blair said that the British people “have the right” to change their minds on the results on the June referendum, and that Remain supporters would keep on warning citizens about the “costs and consequences” of Brexit.

He acknowledged that a decision to remain in the EU did not currently look ”probable”.  However, he said that negative economic consequences, such as the fall in the value of the sterling, damage to the financial services industry and car manufacturing and a reduction in foreign investment in the UK, could sway public opinion.

“Who made a rule that we have to stop the debate now?” he asked.

He also said it was difficult to know what Brexit actually meant before the terms of exiting the EU had been negotiated with the other EU member states.

“We have done something rather bizarre with Brexit,” he said. “It’s like moving house without having seen the new house. We have made an agreement to exchange, but we don’t yet know the terms of Brexit, we don’t know the costs and the consequnces.

“There will come a moment when we have had the negotiations and we can see the terms we are being offered by the rest of Europe and we will be able to say that it is a good idea or perhaps that it is a bad idea with major consequences.”

Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage has hit out at Blair’s statement, describing them as “disgraceful comments from a discredited former prime minister”.