Tony Blair is the most successful leader of the Labour Party in history, so why is he hated? As Labour leader, he won 3 elections and was Prime Minister for 10 years. His victory in the 1997 General Election was viewed as an historic change for the country, and millions of people were genuinely excited to see what policies he would implement.
The manifesto Mr Blair won on was hugely popular, and it was delivered. There was drastic reform to the NHS, Education, and policies such as reforming the House of Lords and the introduction of a minimum wage were genuinely exciting. This man had reformed and modernised the Labour Party, shifting it to the centre ground of politics, and it clear paid off!
So where did it all go wrong?? Very simply, Iraq. After the horrific 911 attacks in the USA, their President George W Bush obviously wanted to respond. This led to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 to try and crush the regime of Saddam Hussein. Mr Blair decided to jump in and help, which was a terrible idea. In hindsight we now know that the motives for the invasion (stopping Iraq’s nuclear weapon programme) were completely false.
However, as Mr Blair announced the invasion in 2003, the largest protest in the UK to date took place, with over 500,000 people marching to protest against this decision. BUT many people forget that Tony Blair won another General Election in 2005 AFTER the decision to go to war.
Nevertheless, that decision was catastrophic and has dominated his legacy. Even so, Mr Blair has recently decided that one EU vote wasn’t good enough, as he clearly knows nothing about democracy. This has all but confirmed that he is truly despised by the British public. So much so, that Labour party members dare mention him when raising a point, and their current leader Jeremy Corbyn was a well-known critic of Tony Blair.
To conclude, does Tony Blair deserve to be the most hated man in Britain…..YES YES YES!
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