Tony Blair warns of dangerous times ahead for Western democracies
Former UK prime minister Tony Blair has warned that political upheavals in the West, including Britain’s vote to leave the European Union in June and the election of Donald Trump as president of the US, as well as the collapse of the Italian government on Sunday, signals the most dangerous time for Western democracies in decades.
"It does feel perilous, actually, because I think there are decisions that are being taken of vast moment in circumstances where systems are fragile, and that is troubling," he told the USA Today newspaper on Monday during a trip to Washington.
Of particular concern to the former UK premier is a "longing" for an authoritarian leader among people in the US and some European nations.
Blair was in Washington to address a conference sponsored by No Labels, a bipartisan and centrist American political organization.
In his speech to the No Labels conference, he criticized some centrist political leaders for failing to do enough to improve the economic prospects for workers disrupted by globalization.
"There is immense amount of anger at established ways of doing things," Blair told the conference. "There is, I think, a whole group of people who feel ignored by those in power, that is for sure true. There is more anger around in politics than for a long time."
“What is new and what is very, very troubling to me is that if you look at the analysis that has just been done of support for democracy in democratic countries, some of these figures are to me quite shocking,” Blair added.
Blair was just 54 years old when he moved out of 10 Downing Street after serving a decade as prime minister from 1997 to 2007.
Since leaving office, Blair has largely remained disengaged in British politics because of his controversial instigation of the country’s involvement in the US-led war in Iraq.
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