Tony Blair creates body to tackle Brexit… and names it after himself

TONY Blair has announced he will create a new policy institute to focus on Brexit and Europe.

The former Prime Minister laid out plans for his new organisation today, but again ruled out a return to frontline politics despite weeks of speculation that he was staging a comeback.

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Mr Blair said he would create a "platform designed to build a new policy agenda for the centre ground" with networks to link people together.

He said it would be called the Tony Blair Institute and would help to develop practical solutions to the "explosion" of populist politics across Europe including Brexit.

He said: "In the past six months we have seen political earthquakes in the UK with Brexit and in the American election, as well as an explosion in populist movements all over the European continent."

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Mr Blair said it would allow "reasonable, evidence-based discussion of the future which avoids the plague of social media-led exchanges of abuse".

The former PM said the group was not a think tank, but a "platform to inform and support the practising politician".

"It is what I know I would want were I still in the frontline of politics," he said.

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Since he left office in 2007 after winning three general elections, Mr Blair has mainly focused on his work in the Middle East and Africa.

But now the commercial side of his other operations has been shut down, and the money will be used to fund the new institute.

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But he denied that the platform would be a springboard for him to return to politics.

"This is not about my returning to the front line of politics. I have made it abundantly clear that this is not possible," he said, expanding on an interview he gave last week where he said that there was too much hostility against him for a return.

"However, I care about my country and the world my children and grandchildren will grow up in; and want to play at least a small part in contributing to the debate about the future of both," Mr Blair added.

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Yesterday MPs rejected calls for further investigation into his plans to go to war in Iraq after Labour MPs stuck up to defend his record.

And last week he came under fire for saying that Brexit could be halted if the public changed their minds about leaving the EU.

In an interview with the New Statesman he said that "if the pain-gain cost-benefit analysis" did not "stack up" then leaving the EU may not happen.