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Why would a ‘Thatcherite Guerrilla’ run a Blair for EU President campaign?

November 27, 2012 6:01 pm

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Tomorrow Tony Blair is making a major speech on Europe, which I’ll be attending. Ahead of the speech, I received a press release entitled “Blair for EU President campaign starts tomorrow: Join us!”. According to the press release,

Tomorrow (November 28) Tony Blair will kick-start his campaign to become the EU’s president. We will be there to support him between 9-9.30am…Members of the London office of the Blair for President Preparatory Committee will be waiting to greet Tony with colourful campaign posters carrying the slogan: Tony Blair for EU President – Integrity in Action
Now this lot sound like an interesting bunch so I went to the website that their press release linked to – which gives the address of the “UK Preparatory Committee Blair for President” as 72 Hammersmith Road, London W14 8TH. Their phone number is given as 02034275621. Those are the same contact details as “Democracy Movement” an organisation which describes itself as:
Britain’s largest non-party pressure group campaigning against the ever-further centralisation of political decision-making in undemocratic EU institutions.
They’ve also held at least one joint event with The Bruges Group, who describe themselves as “A neoliberal think tank which researches and publishes against European federation and against British participation in a single European state.” Sound like Blair fans to you? Or a group that would want any EU President? No, it rather sounds like a bunch of rightwingers running a false flag operation to me.
The contact name given for “Tony Blair for EU President” is “Marc Henri”. Presumably this is a typo, and the person putting themselves forward as a supposed Blair cheerleader is in fact Marc Henri Glendenning - the Campaign Director of the Democracy Movement, a former Chairman of the Federation of Conservative Students and a speaker at the 2008 Libertarian Alliance Conference. The Daily Mail once described him as one of a number of ‘Thatcherite guerrillas’.
He also works part-time (and unpaid I’m told) as the political director of the People’s Pledge - the campaign for an EU referendum.
If you’re a Libertarian trying to set up a fake campaign for Tony Blair’s candidacy for EU President, at least make it look convincing, and take more than five minutes to spot…However if Mr Glendenning has in fact experienced a damascene conversion to Europe and Tony Blair, we welcome our latest comrade with open arms…

Update: The People’s Pledge contacted us with the following statement:

“Marc has set up, in his own time, what is clearly a spoof campaign, to highlight the importance of the EU presidency. The Democracy Movement has a long history of spoof campaigns to highlight certain issues on which they campaign.”

Take a look at the website for yourself and see if you think it’s clearly a spoof…

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  • M.M

    So it turns out Tony Blair is a neo-Liberal Tory, who would have thought it?

  • Hugh

    Yes, take a look at the website to see if it’s clearly a spoof – only start with website’s home page, rather than the contact page linked to in the post: http://blairforpresident.eu/why-tony/

    “Tony Blair is the man who has strived for peace to the middle east, who achieved regime change in Iraq and Afghanistan, who turned around the British economy during his period as the UK’s prime minister, and who ended child poverty: Now Tony Blair can be Europa’s very own agent of change.

    Let us also never forget that is was Tony Blair who had the courage, shortly before stepping down as UK prime minister, to return £1 billion of the British ‘rebate’ to the peoples of Europe. He has created a pathway for the rest of the £3.6 billion ‘rebate’ to
    eventually be handed back so that a growth agenda can now be pursued in Poland and other developing member states in the interests of the children of Europa.”

    How would one ever guess it was a spoof, eh?

  • Hugh

    Yes, take a look at the website to see if it’s clearly a spoof – only start with website’s home page, rather than the contact page linked to in the post: http://blairforpresident.eu/why-tony/

    “Tony Blair is the man who has strived for peace to the middle east, who achieved regime change in Iraq and Afghanistan, who turned around the British economy during his period as the UK’s prime minister, and who ended child poverty: Now Tony Blair can be Europa’s very own agent of change.

    Let us also never forget that is was Tony Blair who had the courage, shortly before stepping down as UK prime minister, to return £1 billion of the British ‘rebate’ to the peoples of Europe. He has created a pathway for the rest of the £3.6 billion ‘rebate’ to
    eventually be handed back so that a growth agenda can now be pursued in Poland and other developing member states in the interests of the children of Europa.”

    How would one ever guess it was a spoof, eh?

  • Hugh

    Yes, take a look at the website to see if it’s clearly a spoof – only start with website’s home page, rather than the contact page linked to in the post: http://blairforpresident.eu/why-tony/

    “Tony Blair is the man who has strived for peace to the middle east, who achieved regime change in Iraq and Afghanistan, who turned around the British economy during his period as the UK’s prime minister, and who ended child poverty: Now Tony Blair can be Europa’s very own agent of change.

    Let us also never forget that is was Tony Blair who had the courage, shortly before stepping down as UK prime minister, to return £1 billion of the British ‘rebate’ to the peoples of Europe. He has created a pathway for the rest of the £3.6 billion ‘rebate’ to
    eventually be handed back so that a growth agenda can now be pursued in Poland and other developing member states in the interests of the children of Europa.”

    How would one ever guess it was a spoof, eh?

  • Hertsmere_Pubgoer

    Using the word ‘integrity’ is a dead giveaway.

  • Plato

    *Guerriila* I can hear Angela Rippon just typing that

  • Plato

    *Guerriila* I can hear Angela Rippon just typing that

  • Plato

    *Guerriila* I can hear Angela Rippon just typing that

  • Pingback: Is the Coalition project a Soviet-style rewriting of Blair’s recent history? » 21stCenturyFix.org.uk

  • Cari_esky

    I don’t understand these neo liberal people. Surely they want no borders, no barriers and a bigger market to do their business. Yet they want to set up more barriers, more rules which would come about if we pulled out.
    The USA became prosperous because it has a federalised open border state, It has access to a large population to do commerce and business. If each state of The USA was a separate country then the land over the pond would not have been as powerful and wealthy as it has been.

    • LordElpus

      The USA is one country with one language, one currency, one financial system, one government etc. The USA wasn’t a fully fledged amalgamation of numerous states with centuries of history behind it when it formed as we know it.

  • http://twitter.com/StuartOReilly Stuart O’Reilly

    Yes, I do think you’ve rather missed the point here. It is quite obviously a spoof…

  • Daniel Speight

    In a way it’s interesting having Thatcher(ite) and Blair in the same article. Both have reputations that suffer from a very similar toxicity in that large sections of public despise them. Probably there is difference in the make-up of these people based on age, but I suspect there is a fairly large crossover. In fact I would guess there’s a majority of those that hate Thatcher have very similar feelings towards Blair. I wonder why?

  • Daniel Speight

    In a way it’s interesting having Thatcher(ite) and Blair in the same article. Both have reputations that suffer from a very similar toxicity in that large sections of public despise them. Probably there is difference in the make-up of these people based on age, but I suspect there is a fairly large crossover. In fact I would guess there’s a majority of those that hate Thatcher have very similar feelings towards Blair. I wonder why?

  • Daniel Speight

    In a way it’s interesting having Thatcher(ite) and Blair in the same article. Both have reputations that suffer from a very similar toxicity in that large sections of public despise them. Probably there is difference in the make-up of these people based on age, but I suspect there is a fairly large crossover. In fact I would guess there’s a majority of those that hate Thatcher have very similar feelings towards Blair. I wonder why?

  • http://twitter.com/wj557 wj

    A good idea – Blair will fit in well in Brussels.

  • AlanGiles

    I assume the “campaign” is a macabre spoof. I hope it is, and I certainly hope that this power hungry “peace” envoying, faith foundationing, effette, ultra-expensive after-dinner speaker is never given a position of power again. Ten to one if he gets the job, there will be a nice billet for Mandy in it as well….

  • Serbitar

    This article should have remained on the back burner until April 1, 2013.

    • AlanGiles

      I honestly believe that if Blair ever does get this job, it will be the greatest gift that could be given to UKIP. I think Labour and the Tories really would have something to worry about in that event.

      • Chilbaldi

        Not everyone hates Blair to the same degree that you do, Alan.

        • AlanGiles

          Please, I have said to the point of repletion I do NOT “hate” Blair. I don’t hate anybody. There are people I do not trust or respect and he happens to be one of them. For balance, Duncan-Smith is another.

          I am not the only person, in Labour, or ex-Labour or the country in general who has very negative views of this vain and profligate man, of dubious personal integrity.

          I genuinely believe that the dislikers probably outweigh the fans – in short for every one person who thinks he was the greatest leader this country ever had there are probably two who think he is a ratbag. Like Daniel said, he is very much on a par with Mrs Thatcher. Like or loathe – very few people are indifferent.

          I certainly believe that if he was EU President even more people would wish the UK to withdraw, and as I said, his election would be the gift to UKIP that kept on giving.

  • Pingback: Why would a ‘Thatcherite Guerrilla’ run a Blair for EU President campaign? | digger666

  • http://about.me/natepbarker Nate Barker

    *clearly* a spoof. The comments about Blair’s rebate renegotiation give that away. You even say that it’s unconvincing and it only took you about five minutes to link it to the Democracy Movement. Can’t complain that it’s obviously not a serious campaign and at the same time it’s not obvious it’s a spoof…

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