Ex-UK PM Blair hints at possible return to frontline politics

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair today hinted at a possible return to frontline politics as he asserted that the UK at present seemed a "one-party state".
The former Labour party leader described it as a "tragedy" that the onlytwo choicesfacing the British electorate were the Conservative party pursuing a hard Brexit and "an ultra-leftLabour Party".
"I don't know if there's a role for me...There's a limit to what I want to say about my own position at this moment. All I can say is that this is where politics is at. Do I feel strongly about it? Yes, I do. Am I very motivated by that? Yes. Where do I go from here? What exactly do I do? That's an open question," he told the 'Esquire' magazine.

Blair, who is unpopular with a section of the party and electorate for his decision to lead Britain into war in Iraq in 2003, had recently announced a scale back of his consultancy business to focus more on charity work.
"It's a tragedy for British politics if the choice before thecountry is a Conservative government going for a hard Brexit and an ultra-leftLabour Party, that believes in a set of policies that takes us back to the sixties. In the UK at the moment you've got a one-party state," he said.
Blair said Labour under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn had shifted from a party of government to an "ultra-left" culture "which believes that the action on the street is as important as the action in Parliament".

"It's a huge problem because they live in a world that is very, veryremote from the way that broad mass of people really think. The reason their policies shouldn't be supported isn't because they're wildlyradical, it's because they're not," Blair said.

"They don't work. They're actually a form of conservatism. This is the pointabout them. What they are offering is a mixture of fantasy and error," he said.
In the decade since leaving office in 2007, the former Labour MP has focused on business ventures and on his role as the Middle East envoy, which he left in 2015.
"The centre ground is in retreat. This is our challenge. We've got to rise to that challenge," he said.