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TONY BLAIR TOLD John Bruton in Downing Street 25 years ago that people feared “losing control” to the European Union.
Blair also told his Irish counterpart that he was “amazed” by the Irish economy and hoped it would help pro-EU sentiment in the UK.
The admissions are contained in the minutes of a meeting held between the pair on 8 May 1997 that have been released as part of the State Papers.
Each year, decades-old government documents are released under the National Archives Act, providing journalists and historians with a fresh look into historical events.
Previously confidential files (2021/51/498) from the Department of Foreign Affairs NI Division 1997 show that a newly elected Blair had hoped Ireland’s success in the EU would help to fend off Euroscepticism.
The meeting took place a week after the electoral landslide win by Blair’s ‘new Labour’ and a month before Bruton was defeated by a Bertie Ahern-led Fianna Fáil.
Blair’s win had ended 18 years of unbroken Tory rule and Blair told Bruton and Tánaiste Dick Spring that he expected the Tories to be “pretty Eurosceptic in opposition”.
Blair had visited Ireland the previous December and had toured the country before speaking at Government Buildings in Dublin.
His trip in Ireland had clearly left an impression as Blair is recorded as saying he was “amazed at the rapid and visible development in the Irish economy”.
Spring joked this was because “we had only shown you the good bits” to which Blair’s Foreign Secretary Robin Cook responded: “at least you have good bits to show people”.
Bruton pointed out that Ireland’s development was good news for Britain too and that Ireland was now Britain’s fifth-biggest export market.
Cook acknowledged this and expressed a hope that “Ireland’s positive experience within the EU could have an impact on the European debate in Britain”.
Bruton is reported to have raised the wider importance of the EU in preserving peace on the continent, commenting that German Chancellor Helmut Kohl “whom he knew well”, was committed to the project from a broad historical perspective.
Echoes of Brexit
Under the Tories, the UK had secured an opt-out from the euro’s creation in the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 and when Labour came to power Chancellor Gordon Brown had set “five economic tests” for the UK to join the currency.
The UK never joined the euro but Blair is shown in the files to be keen that the country maintained a strong link to the EU.
Blair told Bruton that an EU meeting due to take place in Amsterdam the following month would be “a test of whether a different relationship between Britain and its European partners worked”.
Blair said that constructive engagement was needed to “turn around attitudes in Britain” and that he “couldn’t overstate” the “negative effect in the country” if he couldn’t show “a better way of doing business with Europe”.
Blair added that he “believed in European integration” but that the question was about the “pace, shape and content of integration”.
With unknowing prescience about the famous slogan used by Brexiteers during the 2016 referendum, Blair said that governments had to “bring their peoples with them”.
If they did not, he said, people would “feel that they had lost control and would end up blaming Europe for failures of policy”.
The United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union on 23 June 2016 and ‘Brexit’ officially became a reality on 31 January 2020.
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So what was the actual problem?!
None, just lazy journalists creating stories.
Scribbled on a 9 to make it look like an 8, the Donegal b@$tards!!!
With the addition of the extra two numbers the odds of winning are eleven million to two so the lotto is only won a maximum of eight times per year, lotto one & two maybe three times per year. So lotto definitely is a tax on people who are poor at maths.
Free publicity for the ailing lottery?
More & more people are doing their numbers in the bookies these days since ownership of OUR national lottery changed hands and they made it even more difficult to win a substantive prize.
Any stats to back that up.
Too true Frank much better payout for 2, 3 and 4 numbers in Ladbrooks i.e. €100 payout for a euro bet for 2 numbers on the Euromillions.
New operator tried to get out of paying. Plain and simple. Hope the winner enjoys it fair play.
On what basis ?
‘issues has arisen surrounding the payment.’
Glad everything has been sorted out. Puts the incessant grammatical mistakes here into perspective is suppose.
Lifes to shrt too bee corecting misteaks one da jurnal.
None of us are immune to grammatical errors, or indeed, typos, as “Puts the incessant grammatical mistakes here into perspective is suppose” would attest to. I assume that you meant “…. into perspective, I suppose?”
Lol. Yip!
Curse of the too-smart everywhere. BUT the mistake has been corrected.
All the same, the standard of writing on The Journal is pretty low all round. The ‘Opinion Pieces’ rarely rise above Junior Cert essay level. The incessant typos and grammatical mistakes compound the impression that the site is not as well organised as it might be and that the quality of the writing isn’t really an issue for whoever runs it.
That aside, the Polls are particularly poor (as is frequently pointed out). Whoever compiles them should take a course in how to put a basic poll together.
To be fair though, these “journalists” earn a crust from writing. I think the expectation that even the headlines of the articles are grammatically correct is not unreasonable. The whole effort seems amateurish..
I agree with everything you type, but at the end of the day I see the journal.ie as a source of comedy ( with an agenda), and that’s ok. Just don’t take everything at face value. Except Mark Zuckerberg – he’s legit.
@ Andrew. Wasn’t expecting a bear to jump in there.
The lotto is a tax on fools.
Yeah, everyone in the know knows that blackjack is where the big money is made.
I’d have to agree. The standard of English is poor. The “journalists” and most of the followers seem to have failed primary level English and confined their post-primary reading to page 3 in the Sun, “mate”. It’s progress of a kind though. 100 years after the 1916 Rising we’re now just illiterate in one language rather than two.
Hope they dont hold out on my € 15 million after tonights draw.
Play the lotto and support Canadian pensioners…
Solicitors = opportunistic parasites
Good luck with making a will or buying a house so
Do it myself mate. ..hate those filth bags
I’m sure solicitor is pleased..maybe “Argues and Fibs” company no pun intended
If there’s anymore problems with paying the money, I’ll gladly accept it.
“Issues” normally equals “crooks”.
There are issues with your tax returns Mister Trump.
This is a private does to the charity. Trying to cut corners and sneeky tactic to not pay the winner. Along with the thousands that have lost out in funding. i.e. social and sports clubs.
have your say