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Tony Blair blames Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party for 'facilitating' Brexit Tony Blair blames Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party for 'facilitating' Brexit
(35 minutes later)
Tony Blair has blamed Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party for "facilitating" Brexit.Tony Blair has blamed Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party for "facilitating" Brexit.
The former Prime Minister told a press conference in London: "The debilitation of the Labour Party is the facilitator of Brexit." The former Labour Prime Minister told a press conference in London that one of the key challenges in stopping Brexit “Is the absence of an opposition which looks capable on the polls of beating the Government."  
More follows... "The debilitation of the Labour Party," he added, "Is the facilitator of Brexit.  I hate to say that, but it is true."
Mr Blair added that in the absence of an effective opposition, pro-Europeans needed to build a "movement " that reached across party lines.
"What this means," he said, "Is that we have to build a movement which stretches across party lines; and devise new ways of communication.
"These groups must find ways of concerting strategy and tactics effectively. We should begin to create informal links immediately and then build them into a movement with weight and reach.
"We need to strengthen the hand of the MPs who are with us and let those against know they have serious opposition to Brexit at any cost."
He said that the institute which he was launching would play its part in developing the arguments to rethink the country's position - a task that would involve changing people's attitudes towards the kind of globalisation that many now blame for low wages and job insecurity.
Mr Blair said: “The Institute which I am setting up will play our part.  We are creating a policy platform wider than the Europe question.
“There is an urgent need to reposition the whole debate around globalisation and how we make it work for people.  In this sense, the Brexit debate is part of something much bigger.
“But developing the arguments around Brexit will be an important element of the Institute’s work.”