Tony Blair warns that Brexit would push Scotland to quit UK

'I’m voting to stay, obviously. We can all see what’s happened with the pound and the markets.'

Former British prime minister Tony Blair thinks ‘Britain needs Europe and Europe needs Britain’. Ravindranath K / The National

Fearing that Brexit would cause Scotland to leave the United Kingdom, the former British prime minister Tony Blair yesterday warned that a vote to leave the EU would hit the country with a “double whammy of insecurity”.

Mr Blair, said: “I’m voting to stay, obviously.” Speaking at the NBAD Global Financial Markets Forum 2016 in Abu Dhabi, he said: “We can all see what’s happened with the pound and the markets. We face a period of prolonged uncertainty, and I think Britain needs Europe and Europe needs Britain.

“But I also think we would be hit by a fresh wave of uncertainty if Britain voted to leave, since it completely alters the argument in Scotland about Scotland leaving Britain.

“I think we will vote to say in the end [because of] the common sense of the British people,” he said. “But this is politics today, and you have to be careful of making certain predictions in what is a highly uncertain world.”

Mr Blair said that social media had changed politics – making it easier for fringe figures such as Donald Trump to “take over poli­tical parties”.

He added: “Sometimes I look at politics today and wonder if I still understand it.”

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