By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor
There have already been rumours that the Chilcot inquiry will come down hard on Tony Blair, and a lot of the British people blame him for entering a war that was unnecessary and possibly illiegal.
Recently Blair himself admitted that he “profoundly” underestimated the complexity of Middle Eastern politics.
Now a survey by pollsters YouGov in the Independent ahead of the report by Chilcot, which will be released in July, found only eight per cent think he did absolutely nothing wrong.
Even worse for Blair more than half of the people polled said they will “never forgive” him for taking the UK into a bloody conflict in Iraq, the backlash which still persists today, and has seen the formation of IS, a terror group who many would argue is a lot worse than Sadam Hussein.
Mr Blair admitted that he could never have predicted the chaos that followed the 2003 invasion, leaving an estimated 200,000 Iraqis dead.
The YouGov research confirms the dim view that the public still has of Mr Blair – once one of the country’s most popular politicians. Blair lethe New Labour revolution and brought the Labour party back into power after years in the wilderness, but the Iraq war appears to have ruined all of the good work, his party, carried out in the UK.
A majority (53 per cent) say that they could never forgive him. Just 8 per cent think Mr Blair did nothing wrong, whilst 15 per believe it’s time we forgave him for his misjudgements.
Only 25 per cent of the Labour Party supporters are in favour of forgiving the former Labour PM, demonstrating the extraordinary dismantling of the reputation of this one-time hero of the party.
In previous polls between March and December 2013, an average of 54 per cent of the public felt it was right to take military action against Iraq, falling to just 26 per cent last year.
As time passes fewer and fewer people are comfortable with the Iraq war and its reasons for it. Tony Blair may have a lot more questions to answer in the coming months and years. It seems unlikely that there are going to be many new fans of Mr Blair anytime soon.
