Blair, Tony (Anthony Charles Lynton Blair), 1953–, British politician, b. Edinburgh. An Oxford-educated lawyer, he was first elected to Parliament in 1983 as the Labour party Labour party, British political party, one of the two dominant parties in Great Britain since World War I.

Origins

The Labour party was founded in 1900 after several generations of preparatory trade union politics made possible by the Reform Bills of
..... Click the link for more information. candidate from a district in N England. Articulate and telegenic, Blair rose quickly in the party organization. He was chosen as Labour's leader after the death (1994) of John Smith Smith, John, 1938–94, British politician. A barrister, he was first elected to Parliament in 1970 as a Labour party member from Scotland. He served as secretary for trade in 1970 and subsequently as Labour spokesperson on a number of economic and industrial
..... Click the link for more information. , even though he, unlike previous leaders, had no roots in the labor movement and rejected socialist doctrine. As leader, he endeavored to reposition the party as a moderate center-left alternative to the Conservatives.

In 1997, when Blair led Labour to power for the first time since 1979, he became the youngest prime minister since William Pitt the younger (1783). He moved quickly to implement a "third way" program, reducing Labour's traditional reliance on state action to address social problems; to establish elected representative bodies in Scotland and Wales; to negotiate peace in Northern Ireland; and to cooperate politically with the third-party Liberal Democrats. Internationally, Blair has worked to improve ties with other European Union European Community (EC), an economic and political confederation of European nations, and other organizations (with the same member nations) that are responsible for a common foreign and security policy and for cooperation on justice and home affairs.
..... Click the link for more information. nations while moving slowly on monetary union and adoption of the euro; in his first term, he also was an outspoken proponent of the use of NATO forces in the Kosovo Kosovo Field, Serbo-Croatian Kosovo Polje [field of the black birds], the Turks under Sultan Murad I defeated Serbia and its Bosnian, Montenegrin, Bulgarian, and other allies in 1389.
..... Click the link for more information. crisis. Blair's critics, however, have charged that he is more style than substance. Despite a lack of enthusiasm for Blair's leadership style, which many have regarded as arrogant, voters again gave him and Labour a resounding victory at the polls in 2001, making him the first Labour prime minister to win to consecutive terms in office.

Following the Sept., 2001, attacks by terrorists in the United States, Blair gave America highly visible support, including the use of British military forces, in its retaliation against Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden bin Laden, Osama or Usama
..... Click the link for more information. . He also strongly supported the Bush administration in its insistence that Iraq readmit UN weapons inspectors and disarm or face military action and, despite opposition from the British public and in the Labour party to war with Iraq, he committed British troops to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. After the invasion, when biological and chemical weapons were not readily found in Iraq, he and his government were criticized for having exaggerated the threat that Iraq represented. This hurt Blair and Labour politically and led to a diminished margin of victory in the 2005 parliamentary elections, but Blair nonetheless secured a record third consecutive term for a Labour government. The following year, under pressure from many in the Labour party, Blair announced that he would resign as party leader and prime minister in 2007.

Bibliography

See biography by P. Stephens (2004); C. Coughlin, American Ally: Tony Blair and the War on Terror (2005).

Blair, Tony

orig. Anthony Charles Lynton

(born May 6, 1953, Edinburgh, Scot.) British politician and prime minister (1997–2007). He was the United Kingdom's youngest prime minister since 1812 and the longest-serving Labour Party prime minister. Blair was a lawyer before winning election to the House of Commons in 1983. Entering the shadow cabinet of the Labour Party in 1988 at age 35, Blair urged the party to move to the political centre and deemphasize its traditional advocacy of state control and public ownership of certain sectors of the economy. He assumed leadership of Labour in 1994 and revamped its platform. He led the party to victories in the 1997, 2001, and 2005 elections. His government brokered a peace agreement between unionists and republicans in Northern Ireland, introduced devolved assemblies in Wales and Scotland, and carried out reforms of Parliament. After the September 11 attacks on the U.S. in 2001, Blair allied the United Kingdom with the U.S. and its president, George W. Bush, in a global war against terrorism. In late 2002 Blair and Bush accused the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein of continuing to possess and develop biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons in violation of UN mandates. Despite deep divisions within his own party and strong public opposition to a war with Iraq, Blair, with Bush, led an attack on Iraq that toppled Hussein's regime in March–April 2003. Blair's continued support of the Iraq War led to a decline in his popularity. Nearly a year after announcing that he was stepping down as prime minister, Blair left office on June 27, 2007; he was succeeded by Gordon Brown. Blair subsequently was selected by the “quartet” (the U.S., the European Union, Russia, and the UN) to serve as special envoy to the Middle East.