Keir Starmer backs knighthood for Tony Blair

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Sir Keir Starmer today insisted Tony Blair ‘deserves’ his knighthood after more than 500,000 people signed a petition calling for it to be ‘rescinded’.

Sir Keir – who opposed the Iraq War in 2003 – said the former Labour leader was a ‘very successful prime minister’ and ‘made a huge difference to the lives of millions of people in this country’. 

The current Labour premier also argued the appointment is not ‘thorny at all’ amid a growing backlash. 

A Change.org petition, set up three days ago, aims to strip Sir Tony of the title, accusing him of causing ‘irreparable damage to both the constitution of the United Kingdom and to the very fabric of the nation’s society’.

The petition criticises the ex-PM for his role in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and claims he is the ‘least deserving person of any public honour’. 

It is urging Boris Johnson to ‘petition Her Majesty to have this honour removed’. 

However, only petitions launched on the Parliament website can trigger a debate in the Commons – and the official platform has rejected efforts to start similar petitions.

Experts also believe there would be serious difficulties in staging a debate on the award of the honour, as it would amount to criticising the decision of the Queen. 

Sir Tony has been appointed by the Queen a Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter – the oldest and most senior British Order of Chivalry. 

Appointments to the Garter are in the Queen’s gift and are made without prime ministerial advice, and are usually announced on St George’s Day on April 23.  

However, the monarch can make the appointments at any time, and chose for Sir Tony’s to coincide with the New Year Honours list.

Downing Street sources that Mr Johnson had no role in the honour.

The PM’s spokesman said: ‘There is no input from the Prime Minister. Every prime minister before Tony Blair has received either the Order of the Garter or the Order of the Thistle.’ 

Labour MP Graham Stringer, who voted against the Iraq War in 2003, said he agreed with Speaker Lindsay Hoyle that former PMs should be honoured for their service.

‘I think when you have been PM you should probably get your reward unless you are actually convicted of some criminality,’ he told MailOnline. 

‘I voted against the iraq War. I think Blair was a good PM for the first six years, and the Iraq War ruined him. But he was PM for 10 years and if the Queen wants to give him the Garter then I think he should have it.’ 

Sir Keir today defended the appointment, telling ITV’s Good Morning Britain programme: ‘I think Tony Blair deserves the honour. He won three elections. He was a very successful prime minister. 

‘I haven’t got time this morning to list all of his many achievements which I think vastly improved our country, whether it’s minimum wage, Sure Start for young families. 

‘But the one I would pick out in particular is the work he did in Northern Ireland and the peace process and the huge change that has made. 

‘I worked myself in Northern Ireland for six years with the police service over there and I saw for myself the profound impact it had on peace, on both communities in Northern Ireland. 

‘So, I don’t think it is thorny at all, I think he deserves the honour. Obviously I respect the fact that people have different views.’ 

He added: ‘I understand there are strong views on the Iraq war, there were back at the time and there still are, but that does not detract from the fact that Tony Blair was a very successful prime minister of this country and made a huge difference to the lives of millions of people in this country.’ 

Vaccines minister Maggie Throup also endorsed the knighthood.

‘I think he did lots of good things and I think it’s only right that we do honour our previous Prime Ministers,’ she told LBC radio.

In a hint that Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May should be in line for honours, she said: ‘I think obviously it now opens the doors for others to be recognised in the same way.’

Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle has suggested that all former prime ministers should be offered a knighthood because ‘it is one of the toughest jobs in the world’. 

Former foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind told MailOnline he could ‘understand the controversy’ and the 14-year delay in the honour ‘speaks for itself’.

‘In all other respects he has been the most successful Labour PM since Clement Attlee and responsible for some major achievements which even as a Conservative I acknowledge,’ Sir Malcolm said.

‘It is now 14 years since he has been PM. That is obviously why there has been this very long delay.

‘If the decision has been reached now I would not myself see it as very controversial.’ 

Sir Malcolm said there was ‘absolutely no role’ for the PM in elevating people to the Order of the Garter. 

However, others have voiced fury at the move.

The twin brother of a soldier who died in Iraq said his ‘blood ran cold’ on hearing the news.

Lance Corporal David Wilson, who was 27 and from Spennymoor, County Durham, died from a gunshot wound at Basra airbase in 2008 where he served with 9 Regiment Army Air Corps.

His twin, Mike Wilson, now 40, said he was ‘disgusted’ that the former premier was awarded a Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter in the New Year Honours list, adding it is ‘an insult to David’s memory’. 

Sir Tony, 68, led the Labour Party to a landslide general election victory in 1997. 

He then went on to win two further general elections before quitting Westminster a decade later, as he handed the keys to Number 10 to his chancellor Gordon Brown. 

He was prime minister during the Allied military invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

After leaving politics the former barrister became a Middle East envoy and set up his own non-for-profit group, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.

Each year, Royal Knights and Ladies of the Order of the Garter gather at St George’s Chapel in Windsor for a colourful procession and ceremony.

Crowds watch as they walk down the hill to the chapel from the state apartments, dressed in blue velvet mantles, red velvet hoods, black velvet hats and white ostrich plumes.

Sir Tony, who left Downing Street more than 14 years ago, was one of three new appointments announced by Buckingham Palace. 

Sir Tony has faced years of criticism over the Iraq War, culminating in the devastating report by Sir John Chilcot in 2016, which found that the former prime minister overplayed evidence about Saddam Hussein’s weaponry and ignored peaceful means to send troops into the country. 

In a devastating set of conclusions, Sir John found Blair presented the case for war with ‘a certainty which was not justified’ based on ‘flawed’ intelligence about Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction (WMD). 

Blair then said he would ‘take the same decision’ to invade Iraq again if he was presented with the same intelligence as he set out a defiant defence after being savaged by the Chilcot report.

The former prime minister put on a bullish performance as he responded to the long-awaited report and although he made a grovelling apology for the bloody consequences of the Iraq War, he attempted to shift the blame by saying the intelligence was not his responsibility.

In a remarkable performance of self-defence at a special press conference that lasted for nearly two hours, the visibly humbled former prime minister described the decision to take military action to remove Hussein in 2003 as the ‘hardest, most momentous, most agonising’ of his 10 years in office. 

At several points during his speech at Admiralty House in Whitehall he appeared to be close to tears as he accepted the ‘serious criticisms’ made of him and his government in the run up and aftermath of the Iraq War and said he accepted ‘full responsibility, without exception, without excuse’.

Responding to the publication of the Iraq War report, his voice cracked as he said: ‘For all of this I express more sorrow, regret and apology than you may ever know or can believe.’ 

He added later: ‘The decisions I made I have carried with me for 13 years and will do so for the rest of my days. ‘There will not be a day of my life where I do not relive and rethink what happened.

But he claimed the Iraq Inquiry proved ‘there were no lies’ from him over the justification for invading Iraq in March 2003 and showed neither Parliament nor Cabinet were misled. 

And in the most extraordinary moment of his lengthy speech, Mr Blair insisted: ‘If I was back in the same place, with the same information I would take the same decision because obviously that was the decision I believe was right. 

‘All I’m saying today, because obviously some of the intelligence has turned out to be wrong, the planning wasn’t done properly, I have to accept those criticisims, I accept responsibility for them.’