Where is Tony Blair now? What former PM has done since leaving office
The final six episodes of the sixth and last season of The Crown are now available to watch on Netflix.
As well as covering the death of Diana, and the burgeoning romance between Prince William and Kate Middleton, the series also covers former prime minister Sir Tony Blair’s tenure.
The award-winning season includes the dramatisation of a real-life event when the then Labour leader was heckled after he gave a speech at the Women’s Institute to around 10,000 women in 2000.
It also features Queen Elizabeth II reprimanding him over the decision to invade Iraq.
But what has Sir Tony done in the intervening years?
What has Tony Blair done since leaving office?
Tony Blair served as prime minister of the UK from 1997 to 2007. He is the only Labour leader in the party’s 100-year history to win three consecutive elections. He was succeeded by his chancellor, Gordon Brown.
Within hours of stepping down on 27 June, 2007, it was announced that Sir Tony had been appointed as the Middle East envoy to the Quartet on the Middle East, a diplomatic role he held until 2015.
He also converted to Catholicism soon after leaving office, founding the Tony Blair Faith Foundation in 2008, which aimed to promote respect and understanding between different faiths, as well as tackling poverty and countering extremism.
The foundation’s work has since been subsumed by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, a non-profit organisation that advises governments and leaders on strategy, policy and delivery.
His memoirs, titled The Journey, were published on 1 September, 2010 and became the fastest-selling autobiography of all time. Some critics felt the book aimed to minimise his decision to go to war in Iraq and accused him of capitalising on his time in office.
Consequently, he made the decision to donate his £4.6m advance and all royalties to the Royal British Legion.
Chilcot Inquiry
In 2016, the Chilcot Inquiry examining the circumstances leading up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was published.
It concluded that the UK’s decision to join the invasion of Iraq was based on flawed intelligence and that the circumstances in which Sir Tony and his attorney general Lord Goldsmith decided there was a legal basis for taking Britain to war in Iraq were “far from satisfactory”.
It added that Sir Tony decided to join the US in invading Iraq before peaceful options “had been exhausted” and that he had exaggerated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein when speaking with MPs.
In response, the former PM said the decision to go to war was the right one, describing it as “the hardest, most momentous, most agonising decision I took in 10 years as British prime minister”.
He said he felt “deeply and sincerely … the grief and suffering of those who lost ones they loved in Iraq”.
“There will not be a day when I do not relive and rethink what happened,” he added.
Despite this, he insisted: “I believe we made the right decision and the world is better and safer.” He claimed he had acted in good faith based on the available intelligence, which indicated that Iraq held weapons of mass destruction. This “turned out to be wrong”.
Sir Tony was an outspoken critic of Brexit following the 2016 referendum, calling for the government to reverse the decision.
He was also a critic of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party, seeing it as too left-wing.
In the last year, he has joined forces with former Conservative leader William Hague to call for the introduction of digital ID cards, combining an individual’s passport, driving licence, tax records, qualifications, and right to work.
And in November, i revealed that Sir Tony was acting as a broker for Sir Keir Starmer in the Middle East, helping him to build relationships with regional leaders, including the Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.
He was appointed a Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, the oldest and most senior British order of chivalry, in December 2021.
