LONDON, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- Former British prime minister Tony Blair said Saturday the upcoming conferences by the big-two political parties will be a watershed moment in British politics.
The big annual gatherings will expose in sharp relief the changing state of Conservatives and Labour, Britain's current ruling and official opposition parties, said Blair.
As Labour delegates prepare to head to Liverpool next weekend for their conference, followed a week later by the Conservative conference in Birmingham, Blair said: "They will provide evidence of the driving spirit inhabiting each main party, of the direction of the soul."
Writing in the Times, Blair, who swept to power in 1997 after one of the biggest landslide victories in British history, said he was not advocating a new party, organising one, or wanting to vote for one.
"In the British system such an endeavour may be impossible. But the serious figures in both main parties need to demand of their leadership: enough, change course, you do not have indefinite licence to go further towards the extremes or unlimited time to return to reason.," he wrote.
"The pull of the tribe is strong, and I sympathise deeply with the struggle many in both parties feel between a desire for party unity and a knowledge of what is right for the country. But we do know what is right -- and it is not the present path of British politics.," he added.
The Conservatives, said Blair, are at risk of morphing into a narrow nationalist party, modelled on the Trump example, whose leader are either incapable of stopping the metamorphosis or are playing along with it.
"This is the party that took us into the European Union, fought the 1979, 1983 and 1987 elections as pro-Europeans, was critical to founding the single market and championed enlargement of the Union to eastern Europe to consolidate the western alliance," he said, adding: "Now it demonises the rules of the single market as destructive of our national sovereignty and insists we leave to avoid the payments we make, along with all the other wealthier European nations, to the enlargement countries to help their development."
Blair said contrary to myth, the EU will compromise, but he added that Europe will never agree to access to its single market without adhering to its rules, adding: "Never. Because that would destroy the basis of the market."
"A "blind Brexit", where we only have a vague idea of the future relationship before we leave, should be unacceptable to Europe and should be unthinkable for Britain," he added.
Criticising prime minister Theresa May' so-called Chequers Brexit blueprint, Blair said "It has no public support. It neither properly protects British business nor does it honor what the Brexiteers regard as the mandate of June 2016."
Pro-European Union Blair suggested putting May's Chequers plan to the British parliament and allowing a new public vote if politicians reject it.
