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1 Million Sign Petition To Degrade Blair’s Knighthood Over Iraq Debacle

1 Million Sign Petition To Degrade Blair’s Knighthood Over Iraq Debacle

An online petition demanding that the British prime minister ask Queen Elizabeth to rescind the knighthood she recently bestowed on former Prime Minister Tony Blair has gained 1,065,382 signatures. Former British prime ministers are invariably knighted by the queen, who announced on January 1 that Blair had been made a Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, the oldest and most senior British order of chivalry. The petition, posted on Change.org last week, does not mention Iraq specifically but says that Blair “caused irreparable damage to both the constitution of the United Kingdom and to the very fabric of the nation’s society. He was personally responsible for causing the death of countless innocent, civilian lives and servicemen in various conflicts. For this alone he should be held accountable for war crimes.” In a 2015 CNN interview, Blair apologized for “mistakes” over Iraq War and admitted there were “elements of truth” to the accusation that the invasion spurred the rise of ISIS. A British public inquiry into the role of the UK in the Iraq war published a report in 2016 that was highly critical of Blair, who refused to apologize for his decision to back the US-led invasion. At least one Labour MP, Richard Burgon, took to Twitter to express his discontent with the honor bestowed on “one of the leading architects of the Iraq War,” but Labour leader Keir Starmer backed up the former PM, saying, “I don’t think it’s thorny at all. I think he deserves the honor.”

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