Tony Blair calls for a vote that could overturn the final Brexit deal

Tony Blair has called for a second vote on Brexit, saying that the public should be allowed to ‘think again’ when the terms of Britain’s departure from the EU become clear.

Speaking on Radio 4’s Today Programme, the former prime minister said that the public was not aware of the impact of Brexit when they went to the polls on 3 June 2016.

‘My argument is very simple. On June 3rd 2016 we voted to leave the European Union but we didn’t yet know at that point what the terms of the new relationship would be,’ he told the BBC’s John Humphreys.

‘Once we know those terms of the new relationship we are surely entitled to think again. Its as simple as that.’

His argument came as a poll revealed that 78% of Labour members support a second referendum on the Brexit deal.

The interview followed an attack by Mr Blair against Labour’s stance on Brexit, in which he accused the party of being ‘timid’, and warned that Mr Corbyn’s position was leaving voters ‘confused’.

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The former Labour leader also blamed Brexit for the country’s current economic difficulties, and said that negotiations were proving a distraction from other issues facing the UK, in particularly the NHS.

‘The truth is economic growth is down from what it would have been if Brexit hadn’t happened.’

‘Theres little doubt the Brexit is causing economic difficulty but thats not the only issue here,’ he said.

‘The fact of the matter is that the government is in a situation where it can’t concentrate on the NHS at the moment. Brexit is the thing that is has to concentrate on.

‘My argument very simply, and its an argument addressed as much to the Labour Party as to the government, is that Brexit has a massive distractive impact on dealing with the actual challenges for the country, you can see this clearly with the National Health Service.’

A belligerent Mr Humphreys interrupted Mr Blair a number of times, accusing him of to accept the outcome of the Brexit vote.

He dismissed claims he was pushing the case for the elite, telling the programme: ‘There are elites on both sides of the argument.’

Mr Blair’s intervention has been met with a barrage of criticism, with a shadow Labour minister calling the action ‘utterly unhelpful’.

MPs, MEPs and political pundits pointed out the issues within the Blair interview.