Sir Tony Blair candidly said he isn’t surprised some people will “absolutely hate” him while others “like” him.
One million people signed a petition demanding the former Prime Minister, 68, was stripped of his knighthood after he was made a Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter in January.
It is the most senior order of knighthood in the British honours system.
Now the former British politican confessed he wasn’t surprised about facing a backlash when The Times journalist suggested “it must be hard being so disliked” during a meeting at his London office.
He said: “If I stick my head out of the front door I get a backlash, but nowadays if you go into public life and you are prominent, you have to understand that some people will like you and some will absolutely hate you. It’s the way it is.”
And he added: “It didn’t surprise me.”
In fact, the former PM polietly pointed out he is the most successful from Labour and he is proud of his political career.
He went on: “There are people who feel genuinely about Iraq and I understand that, and there are people on the far right who hate me partly because I was very vocally against Brexit and partly because I delivered three election victories, I understand that too. And then there are people on the far left who hate me because I delivered three election victories, but from the moderate Labour position.”
In a sit down interview with the newspaper, he added: “If you look at 120 years of history of Labour’s existence, we have been in power between a quarter and a third of that time and a large chunk of that was New Labour.”
Despite the controversy around his knighthood appointment, there are people who have leapt to the former Prime Minister’s defence.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “I don’t think it’s a thorny issue for me at all. 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.
“The one I would pick out in particular would be the work he did in Northern Ireland and the peace process and the huge change that has made.”
