Common Dreams
“It’s just heartbreaking really to think he’s being rewarded for all the deaths that have happened. If he had any morals at all, he would decline and refuse it.”
Citing his role in the Iraq War and other devastating conflicts, hundreds of thousands of people in the United Kingdom and beyond are calling for former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to be stripped of his newly bestowed knighthood.
As of Thursday afternoon, over 900,000 people had signed the Change.org petition seeking to have Blair’s “Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter”âone of the highest honors a British monarch can bestow upon a subjectârescinded. Queen Elizabeth II announced Blair’s knighthood on New Year’s Eve.
“Tony Blair caused irreparable damage to both the Constitution of the United Kingdom and to the very fabric of the nation’s society,” the petition states. “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.”
