Tony Blair Biography

(born May 6, 1953, Edinburgh, Scot.) British politician and prime minister (1997–2007). He was the United Kingdom's youngest prime minister since 1812 and the longest-serving Labour Party prime minister. Blair was a lawyer before winning election to the House of Commons in 1983. Entering the shadow cabinet of the Labour Party in 1988 at age 35, Blair urged the party to move to the political centre and deemphasize its traditional advocacy of state control and public ownership of certain sectors of the economy. He assumed leadership of Labour in 1994 and revamped its platform. He led the party to victories in the 1997, 2001, and 2005 elections. His government brokered a peace agreement between unionists and republicans in Northern Ireland, introduced devolved assemblies in Wales and Scotland, and carried out reforms of Parliament. After the September 11 attacks on the U.S. in 2001, Blair allied the United Kingdom with the U.S. and its president, George W. Bush, in a global war against terrorism. In late 2002 Blair and Bush accused the Iraqi government of addm ussein of continuing to possess and develop biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons in violation of UN mandates. Despite deep divisions within his own party and strong public opposition to a war with Iraq, Blair, with Bush, led an attack on Iraq that toppled ussein's regime in March–April 2003. Blair's continued support of the Iraq War led to a decline in his popularity. Nearly a year after announcing that he was stepping down as prime minister, Blair left office on June 27, 2007; he was succeeded by Gordon Brown. Blair subsequently was selected by the “quartet” (the U.S., the European Union, Russia, and the UN) to serve as special envoy to the Middle East.

Copyright © 1994-2008 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.