Tony Blair says Martin McGuinness and Ian Paisley were ‘leaders who were prepared to lead’

The former British Prime Minister described the former Sinn Féin and DUP politicians as ‘leaders who were prepared to lead’.

“I think we saw one of the reasons why, in the end, the Executive did get up and running just before I left office. There was that extraordinary meeting with Martin McGuinness and Ian Paisley sitting together on the settee, getting on well together to all appearances, and even when the cameras weren’t there, it appeared to be quite genuine, actually. So one of the reasons was that they were both prepared to really make it work.

"With all of these different elements within the Agreement, there is the form and there is the spirit. One of the things that, again, you learn over time, is that the form doesn’t work without the spirit.

"The spirit has got to be one where people genuinely are trying to make the thing work. If that exists, by the way, you can even devolve the form, but it’s got to be – people have got to decide, in Northern Ireland, that that’s what they want to do, and that they want to find a way forward. It never happens without leaders being prepared to lead—honestly, it is so important to emphasise this point,” said Mr. Blair.

The erstwhile British Labour Party leader said the leadership shown by senior nationalist and unionist politicians had been a foundation of the Good Friday Agreement and subsequent accords.

"The difference between this peace process and many others around the world is that we had the benefit at that time of leaders who were prepared to lead.

"If they hadn’t been prepared to do that and to have— I used to have very frank, open conversations with Unionist leaders and with Republican and Nationalist leaders where we had the ability to sit down and strategise together.

"They would say, ‘Look, here’s my problem. You’re going to have to help me find a way around it,’ and I might then have been able to help them find a way around it,” said Mr. Blair, during a briefing of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee.

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