UK Politics Quotes

I’ll put the “Great” back into Great Britain

I am sure future historians will say the biggest and most astonishing change in politics has been the embracing of all the tenets of Thatcherism by the party of Keir Hardie: trade union legislation, Europe, the replacement of Trident, 10 per cent tax for people who have made millions from their companies.

When Corbyn was elected, I found there was a lot to welcome there.

Brexit has given us the start of a conversation with people who perhaps haven't traditionally voted Conservative.

I have long played No. 10.

Too close and unthinking an allegiance to Washington has sometimes got British governments into trouble.

I would always vote for Tory candidates in the United Kingdom, and I would probably be Republican if I was an American.

Tony Blair is not a villain, but he's played the part very well.

Nigel Farage, the leader of the U.K. Independence Party, is a true populist; Senator Bernie Sanders, the former U.S. presidential candidate who campaigned for Hillary Clinton after losing his battle for the Democratic Party's nomination, is not.

I was filming a movie in London, and I drove through Ireland. It was quite beautiful, and the countryside was really remarkable. The contrast between the countryside and Ireland, and the murals there, with Northern Ireland still being a part of the United Kingdom, there's just a stark contrast in those two things. And I found that the art that came out of the conflict was really spectacular because it was about remembering either events or points of view for local neighborhoods, or the rallying cries of one side against the other.

As the prospect of a Tory government gets nearer, many traditional Labour voters - some who switched away in recent times and many who stayed at home - seem more determined to prevent that happening.

We were told by President Obama that in respect of international trade, we would have to get to the back of the queue - not a position that America normally requires the United Kingdom to be in when it comes to other matters, such as the Iraq War.

I vote Labour and can't begin to acknowledge anything good that comes from a Tory.

The E.U. referendum was promised by a Conservative Prime Minister fearful of losing votes and of mass defections to UKIP.

People don't like what's happened to the big parties. They think they've been dragged off to the extremes. They think the quality of leadership is below what a country like the United Kingdom ought to have available. And they want something different.

An M.P. once suggested I be put in the Tower of London for saying derogatory things about the royals. There's no First Amendment in my country.

One of the characteristics of New Labour - and Miliband is irredeemably of that species - is that, in the guise of a new liberal language, it has adopted the age-old default mode of British foreign policy, namely military intervention.

In the 1990s, while the Maastricht debate was raging, I was a minister in the Major government. Every single piece of legislation we proposed had to be scrutinised for compatibility with E.U. law.

Tony Blair will be remembered for nothing other than that he followed George W. Bush over a cliff; took the rest of us with them, and we haven't yet reached the bottom, I'm afraid.

Will there be a political backlash against British Prime Minister Theresa May, whose ruling Conservative Party is traditionally seen as 'stronger' on terrorism than its main rival, the Labour Party?

Would I have voted to leave the European Union? Yes, I would. My theory there is that Britain was fed up having won two World Wars against the Germans and had reached the boiling and breaking point of being told where to live and what to do by a bunch of bureaucrats in Belgium. It was out of that frustration that the vote to leave was made.

I want to stop Brexit.

When will Labour learn that you cannot build Jerusalem in Brussels.

The Brits are perfectly capable of managing the Brits and don't need Brussels telling them how to manage things.

Anything that keeps the U.K. close to the E.U. and best of all, in the E.U., would make me personally very happy.