Tony Blair must answer over Gaddafi links, says SNP

Tony Blair should be brought in front of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee following claims he lobbied the British Government on behalf of Colonel Gaddafi, according to SNP MP Stephen Gethins.

MPs demanded answers from Blair following reports in The Times, alleging the former PM contacted the British Government during the 2011 bombing campaign to say Gaddafi wanted to “cut a deal”.   

SNP MP Stephen Gethins, a member of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, said: “I urge Tony Blair to make full disclosure on his links to the Gaddafi regime both in office and since he left Downing Street.

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“The Foreign Affairs Committee is already undertaking an inquiry on Libya, providing a welcome opportunity for MPs to question the former Prime Minister on the issue – he should make himself available at the earliest opportunity.”

The claims, contained in a new biography of David Cameron, come while the Foreign Affairs Select Committee investigates the UK’s relationship with Libya.

Nadhim Zahawi, a Conservative member of the committee, told The Times: “With these revelations, we should be pushing for Blair to come and explain as part of the inquiry.

“If this is true then we need to better understand what happened.”

Gethins said: “Over ten years on since the ‘deal in the desert’, these new revelations are just the latest which raise serious questions about Tony Blair’s links to the former Gaddafi regime in Libya. People will be appalled that a former Prime Minister saw fit to lobby on behalf of a dictator.

“In 2004, shortly after taking the UK into an illegal war in Iraq, Tony Blair concluded the so-called 'deal in the desert' with former Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi - despite later conceding that Libya posed a greater weapons of mass destruction threat.

“It now seems that Mr Blair's misjudgements on Libya did not end there.”