“Sir” Tony held the keys to No 10 between 1997 and 2007, and has on his hands the blood of hundreds of British troops who pointlessly lost their lives in Iraq, as well as the blood of millions of innocent civilian victims in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan. He will be appointed a Knight Companion of what used to be the Most Noble Order of the Garter, Britain's oldest and most senior Order of Chivalry.
The former prime minister was made a Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, an appointment personally made by the Queen, in the New Year’s Honours list.
The designation, which now means the 68-year-old is formally known as ‘Sir Tony’, is the most senior order of knighthood in the British honours system.
Over 500,000 people have signed a petition calling for the honour to be revoked, saying the former Labour PM caused “irreparable damage to both the constitution of the United Kingdom and to the very fabric of the nation’s society”.
The petition claims: “Tony Blair is the least deserving person of any public honour, particularly anything awarded by Her Majesty the Queen.”
https://www.change.org/p/mp-s-to-strip-tony-blair-of-his-knighthood
Sir Tony, who left power in 2007, was one of three new appointments to the order announced by the palace alongside Baroness Valerie Amos and the Duchess of Cornwall.
But others have congratulated Sir Tony on the designation.
Among them were Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Health, Wes Streeting, who said: “Congratulations to Sir Tony Blair, but I know he’ll be even more proud that @ValerieAmos, a personal hero of mine and so many others, has become - yet again - a trailblazer”.
The Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, has also said that former prime ministers should be given knighthoods.
There are now 21 non-royal ‘companions’ in the order, with a maximum of 24 allowed.
Appointments are for life, and only 40 people have been deemed no longer worthy of the honour and removed from the order in its nearly 700 year history.