The war in Gaza has “created a once-in-a-century opportunity to rebuild Gaza from first principles . . . as a secure, modern prosperous society.”
Something rather unusual happened this past Sunday. The Financial Times published an article exposing how Tony Blair’s eponymous foundation, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (often shortened to TBI), has been involved in a working group with Israeli businessmen and the Boston Consulting Group laying the groundwork for the sweeping post-war redevelopment of the Gaza Strip — once Israel’s genocide of the Gazan people is over, presumably.
Those plans “envisaged ‘kickstarting the enclave’s economy with a ‘Trump Riviera’ and an ‘Elon Musk Smart Manufacturing Zone'” that would boost Gaza’s economic value from “$0 today” to $324 billion. Tourist resorts and tech hubs abound, all largely staffed (presumably) by cheap, migrant labour. According to a TBI document seen by the FT, the near-total destruction of Gaza has “created a once-in-a-century opportunity to rebuild [the strip] from first principles . . . as a secure, modern prosperous society”.
This being the tech and AI-obsessed TBI, its vision for a “secure, modern prosperous” Gaza would presumably avail of all the digital surveillance and control accoutrements that Blair and his institute are constantly peddling as the cure-all to all of today’s ills (digital health systems, facial recognition cameras and other forms of biometric tech, all-encompassing digital identity systems and central bank digital currencies, all powered by artificial intelligence programs).
This is not the first time Blair’s name has been linked to the Gaza Strip since Israel began its operations there on October 9, 2023. A report published in early 2024 by the Israeli broadcaster Channel 12 claimed that Israeli leaders were considering Blair as a possible mediator between Israel and some moderate Arab countries on post-war Gaza. One of his responsibilities would be to help oversee the “voluntary resettlement” of Palestinians in other countries.
Blair’s representatives denied the rumours, saying that neither Blair nor his team had been consulted before the story’s publication. But the allegations in the FT are going to be much more difficult to swat away:
The plan outlined in a slide deck, seen by the Financial Times, was led by Israeli businessmen and used financial models developed inside Boston Consulting Group (BCG) to reimagine Gaza as a thriving trading hub.
Titled the “Great Trust” and shared with the Trump administration, it proposed paying half a million Palestinians to leave the area and attracting private investors to develop Gaza.
While the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) did not author or endorse the final slide deck, two staff members at the former UK prime minister’s institute participated in message groups and calls as the project developed, according to people familiar with the work.
One lengthy document on postwar Gaza, written by a TBI staff member, was shared within the group for consideration. This included the idea of a “Gaza Riviera” with artificial islands off the coast akin to those in Dubai, blockchain-based trade initiatives, a deep water port to tie Gaza into the India-Middle East-Europe economic corridor, and low-tax “special economic zones”.
A TBI spokesperson initially told the FT that their story was “categorically wrong . . . TBI was not involved in the preparation of the deck, which was a BCG deck, and had no input whatever into its contents.”
But when presented with documents attesting to the participation of TBI staff and an unpublished TBI document shared within the group titled “Gaza Economic Blueprint”, the institute acknowledged its staff had been aware of and present during related discussions.
However, the Institute insisted that “it would be wrong to suggest that we were working with this group to produce their Gaza plan.” Instead, it claims it was simply in a “listening mode” and that its internal paper, which, to its minimal credit, does not propose relocating Palestinians, unlike the Israeli businessmen’s proposal, was one of many analyses of post-war scenarios under consideration.
A Polarising Figure
The FT’s revelations represent a rare case of a British legacy media outlet taking Blair, or in this case TBI, to task. While broadly reviled by the British public, Blair continues to be feted and fawned over by the British establishment and media. Even after the “crushing verdict” (in The Guardian‘s words) of the Chilcott Inquiry — that the Blair government’s case for the Iraq war was “deficient” — was made public in 2016, Blair remained a go-to person for the British and international media on all manner of topics, including the Middle East.
Perhaps this will be a sea-change moment in which the British media begin to treat Blair and TBI with less reverence. Given the outsized influence both wield over the Kier Starmer government, particularly in areas related to AI, digital identity and digital health, that would be a most welcome development. But it’s unlikely. Blair is a master at seeing off challenges to his power, earning himself the nickname “Teflon Tony” while in power, and he and his foundation serve the interests of some very powerful business groups.
All that being said, it goes without saying that the Tony Blair Institute’s participation in such a sordid enterprise as the redevelopment of post-Genocide Gaza should not come as a surprise, for (at least) the following four reasons (readers are invited to provide more):
#1: Form
When it comes to committing war crimes, Blair has form — albeit as someone who led the UK, a member of the Anglo-American alliance, into an illegal war based on fabricated lies that cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians. As such, Blair, like George W Bush, was never investigated for war crimes, and presumably never will be. Unlike Bush, Blair did not bow out from public life, and arguably wields as much influence today as he did in Downing Street.
“I can’t understand that Blair has an afterlife at all. It seems to me that any politician who takes his country to war under false pretences has committed the ultimate sin,” the late British novelist John Le Carré told Democracy Now in 2010. “We’ve caused irreparable damage in the Middle East. I think we shall pay for it for a long time.”
Whether he’s lobbying for JP Morgan in Gadafi’s Libya, providing advice on good governance to Kazakhstan while its regime tortures and executes its opponents, or cashing in on his contacts from the war in Iraq, Tony Blair is a deeply compromised individual for whom money does most, if not all, the talking.
Given as much, why wouldn’t he — or the institution he heads — support, or even facilitate (on the QT, of course), the redevelopment of Gaza following its genocide?
Boston Consulting Group’s role should not come as a surprise either. As Colonel Smithers, a regular NC commentator who is UK power politics adjacent, pointed out in a comment to yesterday’s Links page, the firm was Netanyahu’s first port of call following his graduation from MIT in 1972. BCG has already come under fire in recent months for its involvement in the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an Israeli and US-backed body that currently oversees “aid distribution” in the Gaza Strip, as well as its proposals to “relocate” 500,000 Gazans.
Opinion: Boston Consulting Group's plan to 'relocate' Palestinians from Gaza is the latest reputational blow to one of the world’s top consulting firms, writes the FT's editorial board. https://t.co/MrudtY2PfM pic.twitter.com/EvwVwXEJcJ
— Financial Times (@FT) July 7, 2025
As France 24 reports, rights groups have complained that GHF “lacks the expertise to distribute aid in accordance with international law. US and Israeli documents reveal a complex web of military veterans, former intelligence officials and evangelical Christians behind the new aid group that is sidelining the UN and its partners in Gaza.” The program has already seen at least 700 Palestinians killed and more than 4,000 wounded by Israeli forces while trying to access said aid.
As international concern over GHF’s activities grew, BGG finally withdrew from the project in late May. But the same BCG team later took part — unpaid — in The Great Trust initiative. BCG has since denied any formal involvement in the initiative and claims the work was unauthorised. The firm announced the dismissal of two partners, Matt Schlueter and Ryan Ordway, on June 4.
#2: Connections
While Blair himself has not been directly named as a participant in the so-called “Great Trust” project, his ties to Israel, and Zionism in general, run long and deep, as Middle Eastern Eye reports:
Phil Reilly, whom Middle East Eye previously reported served as a senior adviser at BCG for eight years and began discussing Gaza aid with Israeli civilians while still in that role in early 2024, met with Tony Blair in London earlier this year…
TBI said Reilly requested the meeting and described Blair’s involvement as limited: “Again, Mr Blair listened. But as you know, TBI is not part of GHF.”
A British charity associated with former prime minister Tony Blair displays a map on its website including the occupied Golan Heights, West Bank and Gaza Strip as part of Israel.
This is not the first time Blair or his foundation has faced controversy. He serves as an honorary patron of the UK branch of Israel’s Jewish National Fund (JNF), which has faced heavy criticism for its activities — including donating £1m to what it described as “Israel’s largest militia” and erasing Palestine from its official maps.
TBI has also received money from a financial fraudster linked with illegal Israeli settlements and an American Islamophobic network.
It’s also worth recalling that Blair formerly served as Middle East Peace Envoy representing the US, Russia, the UN and the EU from 2007-15. What’s more, his obsession with digital surveillance and control tools and Israel’s position as arguably the world’s leader in digital surveillance technologies presumably make for a perfect partnership.
#3: Motives (With Blair, It’s Usually About the Money)
For a man who, in his own words, is “not interested in money,” Tony Blair has an incredible knack of attracting it, especially through the alliances he has forged with hugely powerful companies, countries and billionaires and the property acquisitions he and his family have made. This is a constant thread throughout Blair’s post-Downing Street career: he will take money from just about anyone, including from some of the world’s most unsavoury regimes.
In March 2025, Blair met with businessman Phil Reilly in London to hear his ideas on Gaza. Reilly, who set up the private security firm Safe Reach Solutions (SRS) in December 2024, previously worked as a part-time adviser for BCG’s defence division until early 2025. According to TBI, Blair was just in “listening mode”.
TBI’s biggest donor is Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, who has pledged to take his total donations to the foundation to $375 million. That’s the equivalent of chump change for Ellison, the world’s second wealthiest man (on paper), but for TBI it represents a significant chunk of its operating income.
Coincidentally, two of Ellison’s biggest business interests are AI governance and digital health records, which also happen to be two of TBI’s most important areas of policy guidance. As we warned before Starmer’s election last summer in our article “Tony Blair and His Associates Are Waiting in the Wings to Seize Back Power“, Blair already wields significant influence over the Starmer government.
In his comment yesterday, Colonel Smithers provided a nice little explainer of how that came to be:
Blair’s influence on the Starmer government should not be underestimated. It’s not an exaggeration to say there’s no such thing as Starmerism, as Starmer has pointed out. As professor David Edgerton said last week, Starmer is reheating tired and inappropriate Thatcherism and Blairism.
Let’s go back a bit.
As the pandemic receded, Blair began to hire civil servants, especially those with experience of the pandemic. He saw such emergency management as the next wave to ride and wanted to sell his firm’s services based on that knowledge. In addition, Blair foresaw the Tories losing, not Labour winning, as in 1997 and wanted his people in place. The Blair team is at all levels of the government, beginning with ministers and advisers like Jonathan Powell and officials like Peter Mandelson (ambassador to Washington and friend of Epstein). Those not seconded to Whitehall are at his office, conducting similar work.
The team that put Starmer at the helm of Labour is really Blair’s team, but with some reporting to Mandelson, like Morgan McSweeney and Wes Streeting. McSweeney and his wife, Imogen Walker, also report to Gary Lubner, a triple citizen oligarch and sanctions buster.
It is easy to see Blair’s sway over certain policies. For example, the Starmer government’s accelerating digitisation of health with its pledge last week that all patients with the NHS app will soon be able to get same-day appointments — not a face-to-face appointment with a real doctor, of course, but rather a digital or telephone consultation. The Starmer government is calling it the “doctor in your pocket app.”
All of this bears echoes of a much-publicised TBI report by Blair and former Tory Party leader William Hague on the need to digitise the NHS and sell off its patients’ data in order to drive AI treatment.
Mark our words @Keir_Starmer, your sheer arrogance about state overreach will come back to bite you hard with the next big NHS data breach & your precious app.
Because let's face it, the NHS has poor legacy infrastructure & a rich history of cyber incidents. pic.twitter.com/9ENE2B0qz2
— STOPCOMMONPASS 🛑 (@org_scp) July 4, 2025
Follow the money: a recent Daily Mail investigation of electronic patients records awarded by NHS trusts revealed that Ellison’s Oracle has already won deals totalling more than £1.5 billion through its Cerner healthcare unit. There will presumably be plenty more in the pipeline.
Meanwhile, the UK’s AI-driven economy continues to gain ground…
Keir Starmer's Labour Party launched AI Growth Zones (AIGZs) in January 2025, these are the digital versions of Freeports and Special Economic Zones (SEZs).
In June 2025, Starmer's Govt published a policy paper Industrial Strategy Zones Action Plan, which is a rebranding…— EuropeanPowell (@EuropeanPowell) July 7, 2025
As for Tony Blair’s favourite policy tool of all, digital identity, it could soon become mandatory, as we warned over a year ago. Blair has repeatedly called for the development of a digital identity system in the UK, after trying but failing as prime minister to introduce an identity card system in the country:
🆔The Government is considering introducing a mandatory digital ID system called 'BritCard'
A digital ID poses serious risks to privacy, security and equality.
We've just launched a speedy tool for YOU to have your say about this Orwellian proposal⤵️https://t.co/48lpBqFa2b pic.twitter.com/suBsGIa4HP
— Big Brother Watch (@BigBrotherWatch) July 7, 2025
The beauty for Blair of being able to pull Starmer’s strings, whether through Blairite figures in his government such as Peter Mandelson, Alan Milburn or Wes Streeting, or through TBI itself, is that he will be able to continue expanding his global influence at the same time through his fast-growing political consulting empire. Which brings us to the fourth and final reason.
#4: Britain’s Active Participation in the Genocide of Gaza
If you are British and get at least some of your news from reliable sources outside the mainstream media, you will probably know that the UK government is not just complicit in Israel’s genocide of Gaza but is participating in it on a daily basis. If that wasn’t bad enough, Kier Starmer, the person in charge of government for the past year, is a former human rights lawyer.
The only people feeling the long arm of the law are those speaking out against the genocide in Gaza, including an 83 year-old priest. In May, the government blocked all questions from members of parliament on how British military bases, particularly in Cyprus, are being used to support Israel’s operations in Gaza.
When DeclassifiedUK published a report on some of those operations, the British media — with the exception of Scotland’s The National — completely ignored its findings. The same goes for the more than 500 surveillance flights the RAF has carried out over Gaza, in the service of the IDF’s fighter bombers, since December 2023; the mainstream media have not carried out a single investigation into their extent, impact or legal status.
Few have encapsulated this madness as eloquently as the great British historian William Dalrymple (in his recent interview with Middle East Eye, which I urge readers to watch):
“At this moment, 2.1 million Palestinians, who themselves are the refugees kicked out in 1948 at the Nakba,… are being starved, shunted like cattle from pen to pen, bombed daily, having to queue up for what little aid is now being given in what looks like barbwire pens again. And many of them are being shot.
It’s a completely outrageous situation to happen anywhere, but it’s particularly outrageous in a country that was a former British colony and which the situation today whereby the Palestinians are a subject and occupied people was largely the responsibility of the failures of British policy during the British mandate.
And which continue today with this current British government and the one before it providing not just diplomatic cover but also aircraft supplies, intelligence from the RAF, to a government which is very clearly committing major war crimes of the sort which we rightly condemn anywhere else in the world.
When that is the current reality in the UK, anything is possible. As such, when one hears that an influential UK-based think tank run by a former prime minister who himself helped unleash one of the worst war crimes of the 21st century is having brainstorming sessions with members of the global investor class about what to do with Gaza once enough Gazans have been moved on or wiped out, it is deeply depressing but not at all surprising.
Thank you for the shout out, Nick.
It’s funny to hear Blair tout technology. In 1997, he confessed to never having used a computer.
Further to the unhealthy relationship with Israel, UK readers may have heard the Times criticise the proscribing of Palestine Action and two other groups for terrorism and the arrest of sympathisers, including an 83 year old Anglican woman priest. It appears that the disquiet in Whitehall over the Israel influenced appointment of Blaise Metreweli (Dobrovolska / Borkovska, over three more senior and experienced spooks and the UK’s envoy to the UN, Barbara Woodward) is also to be found in that article. Some officials are worried about Israel’s influence on ministers and officials and the shredding of the British state’s legitimacy, laws to protect freedom of speech and assembly, and overriding over Scottish and Northern Irish judicial autonomy by Home Secretary and the High Court to appease / placate Israel.
This influence is exercised directly by Israel or its British proxies, which includes Blair and his placemen and women.
> It’s funny to hear Blair tout technology. In 1997, he confessed to never having used a computer.
Fits with his preference for using red box document handling protocols you mentioned yesterday.
RE: “In 1997, he confessed to never having used a computer.”
Well, that explains a lot. Tony’s “AI” humping and desire for the rest of us, but presumably not him, to be watched over by machines of loving grace must be due to the fact that the more ignorant you are about it all, the more likely you are to think it’s a lovely idea – https://www.wired.com/story/the-less-people-know-about-ai-the-more-they-like-it/
He is a war criminal and paedophile of Jeffrey Epstein’s little black book-fame. Of course, he crawls up in the most unsavoury of situations.
Get with the programme! There was no Epstein book or list. In fact, it is most probable there never was any Epstein. All a figment of fevered media imagination. Who would have thought it?
Thank you, both.
I note your comments yesterday and today.
Blair features in Epstein’s address book, but only for his London office address. He does not feature in the flight and house logs.
One famous British journalist, a leading Brexiteer, but, like so many, lives on the Cote d’Azur, has six personal and employer addresses listed in Epstein’s address book. Interesting fellow. He was renowned for wooing “Asian babes”, but switched to Vikings and is married to a much younger Swede. This hack has yet to follow up his threat to sue one of Johnson’s ex mistresses over Epstein allegations.
As we used to say when we were kids, “You win the internet today!”
You prize is a t-shirt with the Ghislaine Maxwell “then why am I in jail” meme.
There was the internet when you were a kid?
“Blair continues to be feted and fawned over by the British establishment and media.”
Close, but not quite. The BBC, in their role as state broadcaster, may well use him as a goto on various issues, as he has pals as insiders, but he has a phenomenal track record as a self publicist. The fawning is far from universal, and his apparent high profile is often transient. He is less relevant than he hopes.
His recent peroration on climate change was shot down by many better informed commentators, as the TBI is funded by oil interests, and his typical Panglossian technocratic crap simply reflected him as a one trick pony.
Blairism was born out of his fanboy attitude to Clinton, and the US modelled 3rd Way of neoliberal corporate liberalism, though supposedly redeemed by socially enlightened policies.
However, Blair did not embed any of his social reforms, such as Surestart, which were mostly tinkering at the margins as far as the left were concerned, and which were all undone in under 18 months by the Cameron government.
He excised traditional socialism from the Labour party in the mid 90s, running government through a very small personality driven inner circle, and was economically conservative, with Thatcher lauding him as her greatest legacy.
He was a pretty slavish follower of Pax Americana – even meeting and praising Putin prior to his first electoral success. Infamous for this lack of judgement on foreign affairs, and eventually caught out lying to ensure the UK was engaged in the Iraq debacle, he maintains his innocence to this day, and claims his pragmatic decision making was always on ‘what works’, and not dogma.
Blairism presumes a status quo oriented managerial technocracy, so mirrors Starmer to some degree, but he also still demonstrates his personal sense of moral rectitude and arrogance in that he knows that he was, and still is, the best person to make, or direct, the big decisions.
His motivation in 2025 seems more his certainty in this righteousness, and desire to be seen as a global statesman – so personal status – than private profit – he has already long made his own fortune. Mover and shaker is the current MO.
The current UK government lacks direction, given Starmer’s chameleon like lack of political commitment beyond his own holding the reins of power, so Blair inserted his placemen – including funding SPADS, advisers and even dropping in Mandelson… Yes, TB does exert undue and undemocratic influence – one reason why the old Labour left sees no future in the party, as he has always sought to sabotage the left.
He certainly believes in his own technocratic, militantly centrist model for the Labour party, and is funding now, to ensure he maintains influence. All is as devious and opportunistic as his period in office.
Blair held his seat in SE County Durham from the early 80s, through the Miner’s Strike era, so was very close to the de-industrialisation supervised by Thatcher.
However, he started losing support in these old working class industrial areas well before the 2003 Iraq war. The Labour vote had already started to fall back in the 2001 election in other Durham and NE seats, because his centre right economic approach lacked appeal, with cuts in benefits, and left voters seeing that the Blair offer was basically a set of inadequate investment policies in revitalising these industrial areas, but had a more metropolitan SE emphasis.
Adopting Tory economic policies directly for the first two years after 1997 kickstarted these concerns.
So, the FT displays this tar baby front page center over the weekend and follows up yesterday with an op-ed, while all those involved are ID’d as running from the scene. And while Olde England enjoys the show we have crickets here in New England. The Boston Globe, our regional paper of record, appears to have entirely missed this controversy, and the two Boston Consulting Group big-wheels who have left the firm. Apparently, these two fellows were doing the Gaza work on a “voluntary” basis and BCG was unaware of their activities…add the Globe to the list. The Boston Globe is owned by John Henry an investor who owns the Red Sox and the Liverpool FC. Henry made his dough picking up nickels in front of the proverbial steamroller.