Los Angeles, California: Former Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Executive Chairman of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, Tony Blair, emphasized the positive impact of immigration on the United States and the United Kingdom, while underscoring the need for effective control and clear policy signals.

“So immigration has done an immense amount for your country, for my country, a lot of the people, most prominent in the technology sphere are immigrants,” Blair said on May 5, 2025, during a panel at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles.

Participating in a discussion titled “Global Overview,” moderated by American journalist Nicholas Kristof, Blair remarked “So immigration properly controlled is a good thing, but you have to have controls. And I will say to people with immigration, if you don’t have rules, you’ll end up with prejudices,” adding “And what you learn in government is a lot of immigration is driven by the signals you send. I’m afraid you’ve got to send a signal that if you come into a country, you come in lawfully, or you don’t come in.”

He noted that clear policy signals are essential to reconciling support for immigration with public concerns. “That is the thing that allows you to unite the belief that immigration properly controlled could be a good thing with the desire to make sure that immigration doesn’t become a grievance amongst the population,” Blair said. He warned that poorly managed immigration can strain community relations and become entangled with public anxieties about crime and lawlessness, a trend he said is visible across Europe.

Blair cautioned that failure to address such issues creates fertile ground for populist movements. “Populists don’t invent grievances. They may exploit them, but the grievances are usually real, and therefore you’re going to deal with it, whether it’s stagnant wages or issues to do with anxiety over cultural change,” he added. 

Reflecting on his own political journey, Blair recalled taking over the Labour Party after four successive electoral defeats. In a conversation with party activists, someone questioned why the public kept voting against them. Blair noted that the same disconnect persists today within progressive movements.

“I feel like this with progressive politics. The fact is progressive politics is not in the right place globally. At the moment, it’s gone down a whole set of cul de sacs around things like identity politics and so on, which is never going to create a proper, unifying political message,” he said. 

Blair stressed the need for a modern economic vision rooted in the realities of the technological revolution, and lamented a lack of bold yet pragmatic leadership on the left. “The problem always from progressive politics, is that the radicals aren’t sensible and the sensible people aren’t radical,” he said.

He identified the biggest challenge facing democracies today as “efficacy.”

“You know, it’s getting things done. I mean, anyone who’s ever been in government knows the toughest thing is to get anything done,” he said, recalling his time at 10 Downing Street. “I won a landslide victory and was the most powerful person in the country. I thought, if I take a decision in Downing Street, something’s going to happen.”

Instead, he discovered that entrenched systems often resist change. “The system just absorbed this pressure to change and somehow killed it off.”

Blair linked this institutional inertia to the appeal of political disruptors: “If you look at, for example, the rise of President Trump here, I think it’s got a lot to do with people wanting things moving. They want action.”

Turning to the Middle East, Blair described the region’s broader struggle as one of modernity, whether states can foster religious tolerance and build open, connected economies.

“You see this struggle going on in different forms, literally all over the region,” he said, adding that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict echoes this challenge. “At one level, it is quite a simple thing to express and something difficult to do.”

He outlined the two likely outcomes when conflict arises between peoples living side by side: either they reach a peaceful resolution, as in Northern Ireland, or the stronger party imposes control to maintain security.

“Basically, you won’t get back to a two-state solution or even a rational discussion about that, because for many people in Israel right now are frankly completely unrealistic,” he added. “I think what has happened in Gaza is so terrible in terms of its impact that this is the place we need to start if we’re going to have any hope for the future. It’s got to start with Gaza.”

CNN’s Fareed Zakaria Speaks 

During a separate panel discussion titled “Global Overview” on May 5th, CNN’s Fareed Zakaria remarked that the world is experiencing “an age of great uncertainty and change.”

Citing an insight he credited to Prime Minister Tony Blair, Zakaria observed that in times of anxiety, societies often shift culturally to the right rather than economically to the left. “People don’t say, ‘I need one more government program,’” he said. “They say, ‘Get those damn foreigners out of my country.’”

He pointed to this trend as evident across much of the Western world, noting that left-leaning parties are struggling in countries like France, Germany, Sweden, Italy, and, notably, the United States.

Zakaria argued that the Republican Party has ceased to function as a traditional political party, describing it instead as a “cult of personality.” He criticized President Donald Trump’s use of tariffs, calling them “illegal.”

Under the U.S. Constitution, Zakaria noted, the authority to set tariffs lies with Congress, which has only delegated that power to the executive in limited circumstances. “The President claims a national security emergency gives him that authority,” he said. “But it’s a bit odd to have a national security emergency involving every country in the world, including one inhabited only by penguins,” he joked.

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin’s View 

Later that day, at a panel discussion on May 5th titled “U.S. Competitiveness in a Changing World,” Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin expressed confidence in President Trump’s economic approach, saying he is “very optimistic” about the direction the President will take the economy.

“I understand that when you’re fundamentally resetting unbalanced global trade relationships, while also dramatically reducing Washington’s spending, it makes for a tough transition,” Youngkin acknowledged. “But that’s real.”

He projected that the United States will finalize trade deals with major partners including India, Europe, Canada, Mexico, Korea, and Japan. He also anticipated a potential agreement with China, adding that Trump “fully recognizes China as an adversary – not just a competitor.”

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