TONY BLAIR is toxic. His approval rating is minus 60. It is hard to see many people throwing themselves into the ditch beside him and rising up to block Brexit, as he suggested.

Boris Johnson will have got many guffaws for instead urging people to rise up and turn off their TVs when Mr Blair is speaking, although most Brexiteers will be delighted to see Mr Blair waging a war against them. He is their best recruiting sergeant.

But, when the dust settles after his intervention, three things will become clear.

Firstly, however much you hate him, he still matters. No other retired politician in Britain would have got so much attention.

Secondly, he is embarrassing for Labour – and not just because he is so off message. Most people have no idea what Labour’s stance is over Brexit beyond a woolly pledge to hold the Government “to account”. Yet, by contrast, here is Mr Blair with a crystal clear policy position and an ability to cut through and get his message across in a way Labour’s current leadership cannot.

And thirdly, there is a chance that he could be right.

Of course, we have to push on with our Brexit negotiations. That is the will of the people. And the majority of the people will hope that Theresa May and her top team really can negotiate a decent deal from the EU that will give us a chance to prosper on the outside.

But what if that doesn’t happen? What if the EU really proves that you are better off inside its club by giving us the hardest Brexit imaginable which will devastate the Nissans and Hitachis that we rely on? What if President Trump is true to his word and puts America first? What happens if our only trade deal is with a deplorable dictator like President Erdogan of Turkey? Do we push on regardless, or do we at least listen to Mr Blair’s message, even if we hate the messenger?