Twiggy Garcia, a bartender at the east London restaurant Tramshed — which is right around the corner from me! — interrupted former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's dinner to place him under citizen's arrest and ask him to come to a police station to hear charges for his decision "to launch an unprovoked war against Iraq." The war criminal smiled winningly and tried to change the subject to Syria, while his offspring hurried away to get their private muscle. The bartender, sensing an impending beat-down, left, quitting.
I'm sorry he quit. I'd have booked a table at Tramshed for the express purpose of buying him a drink. If you're interested in placing Tony Blair under arrest, you can learn more at Arrestblair.org.
Did Blair react in the way you expected him to react?
It all panned out pretty much how I thought it would, except that I didn’t expect him to start debating with me. I think he actually believed the lies that were coming out of his mouth. We all know that the humanitarian angle of the war was retrofitted after the decision to go to war when Blair and Bush failed to get UN Security Council approval.What do you hope will come from the attempted arrests?
I hope that it will keep people from forgetting that he is a war criminal. I hope one day he faces his charges at the Hague. People seem to think that those laws only apply to Nazis and African warlords.If you saw him again would you do anything differently?
I’d probably get someone to film it. I was scared to get my phone out in case it was confiscated by his bodyguards. The police have held my phone for five months before when I had done nothing illegal. They are shits.
My Boyfriend Tried to Put Tony Blair Under Citizen's Arrest [Georgia Bronte/Vice]