Protesters in Ireland pelt Blair at first book signing

Angry protesters hurled missiles at Britain’s former prime minister Tony Blair as he arrived at the first public signing session to promote his memoirs in the Irish capital Dublin yesterday.

More than 200 noisy demon­strators, many chanting slogans criticising Blair over the 2003 Iraq war, had gathered for the event, and witnesses said plastic bottles and flip-flops were thrown at him as his motorcade arrived.

None of the objects – also reported to include eggs and shoes – landed near the former premier as protesters surged towards a security barrier separating them from him before being repelled by police.

One woman said she tried to make a citizen’s arrest on Blair once he was inside the bookshop where the event was taking place.

“After I went through airport-like security to get to Mr Blair, I told him I was there to make a citizen’s arrest on him for war crimes committed in Iraq,” said Kate O’Sullivan, an activist from the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

“Mr Blair looked down and I was immediately grabbed by five security men and dragged away.”

A police spokesman would not give a precise figure for the number of people who were arrested at the protest but said it was in single figures. Blair was carrying out the signing to publicise A Journey, his account of his decade in Downing Street from 1997 to 2007, which was released earlier last week.

In the book, he said he “can’t regret” the decision to go to war in Iraq alongside then US president George W. Bush but acknowledged that he did not foresee the “nightmare” which was unleashed in the aftermath.

He will hold another book signing in London on Wednesday which anti-war activists are also pledging to target.

In Dublin, the demonstrators waved placards with slogans such as ‘Blair lied, millions died’ and ‘Lock him up for genocide’ and chanted amid a heavy police presence.