Patrick Christys: The only way Tony Blair should be getting down on bended knee in front of our Queen is to beg for forgiveness

If Tony Blair had a single shred of decency, he’d hand his knighthood back.

But of course, he doesn’t. More than 750,000 people have signed the petition to have Blair stripped of his knighthood.

But we all know this won’t have any impact on "Sir" Tony, because after all, one million people took part in an anti-Iraq war march and that didn’t stop him dragging us into that mess.

What is Blair’s legacy? As I see it, Iraq is a pretty good place to start.

The Chilcott report is absolutely damning. In a nutshell, it says Blair didn’t tell the truth on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, on his deal with George Bush or the risks of future fallout from the conflict.

There have been more than a million excess deaths as a result of Blair’s push for war in Iraq. Many of them civilians. Many of them children.

179 British troops died in Iraq. I’m just going to quote now the mothers of some of the young men who died in that needless war.

Rose Gentle is the mother of Gordon Gentle, a 19-year-old from Pollok who was killed in 2004 by a roadside bomb in Basra.

She said: “Instead of standing in front of the Queen being made a Sir with that stupid grin on his face, he’d be better going to the cemetery and standing in front of my son’s grave to see what he’s done.”

I’m with Rose on that one. And it’s not just Iraq, is it. It’s Afghanistan as well. Hazel Hunt, whose son Richard died in Afghanistan, is thinking of sending back the Elizabeth Cross that her family received as a mark of protest against Blair’s knighthood.

Another military mother, Caroline Whitaker, who lost son Gareth after he was shot dead by an Afghanistan police officer in 2012 said she felt the establishment was 'making a mockery' of hers and other children's deaths.

And I think that’s what Blair’s knighthood does. It washes his hands clean.

Well, not quite, there’s not enough soap in the world for that in my opinion.But Blair's legacy is more than just unwinnable wars and plunging the Middle East into a never ending death spiral that has increased the risk of terror attacks both at home and abroad.

There’s the secret deals he did with the IRA. Under the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, more than 500 convicted terrorists were released early and nearly 200 IRA members on-the-run were given "Letters of Comfort" saying that they wouldn’t be pursued.

Meanwhile, veteran Dennis Hutchings was hounded to death by being dragged before a court in Northern Ireland to account for his actions during the troubles some 50 years previous.

But let’s look even closer to home, shall we? Immigration.

Blair made a conscious decision to irreversibly change Britain’s demographics.

In 2004, eight countries in central and eastern Europe, including Poland and Hungary, joined the EU as part of the bloc's enlargement project.

Blair chose not to put a block on the amount of people who could come.

For the decade that followed, net migration to the UK from these new member states topped 423,000.Asylum seekers were also waved through as economic migrants, reportedly.

Blair really set the ball rolling on mass migration and entire communities, entire cities, changed forever.

And then of course, there’s education, education, education. He wanted 50% of people to go to university.

And that happened, meaning loads of people now saddle themselves with a lifetime of debt in the pursuit of a Micky Mouse degree from a bang average university, and employers now demand degrees for jobs that simply don’t need it.

He signed off on devolution, because he wanted to end the question of independence once and for all.Well, that went well.

He’s kind of like the ultimate champagne socialist - the Pandora Papers revealed that Tony and Cherie Blair did not have to pay £312,000 in stamp duty when buying a £6.45m London townhouse.

The couple bought an offshore firm that owned the building.

And the Telegraph reported that the Blair Institute made millions by advising Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince.

The man widely believed to have ordered a journalist to be carved up with a bone saw in a Turkish embassy.

The effects of Tony Blair’s Premiership are still being felt right across the UK, the blood of those who died is splattered across the Middle East, the education system will never be the same again, neither will Britain’s demographics.

In my opinion - the only way he should be getting down on bended knee in front of our Queen, is to beg for forgiveness.