Blair 'to strip Mugabe of knighthood'

Tony Blair said yesterday that he would consider tighter sanctions and having Robert Mugabe stripped of his honorary knighthood in an attempt to force "regime change" in Zimbabwe.

The Prime Minister admitted that the restrictions on the Harare regime were failing. He said only £500,000 worth of assets had been seized from Mr Mugabe's associates.

In a Commons statement, Mr Blair said he would try to use February's EU summit to impose "sharper" sanctions on Zimbabwe. He said he would "certainly look at the issue of the honorary knighthood" granted to the country's president by the Queen in 1994. Andrew Robathan, Tory MP for Blaby, had urged Mr Blair to take "symbolic" action by removing the honour.

Reporting on his trip to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Nigeria, the Prime Minister said Zimbabwe had "gone backwards" since its suspension from the grouping last year.

He said the consensus at the Abuja summit gave the lie to one of Mr Mugabe's "most outrageous claims ... that the Commonwealth's approach to Zimbabwe is a white conspiracy led by the UK against black Africans". "The outcome in Abuja was hard fought, but in the end a victory for Commonwealth values," Mr Blair told MPs.

Mr Mugabe's subsequent decision to withdraw from the Commonwealth showed clearly that he did not accept "Commonwealth principles", and would increase Zanu-PF's isolation, he added.

Mr Blair conceded that attempts to seize the assets of leading members of the Mugabe regime had failed. The ministers' funds were instead shipped to neighbouring states. "Let's be honest about it. We have only managed to seize around half a million pounds. It is important to keep up maximum pressure to get regime change. We need to make sure the sanctions in place are more effective," he said.

The opposition MDC had said it wanted more sharply focused measures and more effective use of the sanctions in place rather than general sanctions.

Mr Blair said real progress would come only once southern African nations realised that it was in their own interests to see the removal of Mr Mugabe. He accepted that some neighbouring states, including South Africa, feared that Zimbabwe could descend into chaos if Mr Mugabe was toppled and that chaos could "spill into their countries". But the Harare regime had to be tackled urgently. "This is not just a matter for the EU, it is a matter for other countries as well," he said.

Michael Howard, the Tory leader, welcomed the Government's "strong stand", but complained that Mr Blair had been initially "behind the game" on Zimbabwe. "[The Government] hasn't led, it has followed and the people of Zimbabwe are the worse for it," he said. Mr Howard said EU sanctions, such as travel restrictions, against Zimbabwe were not strong enough. "Why don't they include the businessmen who still bankroll Mugabe?" he demanded.

Mr Blair said his response was guided by what opposition politicians said about the situation in Zimbabwe. "It is from within that the main change will come," he added.