Tony Blair on Wednesday bowed out as Britain’s prime minister with a flourish in the House of Commons, using his farewell appearance to mock his eurosceptic critics, saying “au revoir, auf Wiedersehen, arrivederci”.

After he tendered his official resignation to the Queen, he travelled to his constituency of Sedgefield in northern England, where he resigned as an MP to take up the post of Middle East peace envoy, representing the Quartet of the US, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations.