The British Prime Minister has said that while the political process in Northern Ireland is not perfect, unionists should not lose sight of the progress since devolution.
Mr Blair was speaking on a visit to Belfast, which came two days before Saturday's Ulster Unionist Council meeting. He said that while he understood many people's frustration with the apparent lack of progress on a number of issues, the political process deserved to be given time.
"I just think it is worth reflecting that there has been progress. We have a devolved Executive and Assembly. People are now governing their own affairs here in Northern Ireland.
"We have a situation which is by no means perfect in terms of security, but we have paramilitary organisations being brought gradually into the proper democratic process and, despite the activities of the extremists - whether loyalist or republican - who want to disrupt the process, the fact is it is there."
The main question to ask, he said, was whether the process as a whole was ultimately going in the right direction. In a warning to anti-agreement Ulster Unionists, Mr Blair said that if the Executive collapsed the Assembly would automatically follow, which would lead to a return to direct rule from Westminster.
"This is clearly not as preferable as devolved government. I have just been reading your Draft Programme for Government done here in Northern Ireland . . . and it is a remarkable document. Who would have guessed a decade ago that you would have got republicans and the DUP and the SDLP and the Ulster Unionists sitting down and formulating such a programme?"
Mr Blair said he believed the IRA ceasefire was intact but further actions would be required to prove that weapons were indeed being put "completely and verifiably beyond use".
He conceded that both unionists and nationalists had misgivings about the Police Bill but insisted that it remained a sound basis for encouraging more Catholics to join the new Police Service of Northern Ireland.
"There is a very large area of agreement already, as well as disagreement. I think it would be a false picture to say that people like Seamus Mallon are saying the whole legislation is wrong. They are not.
"They are saying they have still got concerns and we have got to try and deal with those concerns and discuss them with them, but taken all in all, this is a very important part of this process."
The official reason for the Prime Minister's visit was to chair a meeting of the Joint Ministerial Committee on Health, which was to bring together the health ministers from within the United Kingdom.
The Northern Ireland Minister of Health, Ms Bairbre de Brun of Sinn Fein, boycotted the meeting, saying that she had been given only two days' notice and that she regarded the event as a "publicity stunt" rather than an in-depth discussion of health matters.