TONY BLAIR will try today to stabilise the crisis engulfing his leadership by saying publicly for the first time that he will be gone within a year.
The Prime Minister will bow to the wishes of his MPs as his party descends into civil war and allies of Gordon Brown are accused of plotting to remove him. After another day of turmoil during which he suffered seven government resignations over his determination to cling to office, the Prime Minister will remove any lingering doubts about his intention to quit next year and underline that he is committed to a stable and orderly transition.
His move follows two meetings yesterday with Gordon Brown and was said by Downing Street to have been agreed with the Chancellor.
It marks an astonishing about turn by Mr Blair after his interview with The Times last week in which he refused at least eight times to elaborate on the timing of his departure.
But the fury it provoked among his MPs has prompted him to change his mind in the hope that he can be given a chance to build his legacy in his last few months at the helm. Without it he could have faced a revolt that would have seen him turfed out of No 10.
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It will be presented as evidence that Mr Blair and Mr Brown are working on the transition although it was clear last night that Mr Brown remains to be satisfied on several points.
The general mood among Labour’s warring factions was still poisonous last night. Mr Blair was reported to have called Mr Brown to assure him that he had not authorised briefings suggesting that the Chancellor was behind the plot attempt. It followed the two tense meetings between the pair, themselves a sign that Labour’s plight could hardly be worse.
In the first Mr Blair was said to have been bad-tempered, his anger at the behaviour of the rebels apparently boiling over. The second was said to have been “more positive”. “Both saw the need to cool down,” a source told The Times.
Mr Brown is understood to have told Mr Blair that a plan floated overnight for him to leave office next July was unacceptable. He is believed to have argued that the next leader — almost certainly him — must have time to establish himself in the Commons against David Cameron and to take legislative initiatives.
But it is believed that Mr Blair resisted calls from Mr Brown to state publicly a resignation timetable or to give any indication that he is ready to go before the Scottish and Welsh elections next May, which would be Mr Brown’s preference. Mr Brown is insisting that there should be more public evidence that the transition is taking place, with joint appearances after joint decision-making on key policies. Labour MPs said last night that if Mr Blair cleared the air over his departure next year that would allow him breathing space during which there could be detailed talks about a timetable.
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Even so, there was fury in No 10 over the co-ordinated resignations of Tom Watson, the junior Defence Minister, and six parliamentary aides over about four hours. Senior Blairite allies were highlighting the links between several of those who had resigned, the anti-Blair union Amicus, and Mr Brown.
They described the moves as a 1970s-style union putsch and a “disgraceful attempt to blackmail the Prime Minister out of office”.
As the rift in Labour’s leadership grew, John Prescott, the deputy prime minister, flew home yesterday two days early from his family holiday in the Algarve.
Blairites were challenging Mr Brown to call off the attacks on Mr Blair. “One word from Gordon could stop this,” one said. “He has a very big choice — does he want to come to power on the back of a coup in which his supporters have been closely involved?” Mr Watson and the six aides had signed a letter calling on Mr Blair — as “utter Labour loyalists and implacable modernisers” — to step aside. Mr Watson, who was described as a close friend of Mr Brown by Blairite loyalists, resigned before Mr Blair could dismiss him. But Mr Blair swiftly called him “disloyal, discourteous and wrong”.
In a letter to Mr Watson last night Mr Blair raised the spectre of Labour’s 18 years in opposition — caused in part by the public perception that the party was disunited.
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He said: “We are three years from the next election. We have a strong policy platform. For the first time ever, we have the prospect not just of two but three successive full terms. To put all this at risk in this way is simply not a sensible, mature or intelligent way of conducting ourselves if we want to remain a governing party.”
In India David Cameron said that the Government was in meltdown and Mr Blair was a lame-duck leader.
Later, a seventh Parliamentary Private Secretary resigned from office. Iain Wright, PPS in the Department of Health, said he “believed that the party and the Government cannot renew itself in office without urgently renewing the leadership”. ()
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WE ARE writing this private letter as a group of MPs first elected in 2001, all of whom have been involved in the party and the wider Labour movement for a long time. We campaigned for your election as leader and fought alongside you to modernise the party under Neil Kinnock, John Smith and yourself.
We believe that you have been an exceptional Labour Prime Minister. The party and the nation owes you an incalculable debt of gratitude. Your leadership of our Government has revolutionised the lives and opportunities of millions of our citizens, combining social justice with prosperity to an extent which is unprecedented in the history of our country.
Having been with you on this journey for most of the last twenty years, we are proud of what Labour has been able to achieve under your leadership. We have always believed passionately in the same kind of modern, progressive, electable Labour Party that you do.
The permanent advancement of this kind of dynamic, electorally persuasive Labour Party is, and always has been, our project as much as yours. And it remains so.
We can and must win the next general election.
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To do otherwise would be, unforgivably, to fail in our duty to the party and the country. This is as true now as it was a decade ago, and if the right choices are made in time, it will be true in another ten years.
Sadly, it is clear to us — as it is to almost the entire party and the entire country — that without an urgent change in the leadership of the party it becomes less likely that we will win that election.
That is the brutal truth. It gives us no pleasure to say it. But it has to be said. And understood.
This is not a plot against you by people who want to reverse or slow down the progress you have led. We are all as determined as you are that nothing should stand in its way.
But we believe that it is impossible for the party and the Government to renew itself without renewing its leadership as a matter of urgency.
As utter Labour loyalists and implacable modernisers, we therefore have to ask you to stand aside.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda), Tom Watson (West Bromwich East), Sion Simon (Birmingham Erdington), David Wright (Telford), Wayne David (Caerphilly), Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham Perry Barr), Jim Sheridan (Paisley & Renfrewshire North), Ian Lucas (Wrexham), Hywel Francis (Aberavon), Mark Tami (Alyn & Deeside), Kevan Jones (Durham North), Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North & Leith), Anne MacKechin (Glasgow North), David Hamilton (Midlothian), Chris Mole (Ipswich).