Politics
Blair crisis: It's already over
Published 11 September 2006
Labour MPs are split, not on the principle of forcing out Tony Blair, but on the method. Our political editor, Martin Bright, reveals the inside story of a plot that is now out of control
Coups come in all shapes and sizes; they just take a more subtle form in advanced democracies. The first week of September 2006 will forever be remembered as the time when open insurrection broke out at Westminster. Everywhere the talk was of "Blairicide", and to everyone, with the exception of a handful of ultra-loyalists, only the means of execution was in question. A group of 17 former loyalists demanded that the Prime Minister perform harakiri, while others signed up to the "hug him to death strategy" of pledging loyalty, on the understanding that Blair would be gone within the year.
The coup was led by an unlikely set of plotters. Siôn Simon and Chris Bryant were until recently seen as ultra-Blairite cheerleaders. Simon, who made many of the calls canvassing signatures, wrote as recently as November that any talk among the chattering classes that Blair was a spent force was "bunkum". Only one, the Edinburgh MP Mark Lazarowicz, had actually voted against the declaration of war with Iraq.
In the end it was the numbers that forced the hand of the PM's inner circle.
As various rival letters flew around Westminster, ministers and Downing Street officials began totting up the scale of the coup. Forget the 17 names from the 2001 intake calling for the PM's immediate resignation, or a further letter said to be circulating among the 2005 intake also calling for him to go. It was the letter from around 60 so-called loyalists that really mattered, because it locked Blair in to the pronouncement by his Environment Secretary, David Miliband, that he would go within 12 months.
Downing Street knows there are now well over the 71 names needed to force a leadership challenge at this month's party conference if the Prime Minister backtracks.
The "loyalty" letter was really nothing of the sort. One signatory, known for his devotion to the Blairite project, told me that he had given serious consideration to backing the Simon-Bryant letter over the weekend, but decided against it after receiving reassurances from senior figures in the party that Blair would be gone by next summer. "I was broadly in sympathy and I didn't rule out signing," he said. Instead he signed the alternative letter.
Karen Buck, described as the leader of the "loyalists", has privately expressed her view that Blair has become a liability. Others, more hostile to calls for an immediate resignation, still believe Blair has to be gone before the 2007 party conference. Asked about the action of the 17 back-bench dissidents, one former minister said he was in a state of "meltdownish despair at the stupidity of it" - but not because he believed the PM's position was sustainable. Instead, he felt a show of loyalty was a better strategy for guaranteeing that Blair would go soon. "The secret weapon of politics is loyalty," he said.
Misjudgement
Early last week I was briefed by one of those closest to Blair that he would have to announce his departure plans before party conference or risk open revolt in the party. This was the intention of his interview with the Times, but the plan backfired spectacularly. It was a terrible error of judgement. Instead of providing a clear exit strategy, as even his close political allies had hoped, the Prime Minister lectured backbenchers to stop discussing specific dates and opened up the possibility that he could go on and on. The effect was the opposite of that intended: the wounds of the decade-long battle between Prime Minister and Chancellor were reopened in a series of press articles that plunged the factions within Labour into a new round of sectarian conflict.
How had such a cardinal error been allowed to happen? One cause is Blair's increasing isolation: from his party, from back-bench opinion and from previously local cabinet colleagues. He has been thrown back on the advice of Downing Street officials and the dwindling band of loyal ministers and former ministers who still tell him he is the answer. One senior Labour official termed this "the bureaucratic self-interest of a group of über-Blairites in the Downing Street bunker".
This belief in the Prime Minister's Messianic capabilities was revealed in lurid detail in the memo leaked to the Daily Mirror and published on 5 September, with its details of Blair's "farewell tour" as planned by the Downing Street faithful. The words of the memo have a tragicomic ring: "He needs to go with the crowds wanting more. He should be the star who won't even play the last encore."
Members of the new Labour vanguard, such as Charles Clarke in last week's New Statesman, warn against repeating the mistakes of the 1980s by descending into the politics of fratricide. But there is a growing feeling among backbenchers that the older generation has lost its grip. The leadership would be quite wrong if it thought dissent within the party stretched only as far as those prepared to sign a resignation letter.
MPs have returned to their constituencies after the summer to a barrage of hostility towards Blair from constituents and activists. For many, the Prime Minister's position on the Israeli in vasion of Lebanon brought matters to a head. One backbencher who said he would not sign any letter said he nevertheless believed there was no reason for Blair to stay any longer. "If he stood down tomorrow there would be a deep collective sigh of relief."
Exit strategy
Now the focus turns to the cabinet, where support is fast draining away, and in particular to Gordon Brown. The Chancellor holds all the cards. The New Statesman understands he has already demanded an immediate one-to-one meeting with Blair to thrash out a detailed timetable for the transition. A resignation date of 31 May 2007 will not satisfy the Brown camp, which is now convinced that Blair wishes to leave his departure as late as possible within the year he has given himself in order for a "stop Gordon" candidate to emerge.
In his interview with this week's NS, David Miliband has more forcefully than ever before thrown his weight, as keeper of the Blairite flame, behind Brown. Others have been more coy. Alan Johnson has not ruled himself out and John Reid is said to be straining at the leash. Brown has so far kept his counsel, although a piece by his trusted lieutenant Ed Balls in the ultra-Blairite Observer had the Chancellor's fingerprints all over it.
That "orderly transition" so prized by Brown is now fading into the distance, but he still believes there is one last chance of redemption for Blair. The PM must meet the Chancellor in the next few days and agree the words for a public declaration of a jointly agreed exit strategy.
This may be one humiliation too far for the Prime Minister. But if he refuses to co-operate, the coup will get bloodier yet.
The long goodbye
May 1994 Tony Blair and Gordon Brown reportedly strike a deal in a restaurant in Islington.
2 May 1997 Surfing on a wave of euphoria, Labour wins the general election with a majority of 179.
24 July 2000 Blair quells speculation over whether he will serve a second term: "If I fight an election I fight to be elected and to be prime minister."
7 June 2001 Second Labour victory.
September 2003 Speculation over Blair/Brown pact resurfaces at party conference following a rousing speech by Brown.
22 February 2004 Blair insists he will complete a full third term, denying rumours he will resign.
14 May 2004 Blair dismisses reports that he was thinking about letting the Chancellor take over as prime minister as "froth".
1 October 2004 Blair announces that should Labour win the 2005 election he would serve a third term, but would stand down before a possible fourth-term election.
8 May 2005 Blair speaks of allowing his successor "ample" time, but refuses to elaborate, saying: "To state a timetable now would simply paralyse the proper working of government."
16 July 2006 Blair dismisses the constant speculation. "I'm not sitting there, you know, obsessing the entire time about when the precise date is and all the rest of it. Get on with the job, that's what the public want and we are." His comments at the G8 indicate that he would attend as PM in 2007.
1 September 2006 Blair tells the Times that he has "no intention of leaving Downing Street" and that he was not going to go "on and on" about it.
2 September 2006 Union bosses warn TB "not to hang on too long like Margaret Thatcher".
4 September 2006 Former home secretary Charles Clarke warns that "clear and unambiguous" leadership is needed.
5 September 2006 David Miliband and Hilary Armstrong speak openly for the first time, saying that Blair will resign before the party conference in 2007. Seventeen MPs sign a letter calling for Blair's immediate resignation.
6 September 2006 The Sun claims to know that Blair will stand down in May 2007. MP John McDonnell announces he will launch his leadership campaign this week.
Sohani Crockett
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