NYT : 8 British Officials Resign in Revolt Over Blair

8 British Officials Resign in Revolt Over Blair

By ALAN COWELL | September 6, 2006

LONDON, Sept. 6 — Prime Minister Tony Blair sought to face down a revolt within his Labor party today as eight junior aides resigned to protest his refusal to set a date to leave office.

The spectacle of Mr. Blair fighting off such challenges, in such sharp contrast to the euphoria of his rise to power nine years ago, recalled the memory of Margaret Thatcher’s final days as her authority seeped away in 1990. Even as the chorus of dissent mounted, however, Mr. Blair was still scheduling Middle East diplomacy, with a planned visit to Lebanon next Monday.

Mr. Blair has dismissed challenges in the past — he was once nicknamed Teflon Tony — but British political analysts said the mood seemed more venomous this time. Some depicted the latest moves as a renewed effort by supporters of Gordon Brown, Mr. Blair’s heir apparent, to force the prime minister from office within the next few months.

The day’s events seemed to indicate that the rivalry between the two men was moving toward a showdown over what Mr. Blair depicted as the future of Labor.

“We are three years from the next election,” Mr. Blair said in a letter to one of the defectors, Tom Watson. “We have a strong policy platform. There is no fundamental ideological divide in the Labour Party for the first time in 100 years of history. 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.”

His adversaries saw it differently.

“People in the country want a change,” said Doug Henderson, a former government minister seen as a member of the Brown camp. “There should be a new leader in place by the end of March.” Mr. Blair’s resignation would trigger a Labor Party leadership contest, not a general election.

Mr. Henderson was speaking as Mr. Watson, a junior minister in the defense ministry once seen as a staunch Blair loyalist, resigned to protest at the prime minister’s reluctance to specify a timetable for leaving office. Mr. Watson was one of 17 Labor legislators who signed a letter on Tuesday demanding Mr. Blair’s early departure.

“It is with the greatest sadness that I have to say that I no longer believe that your remaining in office is in the interest of either the party or the country,” Mr. Watson said in a resignation letter that he made public today.

Mr. Blair snapped back. “I had been intending to dismiss him but wanted to extend to him the courtesy of speaking to him first,” he said in a statement released by his office.

“Had he come to me privately and expressed his view about the leadership, that would have been one thing. But to sign a round robin letter which was then leaked to the press was disloyal, discourteous and wrong,” Mr. Blair said.

The timing of Mr. Blair’s departure has divided the Labor Party since he announced two years ago that he would not contest a fourth election. He has led his party to its first ever run of three consecutive election victories and was returned to office in May 2005, albeit with a reduced majority, his popularity sapped by scandal at home and by his close alliance with the United States in the Iraq war.

The Sun newspaper reported today that Mr. Blair would resign as Labor party leader on May 31, 2007, leaving office in late July.

But, with Labor’s annual party conference scheduled for later this month and local elections next May likely to punish Mr. Blair’s party, legislators increasingly fear that they might lose their seats to a growing threat from the opposition Conservatives.

The newest crisis began to accelerate rapidly after Mr. Blair let it be known on Tuesday that he wanted a final 12 months in office.

After Mr. Watson quit as a junior minister, seven more Labor legislators holding the junior rank of personal private secretaries in various ministries also resigned their official positions in the government, though not their parliamentary seats. All were signatories to Tuesday’s letter to Mr. Blair and risked being dismissed.

One of them, Khalid Mahmood, told Mr. Blair in a letter: “The party and the Labor Government’s work is more important than any individual. Sadly, I feel that your remaining in office no longer serves the best interests of the party or the country.”

Using the coded language that denotes a longer transition, Mr. Blair argued today that the Labor Party’s best prospects lay in “setting out the policy agenda for the future combined with a stable and orderly transition that leaves ample time for the next leader to bed in.”

But some critics maintain that the defection of loyalists like Mr. Watson means that prime minister’s position has been weakened. “If that worm has turned, then it’s virtually over,” said Clare Short, a former minister.

Some argue that Mr. Blair should be given the “space to implement that timetable in consultation with the party and any potential successors,” as Glenda Jackson, a long-time Laborite critic of Mr. Blair, said.

The fight over Mr. Blair’s departure may not resolve the question of his succession, because Labor Party strategists have not ruled out a challenge to Mr. Brown in a leadership race.

Mr. Brown has not so far spoken publicly about the issue, which has seized the headlines to the delight of opponents such as David Cameron, the Conservative leader, who said the crisis showed the government was in “meltdown.”