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Labour Party Crisis

Blair's Secret Date to Leave

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his designated successor Gordon Brown have a private "understanding" that Blair will leave office next May. The revelation comes after a week of rebellion by ministers within the Labour Party, and hours after Blair refused to announce in public when he planned to leave.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has struck a backroom deal with his likely successor, Britain's finance minister Gordon Brown, to quit as Labour Party leader on May 4, 2007. The revelation came only hours after Blair promised on Thursday to step aside within a year -- bowing to a dramatic mutiny within his own party -- but refused to set a date.

"I am not going to set a precise date now," he said in public on Thursday. "I don't think that's right. I will do that at a future date and I'll do it in the interests of the country."

The Financial Times, however, reported on Thursday night that Blair and Brown had an "understanding" that Blair would step aside as party leader on May 4 -- one day after regional elections in Scotland and Wales, which could go badly for Labour. That would open a six-week season of leadership electioneering within the party, which Gordon Brown would almost certainly win. He would succeed Blair as prime minister in June or July.

The sudden rebellion of ministers and union leaders that led to Blair's "historic and humiliating pledge" (Financial Times) on Thursday to step down has been brewing ever since he won a historic third term in May 2005. His victory then was razor-thin, and he promised not to run for a fourth term. Blair has seen the steady erosion of his popularity in Britain since the Iraq war started in 2003, and since then he has fended off calls from within his party to name a date to leave.

Labor union chiefs in Britain yesterday said Blair should step down to stop the bleeding of public support for the Labour Party caused by "prolonged uncertainty" in the Blair government. "Unless something changes," said Derek Simpson, head of the Amicus manufacturing union, "Labour will lose the next election."

All Eyes on Brown

Chancellor Brown has been Blair's rival for years within Labour and openly expects to become the next Prime Minister. Observers think he'd also prefer a few years in office to regain public support before the next general election (in 2010 at the latest). But on Thursday he soft-pedaled the Labour rebellion. Any decision to leave, he said, "is for (Blair) to make … This cannot and should not be about private arrangements but what is in the best interests of our party and, most of all, the best interests of our country."

The backstabbing and maneuvering recalls the last days of Margaret Thatcher's time in office, when an implosion of party support forced her to resign in 1990. But Blair's downfall, according to Polly Toynbee at The Guardian, is the result of his support for the war in Iraq, not just party squabbling. She compared him to US President Lyndon Johnson, who left office at the low point of an unpopular war after a successful program of social reforms. "Lyndon Johnson's Great Society was truly great," wrote Toynbee, "but Vietnam killed him."

It isn't clear now if Blair can survive until next May. It also isn't clear how Labour will fare. Blair's biographer, John Rentoul, said the power struggle would hurt the party.

"The turmoil has been very bad for Labour because it suggests many MPs (members of Parliament) have taken leave of their senses," Rentoul said. "This is probably how it's seen from abroad. The idea that Blair, who has won three election victories, should now be hounded out of office by a bunch of nobodies in the party reflects the extent to which the MPs haven't really understood why he was so successful."

msm/spiegel/ap