Brown's Passive Allies will Miss the Boat
02 May 2006
Evening Standard Since the general election there have been a growing number of Labour MPs who feel that Blair must go. And this week's local elections will bring this feeling to a head, almost irrespective of the result. Because elections force MPs to go door to door and hear what Labour voters really think. And Blair has never been more unpopular with ordinary Labour supporters. As one lifelong Labour voter said to me when I was out canvassing this weekend: "It goes against every fibre of my being not to vote Labour but " Some excellent Labour councils risk being swept away in the anti-Blair backlash.
The recent kerfuffle about Prescott, Hewitt Clarke et al has not helped. There is a reasonable defence of all of them. More difficult to counter is the feeling that, as long as Blair continues to cling on, the party will be buffeted by media storms of this kind. The mechanics of removing Blair are tricky. In the 1980s the Left fought to take the selection of the party leaders out of the hands of MPs and replace it with an electoral college involving all sections of the party.
But the daunting task of cranking up this elaborate machinery make it more difficult to remove an unpopular leader.
For years MPs watched as Brown painstakingly built up battalions of support in the trade unions and parliament. But Brown's people have convinced themselves that Blair is going to walk away and hand the leadership to their man.
No greater example of collective delusion has been seen since the mass suicide of 912 people in Jonestown Guyana. But Brown's bright young men stalk the corridors and cafeterias of Parliament counselling absolute loyalty to Blair.
"Gordon does not want to inherit a divided party," they say sagely. It does not seem to occur to them that if things carry on as they are, Brown may not inherit the party at all.
Because the fear that haunts many MPs is not merely that Blair will hang on for three or four more years in vain pursuit of his "legacy", but that he may not go at all. So middle-of-the-road Labour MPs are frantically trying to construct a "stalking horse" strategy to trigger his exit.
If Brown's battalions stand by with folded arms, it is hard to see how this can work.
But, as the shadows close in on the Blair administration, some MPs think it is at least worth a try.
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