GORDON BROWN met one of the key Labour rebels demanding Tony Blair’s resignation just a day before the plotters’ letter was delivered to Downing Street.
The chancellor was visited at his home in Scotland on Monday by Tom Watson, the junior defence minister who resigned last week over the failed coup to unseat Blair.
The revelation that Brown met one of the ringleaders will fuel suspicions that the plot was orchestrated by the chancellor’s camp. Blair and his advisers already suspected that Brown and his allies were linked to the letter, which was signed by 15 Labour MPs.
The meeting at Brown’s home in North Queensferry, Fife, took place the day before the rebels sent their letter demanding Blair “stand aside” at No 10.
It sparked a furious response from the prime minister, who told Brown he was going to sack Watson for disloyalty. The MP for West Bromwich East decided to jump before he was pushed and resigned on Wednesday.
However, the chancellor and Watson last night strongly denied they had talked politics, saying Watson had merely dropped by to give Brown and his wife Sarah a present for their new baby, Fraser.
Watson had been in Scotland on a brief holiday, staying at the Fairmont St Andrews hotel, a golfing resort near St Andrews, about an hour’s drive from Brown’s home. The previous week Watson also had a private meeting with Sion Simon, another signatory to the letter, at a curry house in Wolverhampton.
Watson said yesterday: “I dropped a present for the new baby. I saw Gordon, but it was a purely social visit and just stayed for a cup of coffee. I did not discuss any letter and it would have been inappropriate to do so.”
A spokesman for Brown said: “He dropped in to see Fraser. There were no discussions on what was happening in London. They spent the entire time sitting in the living room with Sarah just playing with the baby.”
Last night as Blair flew to Israel for a round of Middle East diplomacy, he made it clear he would not suffer the same fate as Lady Thatcher, who was toppled in 1990 while abroad. Blair’s official spokesman brushed off the threat: “History rarely repeats itself.”
Blair also appeared reluctant to calm the growing pressure on Brown. On two occasions, his press spokesman declined to criticise Charles Clarke, the former home secretary, for his ferocious attacks on Brown. Last week Clarke described Brown as “absolutely stupid” and a deluded “control freak” who “can’t work with people”.
The spokesman’s action will be seen as an indicator of the disastrous breakdown in the relationship between the prime minister and the chancellor. It will also be taken as further evidence that Blair is unwilling to give Brown the public endorsement he wants as his successor.
Amid growing expectation that Brown faces a challenge from a Blairite candidate for the premiership, the chancellor will today use a BBC interview to give assurances that Blair supporters will have a key role in a government of “all the talents”. He is expected to say he will welcome a leadership contest and that all candidates who want to stand should be encouraged to do so.
The continued sniping between the two factions is unsettling senior members of the parliamentary party, who are threatening to demand a quicker resolution of the leadership than Blair’s pledge last week to quit within 12 months.
Blair faces a second wave of assaults in the run-up to the Labour party conference in an attempt to unseat him as prime minister.
Rebellious MPs are set to ignore the prime minister’s calls yesterday for an end to the sniping as the civil war over the leadership of the party continues. Labour’s parliamentary committee, the so-called “men in grey suits”, last week formally asked for a meeting with Blair to discuss the leadership.
One member of the six-strong committee, who are chosen to liaise with Blair on behalf of the parliamentary party, said: “We need to say to him that he sets a date [for his departure] and goes in January or February.”
Close aides to Blair say they also expect a concerted attempt by supporters of Brown to force Blair out in the next fortnight. “We are expecting it all to start up again in the run-up to conference and there will be a major push,” said one.
A further series of letters from MPs is said to be circulating within Westminster calling for Blair to quit, similar to those sent to Downing Street by rebel MPs last week.
Welsh MPs feel particularly vulnerable if a new leader is not elected soon. Julie Morgan, chairwoman of the Welsh group of Labour MPs, said she wanted Blair to go by January to avert a Labour defeat in the Welsh assembly elections in May.
“You have to avoid going into the elections with feelings of uncertainty over the leadership,” she said.
In a separate development, senior party figures said they were ready to call an emergency meeting of the entire parliamentary Labour party — all 353 MPs — to “thrash out” the leadership.
Barry Sheerman, the moderate chairman of the education select committee, said: “One more move from any faction anywhere and we will call for an emergency meeting of the parliamentary Labour party. We won’t put up with it any longer.
“It won’t be thrashed out in a corner. It will be thrashed out where every member can come and speak and vote. We need this sorted before conference. ”
A surprise attack on Blair came this weekend from a minister close to Brown. Harriet Harman, the constitutional affairs minister, said Blair’s
foreign policy, particularly in Iraq and his close relations with the US, had been a “symbol of mistrust and division” and was a sign that the government does not listen.
Writing in The Sunday Times, Harman says: “We have to address the widespread perception that we do not listen. People no longer accept that foreign policy can be left to the prime minister and the Queen, ambassadors and diplomats.”
Challenged yesterday on his support for President George Bush in the Middle East, Blair said: “I don’t think it has ever been a mistake to stand shoulder to shoulder with America in the aftermath of 9/11.”
The fragility of Blair’s position has been underlined by a new poll for The Sunday Times that shows the prime minister is significantly more unpopular than Lady Thatcher was at the same stage of her career, nearly 10 years after taking office.
The Ipsos MORI political monitor shows that 66% of people are dissatisfied with Blair’s performance as prime minister, with only 26% satisfied. It does not, however, bring good news for Brown either, showing a 13-point drop in the chancellor’s trustworthiness rating since April, far worse than the two-point drop for Blair.
Meanwhile, cabinet ministers revealed Blair last week refused Brown’s demands to endorse him publicly as his successor. One said Brown had asked Blair to “guarantee that I can have a clear run at the leadership”, but Blair replied: “I can’t do that, I can’t stop people standing.”
To add to the mutual suspicion, the Brown camp believes Blair wants a rival such as John Reid, Alan Johnson or Alan Milburn to stand against the chancellor in the leadership contest.
Yesterday members of Blair’s inner circle continued to make personal attacks on Brown and signalled that there would not be a clear run for him as the next leader.
Last night the Observer newspaper claimed that up to 10 cabinet ministers were discussing backing an “anyone but Gordon” candidate.
Cherie Blair is said to have urged her husband to resist the chancellor’s demands. According to one friend, she told Blair to fight on and that she would be “gutted” if Brown won.
A Blair adviser claimed that in his meetings with the prime minister last week Brown had referred to the letter plotters as just the “first wave of my troops”, although this is denied by the Brown camp.
Another close aide of Blair said: “Anyone but Brown would suit Tony. He thinks the way Brown has behaved is disgraceful. He could have waited another year and it all would have been smooth but now look at what has happened.
“Blair does not think Brown can beat [David] Cameron . . . Tony wants to exit in his own time — he doesn’t want this f***** to see him out. That is absolutely not going to happen.”
A Blairite MP said: “Gordon has whetted the appetite for a proper leadership contest. Who now speaks of a coronation [for Brown]? Charles Clarke has done us a service by saying in public what many people have been saying in private.”
Yesterday morning, Blair told a conference of Progress, a new Labour think tank, that continued sniping could cost the party the next election. “We are not going to win if we have personal attacks by anybody on anyone, because it turns the public off and makes them think we are interested again in ourselves and not in them.”
Additional reporting: Isabel Oakeshott, Jerusalem; Robert Winnett; Judith O’Reilly
