Gordon Brown will be given the chance to rally his party at its annual conference the week after next. But no one can be sure of anything else at the moment.

As they assessed the damage from another weekend of turmoil, the view of ministers appeared to be that this cannot go on.

Sooner or later, and perhaps sooner, the issue of Mr Brown’s future has to be determined, otherwise Labour could be looking at a wipe-out in 2010. But quite how it could be settled, short of a series of Cabinet resignations, is impossible to predict.

The assortment of former ministers, mavericks, anti-Brownites and loyalists who emerged at the weekend as in favour of a contest would under normal circumstances have been easy to dismiss as a “ragbag”. Their timing was questionable. Showing their hand in the run-up to conference, a point in the political calendar when parties most need to display unity, meant that the party machine could be galvanised to squash them.

Although the ministers who were fielded yesterday to rally behind Mr Brown may have criticised the tactics of the rebels, they did not attack them personally or their right to speak out. There are two good reasons. For a start, some Cabinet ministers have sympathy with the MPs. Those MPs had been looking to the Cabinet to act against Mr Brown, as appeared possible in the early summer. The rebels acted because they felt the Cabinet had failed to wield the knife.

The other reason for the restraint was an order from the top. Mr Brown and ministers close to him accept that the dissenting ten have more support than their number implies. Mr Brown told his team that the MPs had to be shown respect, perhaps mindful of the way some of his supporters were treated when they were accused of being involved in the “curry house plot” against Tony Blair in 2006.

However, the overall impact of the weekend’s chaotic events may be to bring forward the showdown that seems certain to come between Mr Brown and his MPs before this Parliament is out.

The Prime Minister will get to the conference and beyond. He may make the speech of his life and begin the road to recovery. But the conference could turn out to be only a reprieve, if Mr Brown and Labour head towards the winter unable to move in the opinion polls. The rebels are now out there, having put on record their view that Mr Brown should go or face a contest. Every time one of them rises in the Commons, the Opposition will point to them as evidence of a split party. Every utterance that the Cabinet doubters deliver will be analysed and reanalysed. In short, Labour will not be able to escape from its current ordeal until the issue is dealt with.

Until the weekend it seemed that the Glenrothes by-election, where the SNP is strongly fancied to topple Labour again, might be the next point at which the Cabinet tried to show its hand against Mr Brown. It was after Glasgow East that David Miliband put his ambitions on the map.

Some ministers believe that it could come before that, possibly at a parliamentary party meeting when the Commons resumes, possibly when Mr Brown reshuffles his Cabinet. Some speculate that Mr Brown will force the issue by “doing a John Major”, standing down from the party leadership and seeing off all comers in a contest. There is no chance of that. The Cabinet backed Mr Brown yesterday. Within weeks it may have to make that decision all over again.

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