Tony Blair today refused to set a precise date for his departure but said he would leave office within 12 months.
Tony Blair
After a week of turmoil in his ruling Labour Party, the British prime minister said he would resign within a year but rejected calls from former supporters to name an early departure date.
"The next party conference in a couple of weeks will be my last party conference as party leader," he said in a televised statement.
Mr Blair also apologised to the country on behalf of the Labour Party "for the last week".
Earlier Mr Blair's official spokesman Mr Blair would seek today to reflect public concern about the events this week that have seen eight members of his government quit in protest at Mr Blair staying in office.
Yesterday junior defence minister Tom Watson and seven junior members of the government quit their posts as parliamentary private secretaries.
As speculation increased over the apparently co-ordinated move by Mr Watson and the other seven, reports suggested there had been "furious exchanges" between Mr Blair and Chancellor Gordon Brown - the favourite to succeed Mr Blair.
Mr Blair had accused Mr Watson, the defence minister, of being "disloyal, discourteous and wrong" in signing a letter from 15 MPs calling on him stand down.
Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt said the group of MPs who signed the letter had committed an act of "immense disloyalty and foolishness".She said: "It looks as if they are trying to engineer a coup."
Speaking from India, Conservative leader David Cameron said the government was in "meltdown" and that Mr Blair was now a "lame duck".