PETER MANDELSON risked goading Labour rebels yesterday when he suggested they might be unable to find a candidate with whom to challenge prime minister Gordon Brown’s leadership.
The newly promoted first secretary of state – in effect, the deputy prime minister – admitted he did not know whether as many as 80 or 100 MPs might be prepared to sign a letter calling on Mr Brown to stand down in the aftermath of the party’s disastrous showing in the European and English county council elections.
Urging rebels to “stop taking shots” at the prime minister, Lord Mandelson told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: “It would require somebody to stand against him, somebody who is raising their standard and saying they could do a better job, and we don’t have that person.” Within hours of that assertion, however, Lord Falconer – Tony Blair’s old flatmate and former lord chancellor – insisted there were potential candidates waiting in the wings who could be prepared to launch a leadership bid. “I think we are moving moderately quickly toward the need for a change and that may be a change in leadership,” Lord Falconer told the BBC’s Politics Show.
The pace is expected to quicken as MPs return to Westminster armed with the full details of last Thursday’s poll disaster, in preparation for what could be a decisive meeting of the parliamentary Labour Party – at which Mr Brown will appeal for unity around the collective leadership of the new cabinet appointed on Friday.
With the most obvious potential leaders of any heave against Mr Brown maintaining silence over the weekend, left-wing MP Diane Abbot suggested the prime minister had been the intended victim of “a Blairite coup that went off half-cock”.
Lord Mandelson’s comments, too, reflected the confidence to which Mr Brown will feel entitled – that he is now safe from any challenge from within the cabinet. It was noted over the weekend, however, that ministers who accepted appointment on Friday could still reconsider their position should the election results turn opinion on the Labour backbenches heavily against the prime minister.
Other MPs on the left, too, have implied that one potential “tipping point” for them could be the sight of the far right British National Party winning seats in the European Parliament in any of Labour’s traditional heartlands.
Labour crashed to a miserable third place in the local elections with a 23 per cent share of the national vote, a historic low, and the loss of its remaining four county councils in England.
Ahead of last night’s first declarations, Mr Brown’s desperate hope was that the threatened SNP “surge” in the North West had been contained and that Labour could avoid the humiliation of coming fourth in the European contest behind the anti-European UK Independence Party.
Peter Hain, newly restored to the cabinet as Welsh secretary, acknowledged that the results would be “terrible” for Labour, while observing that they would probably be bad for all the mainstream parties because of the MPs’ expenses scandal. Mr Hain said he would be “really worried and extremely angry” if the parliament had created circumstances in which “the racist and fascist” BNP could win a seat in Europe.
Lord Falconer denied being part of a “Blairite” plot, while warning that Mr Brown could find his hand forced if he chose not to go of his own accord.
“The prime minister has got to consider what he thinks the mood of the party is,” he said. “If he concludes that he should go, then there will be a leadership election. If on the other hand he concludes that is not the position, then, in the light of what’s been happening, somebody – and I think there will be more than one – can decide whether or not they wish to seek the 70 signatures that would be required to challenge a leader.”
Lord Mandelson warned any MPs who were tempted to take this path that the replacement of Mr Brown with a third leader in a single parliament would lead to “irresistible pressure” for an early general election.