Bitterness, rivalries and a party in turmoil

By Peter Oborne
Last updated at 2:07 AM on 10th May 2010

Gordon Brown smiles as he walks to church in North Queensferry in Fife yesterday

Last night the demands for Gordon Brown to stand down as Prime Minister were reaching a deafening crescendo. Already two of his own MPs - John Mann and Kate Hoey - have called for his head.

Behind the scenes, Lord Mandelson is reported to have held independent talks with the Liberal Democrats, with the removal of Mr Brown a key part of the negotiating terms.

At Downing Street, a succession of ministers held talks with the PM about the party's future and, in an extraordinary turn of events, Mr Brown himself met with Nick Clegg in a last-ditch attempt to secure a deal that would deprive the Tories of the chance of forming a coalition government.

Whatever the outcome of these turbulent backroom discussions, one thing has become certain. The Prime Minister cannot stay for long - and the only remaining question is whether he will quit as Labour leader the moment he leaves 10 Downing Street, or whether he will remain for a few months to secure a stable succession.

Which is why, today, the Labour Party is actively bracing itself for the most brutal and hate-filled leadership battle since the 1980s - with war poised to break out the moment Mr Brown makes his intentions clear.

On the one side are ranged members of the Blairite faction, who are determined to maintain the modernising legacy of former leader Tony Blair. Their preferred candidate is the Foreign Secretary David Miliband.

On the other side are the Brownites and the Labour left, whose anointed heir is the Schools Secretary Ed Balls.

On the surface, it is Mr Miliband who has the advantage and is the bookies' favourite. He has long been the darling of the well-heeled metropolitan elite which placed Tony Blair in power in what amounted to an internal coup after the death of John Smith in 1994.

More than that, Mr Miliband is backed by Mr Blair himself. I am told that Mr Blair's real purpose in returning to join the Labour campaign in the final days before the election was not to secure victory for Gordon Brown but to ensure a smooth takeover for his protege, who worked as his head of policy in Downing Street after the first Labour landslide of 1997.

MR Miliband's campaign is being covertly run by Labour's Prince of Darkness, Lord Mandelson - the same man who backed Mr Blair's campaign for the leadership in 1994. Some of the big donors who backed Mr Blair have been lined up too.

So it was not surprising that Mr Miliband was this weekend being toasted as the coming man at the elegant London dinner parties where fashionable media executives rub shoulders with New Labour influence peddlers.

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However, I do not share the growing belief that a Miliband victory is inevitable. He may be popular among the London elite - but he can go down very badly indeed among ordinary Labour supporters.

Here is one example. Last Tuesday, on the very eve of the election, the Labour Party held a rally in Manchester at which Gordon Brown spoke and senior party figures including Mr Balls and Mr Miliband were present.

The latter put in a perfunctory appearance, yet Mr Balls stayed behind afterwards chatting, purposefully allowing himself to be photographed shaking hands or linking arms with local activists and trade union leaders.

Nor did he leave until the very last person had been given ample time to make his acquaintance.

Make no mistake, Mr Balls is trying hard to win the leadership and is widely admired by the same men and women whom Mr Miliband and his supporters seem to treat with contempt - ordinary Labour Party workers.

That will be a huge factor in his favour. For the imminent Labour leadership election will not be decided in the offices of the BBC, at fashionable London parties, or in the columns of the leftwing Press. It will be decided by an electoral college comprising one third MPs, one third trade unionists and one third constituency activists. Let us examine each in turn. First, the trade unions. Here, Mr Balls has an overwhelming advantage. The political officer of Unite, Charlie Whelan, is his closest ally and personal friend. Unite's offices will therefore be at his disposal.

It is true that unions can no longer operate the discredited system of block votes. Nevertheless union members still be guided by their bosses over which leadership candidate will best represent their interests.

Secondly, the party activists. These tend to come from the left of the party and are as least as likely to favour Mr Balls as Mr Miliband.

Thirdly, Labour's remaining MPs. Many of these say privately that they find the Foreign Secretary arrogant and remote. Furthermore, many of the Blairite MPs who would naturally back Mr Miliband have lost their seats or left Parliament at the election.

As such, Mr Miliband's accession to the party throne is very far from being a forgone conclusion.

What can be predicted with certainty, however, is that the coming leadership election will be the most brutal since the early 1980s, when the militant tendency was such a force in Labour.

13 years the Blairites and the Brownites have plotted against each other and now all the hatred will come into the open. Indeed the recriminations have already broken out over who should take the blame for mistakes made in the Labour election campaign.

One lethal charge is that Lord Mandelson abused his role as campaign chief to neglect the Labour Party and instead promote Mr Miliband's leadership bid. For example, it is being claimed that the peer was responsible for the extraordinary decision to allow Mr Miliband to travel to Washington to meet Barack Obama at an international summit in the first week of the campaign. Many Labour strategists believe the Washington trip would have been an ideal chance for Mr Brown to display his statesmanlike credentials to the British electorate. Instead this golden photo-opportunity was handed to Mr Miliband. Questions are being asked as to why that was so.

Yesterday one Labour insider was quoted as complaining: 'Our campaign was run like David Miliband's election HQ' - a dangerous allegation that will be heard again and again in weeks to come.

Indeed, so vicious is this clash between Mr Balls and Mr Miliband that both men risk cutting each other's throats, thus allowing a compromise candidate to win the job.

The Foreign Secretary's younger brother Ed, the 40-year-old climate change secretary, is increasingly being mooted as a runner who might be acceptable to Blairites and Brownites.

It is probable, too, that Labour's often overlooked deputy leader Harriet Harman will throw her hat in the ring.

But potentially the most likely compromise figure is the Home Secretary Alan Johnson. He is one of the very few ministers to maintain amicable relations with both Mr Blair and Mr Brown. He has strong links with the unions, yet is also regarded as a moderniser.

A former postman, Mr Johnson's working-class credentials are impeccable. He is widely popular. Until now he has always denied he wants the job. But over the weekend he seemed to be dropping hints that his view might change.

I believe that if Mr Johnson decided to run then the job would be his.

As Britain wakes up this morning to financial markets in turmoil, the need for stability and strong government has seldom been greater. Yet in Mr Brown, we have a broken Prime Minister, while within his party the bitter war of succession is only just unfolding. So much for a new kind of politics.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/election/article-1275940/GENERAL-ELECTION-RESULTS-2010-Gordon-Browns-Labour-party-turmoil.html#

SAMOTALIS

10 May, 2010