British Prime Minister Tony Blair will step down early in May next year after a revolt by disenchanted supporters campaigning for him to end almost 10 years in office, British media reported on Thursday.
Sky Television, citing senior Labour Party members, said the embattled premier would step down as party leader on May 4 2007 and a new prime minister would take office in mid-June.
The BBC also said he would go in early May.
Asked to comment on the reports, a spokesperson for Blair’s office said: ”People should not get ahead of themselves and should wait to hear if or what the prime minister has to say.”
Blair is expected to set out a timetable for his departure later on Thursday in an attempt to defuse a leadership crisis which has engulfed his ruling Labour Party.
With party colleagues running scared about Blair’s growing unpopularity, a junior minister and seven government aides resigned on Wednesday after calling on him to step aside.
Any chance of Blair overseeing a smooth handover to his finance minister and expected successor Gordon Brown was evaporating with reports that the two were locked in a furious shouting match in fiery meetings on Wednesday.
Blair’s popularity has tumbled in opinion polls after government scandals over sleaze and mismanagement were compounded by controversy over the wars in Iraq and Lebanon.
Environment Minister David Miliband, a loyal Blair ally who has been tipped as a future prime minister, has said Blair would be gone within a year and Labour needed Brown in charge.
”Either we have a smooth transition or you have a train crash,” Miliband told the New Statesman magazine in comments published on Thursday.
”What I believe is that we need more than a smooth transition to Gordon Brown — we need an energising, refreshing transition to Gordon Brown,” he said.
Endgame
Blair has already pledged not to fight the next election, expected to be held in 2009, and senior ministers appeared on morning talk shows to try and quell the feverish political speculation.
Newspapers on Thursday splashed doomsday headlines such as ”The Endgame” and damaging reports of Blair and Brown at daggers drawn as a long-running feud flared anew.
Junior Defence Minister Tom Watson was the most senior Labour lawmaker to resign on Wednesday. He was followed by seven government aides who had previously been Blair loyalists.
Amid fears that government could face paralysis in a long period of Labour Party bickering, party chief Hazel Blears said: ”We remember those bad old days when we spent so long arguing amongst ourselves, we forgot to fight the Conservatives.”
Conservative leader David Cameron, whose youthful image has sent him into a comfortable opinion poll lead over Blair, said the Labour government was ”in meltdown”.
Margaret Thatcher, one of his most illustrious predecessors, was ruthlessly toppled by a party mutiny when colleagues felt she had become an electoral liability.
Now Blair faces the prospect of suffering the same fate.
Mori pollster Ben Page told Reuters: ”In 20 years time or so we’ll look back and think what a tragedy.
”He was amazingly popular, he started out as one of the most popular leaders ever and he’s now less popular than Thatcher when she went.” – Reuters