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 News from Around the Americas | September 2006 
Blair Says He'll Resign Within a Year
 Beth Gardiner - Associated Press
| | Prime Minister Tony Blair arrives back at 10 Downing Street in London. The selling pressure on the pound has stopped after Blair confirmed that he will quit his job within the year. (AFP/Adrian Dennis) |
London - Prime Minister Tony Blair reluctantly promised Thursday to resign within a year, hoping that revealing a general time frame for his departure will appease critics who are calling for him to step down.
"I would have preferred to do this in my own way," Blair said. He refused to set a specific departure date, but said the annual Labour Party conference this month would be his last. The next conference is scheduled for September 2007.
"The precise timetable has to be left to me and has to be done in the proper way," he said.
Blair, who took office in 1997 and once commanded Labour with an unassailable authority, now appears to be at the mercy of demands from its restive lawmakers. It was not immediately clear whether his new exit strategy will be detailed and speedy enough to satisfy them.
Labour loyalists urging Blair to leave office soon - or at least announce a departure date - have grown more vocal in recent weeks. Their protests have been fueled by widespread anger at his handling of the recent fighting in the Middle East and anxiety over Labour's slide in the polls.
Eight junior officials quit Wednesday to insist on Blair's resignation, and news reports said Blair and Treasury chief Gordon Brown, who is considered likely to be the next prime minister, had a shouting argument in Blair's office about a handover date. The two may have ultimately reached an understanding.
Brown, opening a children's sports tournament in Glasgow, Scotland, said shortly before the prime minister's announcement that while he like others had had questions about Blair's plans, he would support his decisions.
"When I met the prime minister yesterday I said to him ... it is for him to make the decision," said Brown, looking relaxed and cheerful. "I will support him in the decisions he makes."
"This cannot and should not be about private arrangements but of what is in the best interests of our party ... and the best interests of our country," Brown said.
The first thing I would like to do is to apologize, actually, on behalf of the Labour Party for the last week, which with everything that is going on back here and in the world, has not been our finest hour to be frank.
But I think what is important now is that we understand that it's the interests of the country that come first and we move on.
Blair's Statemenet on Resignation Plans
Now, as for my timing and date of departure, I would have preferred to do this in my own way, but as has been pretty obvious from what many of my Cabinet colleagues have said earlier in the week, the next party conference in a couple of weeks will be my last party conference as party leader, the TUC (Trades Union Congress) next week will be my last TUC, probably to the relief of both of us.
But I am not going to set a precise date now. I don't think that's right. I will do that at a future date and I'll do it in the interests of the country and depending on the circumstances of the time.
Now that doesn't in any way take away from the fact it is my last conference but I think the precise timetable has to be left up to me and got to be done in a proper way.
I also say one other thing after the last week, I think it is important for the Labour Party to understand, and I think the majority of people in the party do understand, that it's the public that comes first and it's the country that matters and we can't treat the public as irrelevant bystanders in a subject as important as who is their prime minister.
So we should just bear that in mind in the way that we conduct ourselves in the time to come.
In the meantime, I think it is important we get on with the business. I was at a primary school earlier - fantastic new buildings, great new IT suite, school results improving.
I'm here at this school that just in the last few years has come on by leaps and bounds doing fantastically well.
We've got the blockade on the Lebanon lifted today. You know there are important things going on in the world.
And I think I speak for all my Cabinet colleagues when I say that we would prefer to get on with those things because those are the things that really matter and really matter to the country.
So as I say it has been a somewhat difficult week, but I think it's time now to move on and I think we will. |
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