RMT rail union general secretary Bob Crow repeated a call for Blair to go yesterday in the wake of Wednesday’s Terrorism Bill defeat.
Crow said: ‘Blair should have gone ages ago, because of the war on Iraq more than anything else.
‘Apart from making the world less safe, he has made us more unsafe.’
Other trade union leaders yesterday refused to call for Blair’s resignation in the wake of Wednesday’s defeat in the House of Commons, despite his determination to carry on with privatising health and education.
A UNISON spokesman told News Line: ‘We’re against the privatisation but in terms of calling for Blair’s head we’re not commenting on that.’
A spokesman for lecturers’ union NATFHE said he did ‘not have time to comment,’ adding ‘we are not affiliated to the Labour party, so we don’t comment on that issue, but I do take your point on education’.
The FBU said all its officers were out taking meetings around the country.
An ASLEF train drivers union spokesman said: ‘We don’t have a comment yet.’
The GMB general union said: ‘We haven’t got a comment, really.’
A spokesman for anti-war MP George Galloway’s Respect Party told News Line: ‘Wednesday’s is the first of many crises, there are several more to come.
‘The prime minister has run out of time. It’s time he went, and his privatisation programme.’
Labour veteran, former MP Tony Benn told News Line: ‘The vote on Wednesday does signal the end of New Labour.’
Asked should Blair go now, he added: ‘The important issue is not the person but the programme.
‘MPs should vote on the issues according to merits and be preparing a programme for the future when he goes.’
Former Labour minister Glenda Jackson said ‘Blair should step aside’, after Wednesday’s vote.
John McDonnell, Chair of the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs warned yesterday: ‘New Labour’s whole political agenda on the privatisation of health, schools, prisons and probation, and the threat to welfare benefits is now in question.’
But he did not call for Blair to go.
A Campaign Group spokesman said: ‘If Blair wants to continue with his privatisation policies, he will face defeat.
‘He’s got to drop these policies. MPs will not stand by and waive them through.’
Asked if the Campaign Group was calling for Blair to go, the spokesman added: ‘It’s not useful to get into personalities. We are not calling for Blair to go, we’re calling for the policies to go.’
One of Wednesday’s 49 Labour rebels, former health secretary Frank Dobson, said: ‘Quite a number of people who voted with the government told me that there is no question of them supporting the education White Paper or plans to privatise parts of the National Health Service.’
But Dobson said he did not want a change of prime minister, he wanted Blair to change.
Labour MP Paul Farrelly, who voted for the 90 days clause, warned: ‘If this happens to health and education then there will be hell to pay.’
Blair told yesterday’s Cabinet meeting that MPs who voted against were out of touch with public opinion.
This was after Met Police Commissioner Ian Blair and other security officials had met with him in Downing Street.
A spokesman made it clear that Blair intends to press ahead with his ‘reform’ agenda regardless.
• Second News story
‘TAKE ACTION AGAINST HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSERS’
A leading doctor has called for stronger action against members of the medical profession who are participating in US human rights abuses.
Michael Wilks, who chairs the BMA medical ethics committee, says the actions of a small group of doctors in force-feeding, failing to report evidence of beatings and falsification of death certificates shames the entire US medical profession.
Writing in this week’s BMA News, Dr Wilks says: ‘What is also shocking about the evidence of abuse at Guantanamo Bay prison camp and Abu Ghraib jail is the ineffective response of international bodies.’
He says the US administration, in removing all legal rights from detainees and reclassifying the definitions of torture, has allowed doctors to work in a legal and ethical vacuum.
