EX-HOME Secretary Alan Johnson threatened a Labour split yesterday if Labour Party members voted to have Ed Miliband as Labour Party leader.
He claimed the party would descend into ‘fractious opposition’ under Ed Miliband.
Johnson spoke up as David Miliband’s campaign began to sag all over the country.
He told the Daily Mirror ‘The choice of Labour leader could not be more important.
‘In the past, internal division has kept Labour out of power for long periods.
‘Whole generations have been let down as Tory governments ascend to power while Labour descends into fractious opposition.
‘That is what happens when we choose the wrong leader.’
With four days to go to the ballot closing, the Blairite wing of the party is becoming desperate.
David Miliband has the support of 29 of the 64 new Labour MPs elected at May’s general election.
Ed Miliband has the support of the major trade unions and those MPs who are sick to the teeth with Blairism.
The three remaining candidates Andy Burnham, Ed Balls and Diane Abbott are trailing far behind the Milibands.
The situation is now so serious for David Miliband that he has had to soften his support for Blair and the Iraq war.
Previously he was an unrepentant supporter of the Blair line. Last Thursday it was all change, with him saying on BBC’s Question Time, had he known that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, he would not have backed the war.
It is also believed that the Blairites have decided that they will have to support the Tory-LibDem bill to privatise the Royal Mail, due to be put forward shortly.
The Labour government bid to push a Royal Mail privatisation bill through was defeated, and Blairite MPs such as Alan Johnson have yet to say which way they will vote when the Tory-LibDem bill is tabled.
The TUC will be lobbying the Liberal Democrat conference this Sunday in Liverpool.
Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, is among the union leaders due to speak at a TUC protest rally at Salthouse Dock.
He is due to appeal to LibDem MPs that their leaders have ditched the poor, the elderly and the vulnerable along with their election promises and that their thirst for power has led them to sell-out their own supporters.
He will appeal to LibDem MPs that ‘we must unite to fight these cuts. In every village, town, city across the country – unions must help bring together those fighting for their communities and the services that the poorest, the elderly and most vulnerable rely on.’
