BLAIR DID DIRTY ON No10 DEAL
Gordon ‘was promised leadership several times’
GORDON Brown today accuses Tony Blair of reneging on the leadership deal they struck in 1994.
In his memoirs, the former Prime Minister lifts the lid for the first time on the infamous “Granita Pact” with Blair following John Smith’s death.
But Brown says the actual agreement was hammered out days beforehand and the famous dinner at the north London restaurant was the “rubber stamping” of the process.
He says he did agree to step aside to give Blair a clear run at the leadership on the condition he stood down during the second term.
In his book My Life, Our Times published tomorrow, he writes: “Tony had reiterated that he had wanted me to stay on as shadow chancellor and would give me control over economic and social policy. This time, he added another promise – that if elected as prime minister, he would stand down in his second term.
“He said this was a family choice that he had already made. He wanted to be free from day-to-day politics to be with his children in their teens – the time of life when parents are most needed.”
Brown said his rival repeated the promise on “several occasions” but, in the end, “the restaurant did not survive and ultimately neither did our agreement”.
Blair did not stand down after his second term from 2001-05 and only quit in 2007 after Brown’s supporters organised the “curry house plot” in 2006 to force him out of office.
Brown quotes from his brother Andrew’s diaries as further evidence of the deal.
An entry from May 17, 1994, reads: “He (Blair) showed the desperation of his position when he reveals that GB could win if he stood. What he doubted was not that – but whether GB could win the general election.
“It’s the trump card to play – especially against GB who believes above all else that, after four defeats, nothing should come in the way of Labour winning the election.
“TB also talks about how all of this has come ‘too soon’ for his young children. Only aged 10, eight and six years old, he’s worried about the prospect of media attention on them. Talks about how if he goes for the leadership now, he would want to spend time with them later before they’re too old – perhaps in five years’ time.’”
Brown says this account “accorded with what Tony was telling me directly: that he would stand down in his second term”.
He adds: “The rest was a formality. On May 31, I sat down again with Tony near his home in London, at a restaurant called Granita. Ed Balls travelled with me to the restaurant and, after a few minutes, he left.
“I always smile when commentators write that we hammered out a deal in the restaurant. The Granita discussion merely confirmed what he had already offered and I had already agreed.”
The ex-PM says relations began to sour immediately after he released a statement saying he would not stand for the leadership.
He claims the Blair camp tried to pull out of agreement for the two men to pose for a joint photograph.
“When I offered to chair Tony’s leadership campaign, he demurred. And while I helped write his leadership speeches, I was frozen out of the campaign.
“Long into the future, the focus of the 1994 leadership race would wrongly remain on what was said at Granita.
“The restaurant did not survive and ultimately neither did our agreement,” he writes. ● My Life, Our Times by Gordon Brown will be published by The Bodley Head tomorrow.
I helped write leadership speeches but I was frozen out of campaign