Brown faces ‘troops out’ campaign at annual party conference

Gordon Brown is facing a major 'troops out' campaign during Labour's annual September conference at which his leadership will be on the line. Campaigners against the war in Iraq are urging grass-roots Labour members to demand a debate.

Brown may welcome the debate as a chance to 'walk tall' and provide a showdown with the left wing, but he is so weakened after the Crewe and Nantwich by-election and charges of incompetence over the 10p tax debacle that it could prove too risky.

It is more likely that Brown loyalists will have to put out the word to those constituency Labour Party chairmen who still support Brown that the PM would regard such a row as unhelpful in the present climate.

The Stop the War coalition have circulated a model amendment to constituency Labour Party members urging them to table amendments to a conference policy document by June 20. They are calling for the immediate withdrawal of British troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. The model motion says: "British troops remain the target of Iraqi insurgents but perform no useful function. Therefore, all British troops should be withdrawn from Iraq immediately."

They propose cancelling all Iraqi debts and replacing the British troops with an international peacekeeping force acceptable to the Iraqi people. On Afghanistan, they say: "British casualties are growing along with the uncounted Afghani dead. We must withdraw all British trooops from Afghanistan and must promote an international peacekeeping force acceptable to the Afghani people."

Brown's position on Iraq has been further weakened by John Prescott in his BBC On the Ropes interview in which he admitted that the Iraq war was a "mark against us".

THE MOLE: PM UNDER PRESSURE

FIRST POSTED MAY 27, 2008