If Ed Balls really loves Labour, he should resign

Labour supporters must wish they could go back under the duvet this morning: it is one thing to suspect that Ed Balls, Douglas Alexander and – to a lesser extent –Ed Miliband were Gordon Brown’s boys, ready to promote their man at any cost; it is another to read that these men at the top of today’s Labour were plotting to oust Tony Blair from No 10. To do so they were prepared to lean on party members and drip poison in their ears. Brown before the party, was their motto – and Brown before Britain, for this was when the nation faced its worst terrorist attacks.
The worst of it, for Labour, is that these men form Her Majesty’s Opposition. They have retained their bullying tactics, frenzied factionalism, and – judging by the leaked letters –  bitter enmities. This in-fighting is key to understanding Labour since 1997. Forget Tory splits between Eurosceptics and Europhiles: that’s kids’ stuff. When you want to see deep dark hatred in action:  misinformation campaigns, threats and counter-threats, and language (”brutal cleansing”) that echoes Stalin’s. The party, Brown’s cabal decreed, must be purged of unreliable (ie Blairite) elements. It was precisely this kind of tribalism that Blair’s revolution was supposed to eradicate: he knew, instinctively, that Labour could not succeed until it got over its obsession with score-settling. Unfortunately, for the anti-Blair camp this was no pastime but a raison d’etre.
One question is: whom does this row serve? I have a hunch, given its timing, that one former Prime Minister (no, not Gordon) stands to benefit a great deal. Only yesterday Blair came out with an extraordinary request, that there should be a President of the European Union. It would make sense for him to give David Cameron a big gift, in the shape of an explosive anti-Labour revelation, in order to secure the Coalition’s support for his plans. But I should add that this is just guesswork.
Whatever the truth, Labour can survive only by flushing out the thugs. Voters will never believe in a hierarchy riddled with yesterday’s plotters. Ed Balls has claimed time and again that he loves his party. If this is so, the Shadow Chancellor must now resign.