The 2007 Labour Party leadership election was triggered on 10 May 2007 by incumbent leader Tony Blair's announcement that he would resign as leader on 27 June. At the same time that Blair resigned, John Prescott resigned as Deputy Leader, triggering a concurrent election for the deputy leadership.
Informal campaigning had been ongoing ever since Blair announced in 2004 that he would not be fighting a fourth general election as leader. Pressure for a timetable eventually led him to announce on 7 September 2006 that he would step down within a year. Labour's National Executive Committee (NEC) met on 13 May 2007 to decide a timetable. Nominations opened on 14 May and closed at 12:30 UTC+1 on 17 May 2007.
Blair said he expected Gordon Brown to succeed him, and that Brown "would make an excellent Prime Minister". When nominations for the leadership elections opened, Blair was one of those nominating Brown. From the start, most observers considered Brown the overwhelming favourite to succeed Blair; John McDonnell, his only challenger, failed to secure enough nominations in order to get onto the ballot, and conceded defeat. Brown received 313 (88.2%) nominations to McDonnell's 29 (8.2%), making it mathematically impossible for anyone other than Brown to be nominated.
The election process concluded with Brown being declared leader at a special conference on 24 June 2007. On 27 June, Blair resigned as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and was succeeded by Brown.
If Brown had been opposed, Labour Party members would for the first time have directly elected a new Prime Minister.
Background
Initial signals that Tony Blair's leadership was to end
On 30 September 2004, Tony Blair said he would not seek a fourth term as Prime Minister. Labour went on to win a third successive term at the May 2005 general election with a decreased majority of 66, with Blair pledging to serve another full term.
Labour and Blair subsequently had a surge in popularity at the time of terrorist bombings of London of July 2005, but by the Spring of 2006 were facing significant difficulties, most notably with scandals over failures by the Home Office to deport illegal immigrants and national campaigns by many political parties and think tanks saying that the United Kingdom was being overrun by immigrants. Worries over the potential increase of support for the British National Party during the 2006 Local Election campaign saw many Labour backbenchers and activists begin to demand a timetable from Blair for his departure, with many suggesting that it should be sooner rather than later.
Speculation over the timing of Blair's resignation had been amplified by a variety of politicians and newspapers making their own predictions. On 21 April The Guardian reported that the Gordon Brown camp were working on the assumption that Blair would announce the candidacy open on 9 May 2007, the day after power-sharing was due to start in Northern Ireland, following which the new Labour leader would be elected on 15 July 2007.
Talk of David Miliband, Alan Milburn, Charles Clarke or John Reid as possible candidates was almost constant, although the former consistently denied any ambition to stand and the latter three refused to make a decision until there was a vacancy, ultimately declining in the week before Blair requested the NEC to find a successor.
Demands for Blair to announce a resignation timetable
On 15 July 2006, John McDonnell became the first Labour MP to announce an intention to stand for the leadership when Blair resigned.
On 5 September 2006, 17 Labour MPs signed a letter asking Blair to resign, accompanied by press reports alleging that up to 80 MPs were willing to sign. Later, senior party members stated that Tony Blair would not be Prime Minister at the next Labour Party conference and on 6 September, Tom Watson, one of the MPs who signed the letter, resigned as Junior Defence Minister along with seven Parliamentary Private Secretaries: Khalid Mahmood, Wayne David, Ian Lucas, Mark Tami, Chris Mole, David Wright and Iain Wright.
On 7 September, Jack Straw stated that he expected the Prime Minister to announce a timetable for his departure in May 2007 and Blair announced that the September 2006 Labour Party Conference and TUC Conference would be the last he would attend as party leader, despite which he was heckled at the Trades Union Congress on 12 September by members calling for him to resign immediately.
On 23 September, John Hutton became the first serving Cabinet Minister to say that Gordon Brown should face a serious challenger for Labour's leadership.