Labour's Royal Mail rebels should back down because the Tories may return to power and impose a tougher deal, Business Secretary Lord Mandelson has warned.
Labour's Royal Mail rebels should back down because the Tories may return to power and impose a tougher deal, Business Secretary Lord Mandelson has warned.
An "alternative" administration would propose a deal far less palatable to the Left, he insisted.
The comments came as parliament prepares to debate the Postal Services Bill, which would see around 30% of Royal Mail privatised, for the first time this week.
More than 140 Labour MPs have signed a Commons motion rejecting the idea of any sell-off. The size of the rebellion makes it almost certain that the government will have to rely on Conservative votes to pass the legislation.
But speaking on BBC1's Andrew Marr Show yesterday, Lord Mandelson issued another plea for the rebels to think again.
"If we don't sort this out and simply put it off to another day, and in theory to another government, are they going to sort out Royal Mail in the way that we are choosing to do? Just getting in a minority strategic partner, sorting out the regulation and the competition, sorting out the pension fund?
"I think this is the last throw of the dice in trying to find a consensual way forward."
The Cabinet minister, a hate figure for many on the Left, insisted he had not "picked a fight" over Royal Mail.
"I didn't come into government asking for this argument," he said. "I didn't pick a fight, it had its origins in the conditions of the Royal Mail and in the report that was commissioned before I came back into the government.
"It is not about ideology. It is about transforming a business desperately in need of change and modernisation."
