Tony Blair nearly quit Downing Street for top EU role over Gordon Brown feud

Tony Blair - Image credit: PA Images

Tony Blair sounded out EU leaders about the possibility of becoming European Commission president three years before he eventually left Downing Street, Alastair Campbell has revealed.

In the latest instalment of his diaries, the former Downing Street communications chief said that by 2004, Blair had become fed up with his long-running feud with Gordon Brown,

The tensions between the two men at the top of the New Labour government are well-documented, but Campbell says they were even worse than people realised.

Campbell left his job in 2003, but said his book revealed that Blair asked him to come back to help him lobby for the European Commission presidency.

Among the politicians who were sounded out were the then Irish prime minister, Bertie Ahern, and France’s minister of the interior, Nicolas Sarkozy - who went on to become his country's president.

However, Blair eventually decided to stay on as prime minister and did not leave No 10 until 2007.

Campbell wrote: "A lot of the time the press exaggerated our difficulties. This was one period where if anything they underplayed them because they didn’t know just how bad things were.

“This was the closest Tony got to leaving and at the time I was terrified it would get out because it was one of those stories that would have taken on its own momentum. 

“Tony had pretty much had enough and was being ground down by Gordon. In the end he realised that and decided he had to stay and see it through."