Ex-minister attacks ‘conservatism’ of Labour and calls for electoral reform

James Purnell, the former cabinet minister whose resignation almost toppled the prime minister, admits today he had been thinking about quitting the government for months after losing faith in Gordon Brown’s ability to win the next election.

In his first interview since leaving the cabinet, the former work and pensions secretary said he had been considering resigning since December.

He said: “Over the last six months I had been thinking, ‘has the elastic stretched beyond the point where I feel I am being true to myself?’”

Purnell, who says he is unlikely to return to frontline politics, was the most senior of the 11 who walked out of Brown’s government last month and the only cabinet minister to directly call on the prime minister to stand down.

He surprised Downing Street by quitting on polling day of June’s local and European elections, 10 minutes before voting closed.

In his resignation letter – which he reveals he wrote on the day in five minutes in his Stalybridge and Hyde constituency office during a break from canvassing, Purnell told the prime minister: “I now believe your continued leadership makes a Conservative victory more, not less likely.”

In the interview, Purnell highlights his concerns about Labour policy and the problem of “small c conservatism” from the government over the last 12 years.

He tells today’s Guardian that:

• The government has failed to properly make the positive case for immigration and is “allergic” to a debate on the wisdom of faith schools.

• Labour should hold a referendum on electoral reform at the next election.

• He did not expect fellow cabinet members to follow his lead and resign.

• His decision to quit put his close friend the foreign secretary, David Miliband, in a “difficult position”. He calls Miliband “one of the most serious politicians of his generation”.

The resignation of the former Downing Street adviser, who was pivotal in the creation of New Labour, gave the impression the move to oust Brown was a “Blairite coup”, but in his interview Purnell urges the party to move beyond New Labour, while admitting he is “nostalgic” for the period.

He said: “All those Blairite, New Labour labels … for me, it’s a bit like Britpop – I feel nostalgic for it, it was absolutely right for its time but that time was 1994. It’s a very different feeling being 12 years into government from the idealism of the start, but we need to recapture that idealism, not by living in the past or by aping New Labour or just sticking to the old tunes. We need to open up New Labour, reinvent it and then eventually move beyond it.”

Purnell will assume a new role at the thinktank Demos in September, returning to the thinktank roots of his 20s. He will lead a three-year project to reinvigorate leftwing politics, which will see contributions from influential, more traditional leftwing backbenchers Jon Cruddas and soon-to-retire Alan Simpson. Though he says he hopes to remain in constituency politics Purnell indicates he will never return to a frontbench team.

He said: “The way I am feeling at the moment it is pretty unlikely I’ll want to go back into frontline politics. I never want to leave politics – I love politics. I love ideas and I was pretty excited by the Department for Work and Pensions but actually I get exactly the same kick, in some ways in a freer way, from the stuff I am doing at Demos.”

Purnell showers praise on Miliband and confirms the pair who have met twice since Purnell’s resignation – shared doubts about the prime minister’s ability to lead the Labour party into a fourth Labour victory.

In the interview, Purnell also defends the timing of informing the prime minister of his decision to resign. He said he wanted to ensure news of his departure did not emerge before the local and European polls closed, further demoralising Labour activists aghast at the decision a day earlier of the communities secretary Hazel Blears to resign.

On schools, he said: “I personally wouldn’t have a problem having not-for- profit companies [but] on the other hand we’ve been allergic about having any kind of debate about the fact we’re making lots of parents have to pretend to be religious at school … it’s a completely terrible position to put people in.”

The government has also too often found itself “tongue-tied” on immigration in failing to tackle rightwing rhetoric. “We need to say, ‘immigration is good for the country’.

“The answer is to not end up looking tongue-tied doing some things you don’t actually believe, but working out what the argument is which might be able to win people round to your point of view which is, ‘will we be a more successful country if we open up in terms of free trade, in terms of Labour markets. We’re going to be a more interesting country’.”

Purnell also says that, in retrospect, the party should have changed the electoral system to back the Jenkins commission in 1998 and backs the suggestion of cabinet members Alan Johnson and John Denham that the question be put to a referendum at the next election.