Any apparently worthy short-term gains that have pushed former loyalists to rebellion, will surely be outweighed by the spectre that will come to haunt the party. For the lesson of the strange death of the Conservative Party is best learnt in what happened following Thatcher's ousting; a party divided internally within and externally without, an electorate utterly put off by a party lacking the ability to heal its own divisions let alone those within the country, and the revitalisation of a newly pragmatic opposition more readily able to present its case to form a government.

I am no ardent supporter of the Prime Minister's most controversial policies; i marched against the Iraq War and have opposed the government for instance on student finance reform, and on the more draconian aspects of the anti-terorist legislation. Thus, my backing for the Prime Minister's stance in this case is more pragmatic than ideological, as well as owing something to my respect for his democratic mandate and the progressive changes he has enabled.

However, whenever Blair may depart, the necessary challenges we must face if we are to move forward will remain the same. Amidst the drama of the past few days and the drama no doubt yet to come, the more nuanced Labour members would do well to keep one eye on the long game.

Individuals from various sides of the party have entered the debate in recent weeks but we would be wrong to see panaceas as lying in either the adoption of a Blairite ten year plan, boxing a future leader in, nor in the naive assumption that we must place all our hopes in a smooth transition to Gordon Brown with little debate prior to this.

 A debate now is necessary, but we should avoid debating the future solely through the prisms of personality and policy, important as they are, and take in issues such as party organisation and the policy process itself.

Charles Clarke's recent analysis of the party's problems in a New Statesman piece (http://www.newstatesman.com/200609040029) and yesterday in a speech (http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,1865840,00.html) was well worth hearing. Clarke rightly identified the reform process itself as a serious fault-line for the party. He usefully argues for ' the right structures, the right culture,an approach of partnership with employees and stakeholders, and a commitment to engage fully'.

It is a shame he did not apparently raise such points during the policy debacles of top-up fees and trust schools. There was little or no debate or discussion around these policies before they were loosed on the party. Hence the inevitably large rebellions on these issues, born as much out of shock as out of ideology. The government forced itself into a situation of rather embarassing concessions and rightly appeared weakened to the media and public.

For too long the myth was allowed to develop that 'strong' policy making consisted of the presentation of fait accomplis to the party. On the contrary, a truly strong and confident government should be willing to engage itself in debate and discussion before policy presentation, rather than pulling out compromise deals at the last minute. Relatively few Labour MPs believe in rebellion for rebellions sake and too many have been unecessarily alienated by the governments approach. The same alienation has occured on a micro-level for grassroots activists. Honest members looking for honest debate have been put off by overly managed policy forums and documents following consultation which pay scant regard to reasonable concerns.

We must hope Gordon Brown, if leader, adopts a more consesual approach though his preference for simple words in favour of Trident rather than the presentation of intellectual arguments does not bode well.

Beyond the policy process we must also rebuild our party from the bottom upwards. Too little has been said on the catastrophe of a haemoragging of half of our members since 1997. We would do well to remember the significant contribution that an ever smaller, weaker and demoralised activist base made to the Conservative collapse, rather than simple defeat, in 1997. One obvious proposal would be to remodel the party's chair as an elected position, immediately creating new lines of accountability.

At a time when personal tensions are bubbling over, we could do worse than remember the underlying structural issues that we must wrangle with if we are to ensure that Labour's achievements to date are the firm foundations of the good society, rather than the footnotes of a divisive Conservative future.