LONDON — The House of Commons rejected a crucial provision of the government's anti-terrorism bill Wednesday by a vote of 322-291, handing the once-invincible Prime Minister Tony Blair his first Commons defeat since he came to power eight years ago.
It was a startling outcome, all the more so because Blair had staked so much on the vote, recalling two of his Cabinet ministers from abroad and making passionate last-minute pleas to wavering legislators from his Labor Party. In the end, 49 Labor members broke ranks and helped reject the government's proposal, which would have increased to 90 days the time that terror suspects can be held without charge.
Under current law, such suspects can be held without charge for 14 days. Immediately after defeating the 90-day plan, the House of Commons passed an alternative proposal, championed by David Winnick, a Labor member of Parliament, to extend the detention period to 28 days.
The raucous, emotional and at times bitter debate that preceded the vote was as much a test of Blair's authority as it was an airing of different views on law and order and civil liberties at a time of intense anxiety about the threat of terrorism.
Some months ago, Blair pledged to step down as party leader before the next general election. Although Wednesday's vote is not likely to touch off anything so drastic as a serious move to depose him, it could hasten his departure. And it makes his once-impregnable hold on his party, and on an ambitious legislative agenda in areas like pensions, schools and welfare reform, suddenly seem tenuous.
The defeat comes at a shaky time for Blair in general, after a series of votes in which his once enormous Commons majority has gradually slipped away.
Members of the opposition parties seized the chance after the vote to say Blair had lost his golden touch.
"The prime minister has just fallen off the high wire," Alex Salmond, a member of Parliament from the Scottish Nationalist Party, said after the vote.
Simon Hughes, a Liberal Democrat, told the BBC that the defeat was "a major error of judgment" that "undermines Blair's chances of staying on."
Michael Howard, leader of the Conservative Party, said Blair was "so diminished" that he should step down.
But the prime minister made it clear that he was not considering such a step. In an interview with Channel 4 news, he said he thought that Parliament had made the wrong decision. "I'm afraid that some of my colleagues in Parliament don't quite know what we're up against," he said of the terrorist threat.