On 25 April 1995, during a famous session of prime minister’s questions (PMQs) in the House of Commons, Tony Blair dismissed John Major with a famous riposte, declaring: “I lead my party, he follows his.”

The exchange occurred as Blair pressed Major on whether he had secured the loyalty of eurosceptic Conservative rebels on future votes.

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Blair was elected leader of the Labour Party in July 1994. He unapologetically embraced the mantle of modernisation, promising to go further than his predecessors John Smith (1992-1994) and Neil Kinnock (1983-1992). Blair ultimately won a commanding 57.0% of the electoral college vote, securing majorities in all three sections.

Blair’s “I lead my party” line was delivered as Labour prepared for a symbolic showdown at a special conference over the future of “Clause IV”. The original Clause IV, adopted in 1918, committed the party to securing for workers “the common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange”. For decades, the clause was seen as a symbolic expression of the party’s socialist identity.

Blair called for Clause IV’s revision as a symbolic commitment to his “New Labour” project.

Major, meanwhile, was struggling to manage deep divisions within his Conservative party – especially over Europe.

The parliamentary battles over the Maastricht Treaty had bitterly divided the Conservative Party, with a group of eurosceptic backbenchers (the “Maastricht rebels” or “euro-rebels”) repeatedly challenging the government’s position. Major’s majority stood at around 20 after the 1992 general election – meaning internal party discipline was crucial to the proper function of government.

At prime minister’s questions in April 1995, Blair pointed to the “extraordinary spectacle of the victory parade by his euro-rebels over the government on the lunchtime news”.

He asked Major whether the government had “even secured… even the minimal guarantee from the Euro-rebels that, on a future vote of confidence on Europe, they will support him?”

The prime minister responded by pointing to divisions on the Labour benches.

Major stated: “Perhaps he would like to tell me whether he has received the support of the 50 MPs who defied his frontbench over Maastricht; of the 40 who defied him over European finance; on a single currency…; and on Clause IV, which half his, I think he called them, infantile MEPs want to keep.”

Blair responded that there was “one very big difference” between himself and the prime minister.

The Labour leader declared: “There’s one very big difference. Oh no, there’s one very big difference. I lead my party. He follows his.”

The line was met with an approving roar on the Labour benches.

Blair added: “So the short answer is that the [prime minister] has received no guarantee whatever. So is it not clear therefore that, after all his tough talk at the beginning about no unity through appeasement, he has caved in, his party is still divided and the white flag flies over Downing street?”

Major hit back: “His idea of the red flag is the white flag on every conceivable European issue. If he seriously thinks that he leads his party, he should look at the faces of his colleagues below the gangway.”

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On 29 April, the Labour Party voted by 65% to 34% to replace the party’s historic commitment to mass nationalisation with a new statement. The new Clause IV committed the party to a “dynamic economy” and a society where “power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few”.

Speaking after the vote, Blair said: “Let no one say radical politics is dead. Today a new Labour Party is being born.”

In June 1995, Major resigned as leader of the Conservative Party, triggering an immediate leadership contest. Speaking in the garden of 10 Downing Street, Major said his patience had been exhausted with the constant division and relentless leadership speculation. The first and final ballot, held after a short campaign on 4 July, saw Major win with 218 votes to John Redwood’s 89.

However, Major’s “put up or shut up” gambit failed to address the Conservative Party’s deep ideological wounds.

Blair made Major’s relative lack of political strength a central theme of his contributions to PMQs. On 30 January 1997, the Labour leader famously derided Major as “Weak. Weak. Weak.”

This comment came over the government’s position of a possible European single currency.

Blair noted the prime minister’s suggestion that it remained in the national interest to remain “open on a single currency and that he expected Conservative candidates to stand on that national manifesto.”

Major responded by once again pointing to Labour divisions over a single currency.

Blair responded: “The Labour party put its manifesto to its membership and got 95% support. I doubt that the prime minister could put his manifesto to his cabinet and get 95% support…

“Is it not extraordinary that the prime minister of our country cannot even urge his party to support his own position? Weak. Weak. Weak. Weak. I tell him that his weakness and his failure of leadership are the reason his government are the incompetent mess they are.”

Weeks later on 1 May 1997, the Labour Party won a landslide general election victory, ending 18 years of Conservative rule. The result was the most decisive for any party since 1945, with Blair’s party securing a House of Commons majority of 179 seats.

Labour won 418 seats, its highest ever total, while the Conservatives were reduced to just 165 seats – their worst result since 1906. The landslide represented a swing of 10.3% from the Conservative to Labour.