British Prime Minister Tony Blair is facing fresh questions about his authority after his government suffered an unexpected double defeat over a key part of new legislation to combat religious hatred.
Tony Blair was dealt his second and third Commons defeats since coming to power as MPs backed House of Lords objections to the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill last night.
And in a further embarrassment for the British leader, it emerged he did not vote in the second division - which the government lost by just one vote.
A senior Labour MP said the government would have to carry out a post mortem to see what went wrong.
John Denham, who chairs the Commons home affairs committee, said: "We have got to look at exactly what happened and why, because there is a real disappointment here." He told the BBC's Newsnight programme: "Clearly, the rebellion by Labour MPs wasn't anywhere big enough to defeat a government with a majority of our size."
Peers had inflicted a series of defeats on the Bill in a bid to safeguard freedom of speech with an amendment restricting the new offence of inciting religious hatred to threatening words and behaviour rather than a wider definition also covering insults and abuse.
They also required the offence to be intentional, and specified that criticism, insult, abuse and ridicule of religion, belief or religious practice would not be an offence.
Ministers urged the Commons to reject the Lords' amendments and back a government compromise instead. Home Office Minister Paul Goggins insisted that only those intending to "stir up hatred" would be caught under the Government's plans.
But in the first test of strength, MPs voted by 288 to 278 to back the Lords. Mr Blair voted with the Government in this division, while 27 Labour backbenchers rebelled and at least two dozen others did not vote.
In the second vote, MPs voted by 283 votes to 282, a majority of just one, to back the Lords. In this vote, Mr Blair was not recorded as having voted.
Home Secretary Charles Clarke quickly announced that the government was bowing to the Commons' will, and that the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill would go for Royal Assent to become law as it stood.
PA