The Tory leader, Mr William Hague, was battling to assert his authority last night as the Conservative Party split deepened, with three more angry peers quitting their front-bench posts in protest at the sacking of Lord Cranborne.
Lord Bowness, Lord Pilkington and the Earl of Home followed the resignation path of the party's deputy leader in the Lords, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie. Lord Fraser said he was "bewildered" by Mr Hague's decision to sack Lord Cranborne over a secret deal with Mr Blair which would have allowed 91 hereditary peers to retain their sitting and voting rights in the Lords during a transitional period pending full reform of the second chamber.
In an atmosphere of mounting acrimony and confusion, Mr Hague again repeated that he would accept the government's "concession", while refusing to have the Opposition's hands tied, or to lift the threat to disrupt the government's legislative programme in the battle over the abolition of the hereditary peerage.
But while doubts increased about Mr Hague's capacity to make good that threat, Baroness Jay, Labour's leader in the Lords, warned that without Tory co-operation the government would press ahead with its Bill to abolish the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the Lords.
Lord Fraser told the BBC that the negotiations undertaken by Lord Cranborne seemed to him to have produced a "desirable and welcome" outcome. On The World At One he said: "As I understand it, as best I can understand it, that too is the view of the leadership of the party in the Commons. That being so, I believe completely and unnecessary political damage has been caused."
To add to the confusion Lord Strathclyde - who offered his resignation on Wednesday night, then agreed to replace Lord Cranborne as leader - said he had agreed to do so only on condition that the party accepted the compromise formula which would grant temporary reprieve to 91 peers.
However the Conservative Party chairman, Mr Michael Ancram, insisted the leadership had had to reject Lord Cranborne's deal because it came with "strings attached" - effectively requiring the Tories to assist the passage of the government's reform bill.
"It was an attempt to bounce the Conservative Party into an untenable position where we would have had to compromise a very strict constitutional principle which we have adopted throughout this argument."
A defiant Mr Hague was standing by that principle last night, insisting he could not sanction a first stage of parliamentary reform until Mr Blair defined his proposals for the line-up of the new second chamber.
In a letter last night, Mr Hague accused Mr Blair of abandoning "the one principle you said motivated your reform - namely that hereditary peers were, as you said a fortnight ago, a democratic monstrosity". He challenged him to put the issue on ice pending the report of the Royal Commission.