Tony Blair has told Labour MPs opposing his plans for top-up fees that they will be "betraying" the country if they vote against the government's proposals.

"If in the end parliament defeats this because of misunderstanding on my own side or the complete opportunism of the Conservative Party... it would be a complete betrayal of the proper interests of the country," he told the BBC's Breakfast with Frost yesterday.

However, he added that he was not prepared to "contemplate defeat" in his battle to ensure the policy reaches the statute book.

Nick Brown, the former chief whip who is leading the backbench revolt, today blames the prime minister's advisers for imposing the policy on the party without proper consultation.

"I think that at the heart of government the argument for the American market-based system was favoured from the beginning. I assume it is the advisers in Downing Street who came up with this," he told today's Times.

In an interview in the Independent, Brown added: "If young people from ordinary backgrounds can't get on the best courses and the best academic institutions because they have been priced out of it that is a pretty wicked thing for any government to do."