Mark Seddon

Tony Blair has been warned that his stance on Iraq could undermine Labour's chances of doing well in May's elections.

The government is facing a key test next month, with elections to the Scottish parliament, Welsh assembly and to local authorities.

Party chiefs fear that hundreds of seats on councils across the country could be lost.

And in an interview with the GMTV Sunday Programme, leading Labour left-winger Mark Seddon says that relations in the party are now "very very fraught".

"There was such a great deal of opposition to this war in the country before it started and nowhere was that deeper than amongst party members.

"I think there have been an awful lot of people who have said that's it, I am not going to be working in the May elections and I am not going to be doing anything locally in my party," said Seddon, a member of Labour's ruling national executive committee.

The prime minister was also warned not to use the success of the military campaign in Iraq to boost Labour's campaign. Seddon said it was something the party "despised when Margaret Thatcher did it in the Falkland Islands".

"It may be that the story of the May elections is that nationalists and the socialists, Tommy Sheridan's socialists in Scotland, actually do quite well at Labour's expense and that the far right British National Party begins picking up seats in white working class districts that have always been Labour," he went on.

In a separate interview with the same programme, senior Labour backbencher Gerald Kaufman said that Tony Blair must push George Bush to back a peace deal in the Middle East.

"The influence of the British government in the United States is probably greater than it has ever been. All the polling in the United States shows that Tony Blair is more popular in the United States than George Bush," he said.

"Britain with Tony Blair as prime minister is at its apex of influence in the United States now. But that isn't something simply to bask in, it's got to be used."

Kaufman said that progress on the Palestinian issue was: "indispensable to the Labour Party".

"Moving forward on the Middle East peace process will demonstrate to any sceptics in the Muslim world about what's been taking place in Iraq that we are even-handed, and it's vital that we do so."