PUT UP OR SHUT UP

The announcement was a stunner. Wearing a conservative gray suit that matched his habitual gray demeanor, Prime Minister John Major strode across the lawn of the rose garden behind 10 Downing Street and announced to a hastily assembled press conference that enough was enough. He had become weary, he declared, of "a small minority" that was disrupting his Conservative Party and undermining his position. With the bright summer sunshine streaming over his shoulder, Major threw down the gauntlet. Rather than wait until November for a possible challenge to his leadership--and endure months of politically damaging backbiting in between--he was resigning as head of the Tories and calling an immediate leadership election so that he could seek a renewed mandate. The time had come, he said, for those who oppose him to "put up or shut up."

Within minutes Major's rose garden challenge had been telegraphed across the country, and the political maneuvering began. Any candidates wishing to oppose Major must declare by June 29, and the vote itself will take place five days later, on July 4.

Major loyalists trooped before the TV cameras to commend the Prime Minister's bold initiative. Said Chancellor of the Exchequer Kenneth Clarke: "I entirely support the Prime Minister's sensible decision to bring forward the date of the leadership election. He has my total support." Foreign Secretary and party heavyweight Douglas Hurd, who chose last week to announce his retirement from the Cabinet, also endorsed Major.

By week's end the high-stakes gamble appeared to be paying off. His most serious potential rivals--Trade and Industry Secretary Michael Heseltine from the party mainstream and Employment Secretary Michael Portillo from its right wing--both issued statements of support for the Prime Minister.

A small but dedicated group of Tory Euro-skeptics, who doubt Major's toughness on maintaining British sovereignty in the European Union, precipitated the Prime Minister's pre-emptive strike and will not be easily silenced. The Euro-skeptics will almost certainly field a leadership candidate on the first ballot. Already the names of Barry Field, a political unknown, and former Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont, who became the scapegoat for sterling's being ignominiously suspended from the European exchange-rate mechanism in September 1992, are being mentioned as possibilities. They stand little chance, but could serve as a stalking-horse for a more viable candidate, such as Heseltine or Portillo. If Major fails to win hands down on the first ballot, he will be judged to have lost the confidence of the party, and heavyweight candidates will vault into the ring for the second round.

The key to the election, though, will not be the Euro-skeptics who forced the crisis, but the many conservative M.P.s who are wavering over Major's record as Prime Minister and the Tories' precipitous decline in the polls. The Conservatives trail Labour by 39 points, according to one poll, and with seats and parliamentary careers at stake, many could bolt for a more voter-friendly leader. Says a conservative M.P. privately: "The main problem is that this government is incompetent and indecisive. Its policies keep changing. It even fails to publicize the positive things it has done, so people think it's a complete failure."