Angry, bitter and betrayed: the Labour Party members who feel Blair has deserted them for President Bush

The focus group – that political lifeline to public opinion – has come to define the premiership of Tony Blair and his New Labour project. Yet as the Prime Minister prepares to gamble his leadership, and his place in history, on a war against Iraq, he appears to have closed his ears to dissenting voices.

This week, The Independent convened a focus group of nine Labour supporters in two Oxford constituencies to hear what Mr Blair might hear – if he were still listening.

The views of the gathering, chosen from the Oxford East constituency, where the MP is Labour's Andrew Smith, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, and Oxford West, held by Liberal Democrat health spokesman Evan Harris, make uncomfortable reading for the Prime Minister.

Iraq, naturally, dominates the fears of the Labour faithful. "Tony Blair is hypnotised by the language of the Bush administration," says Sabir Hussain Mirza, a Labour councillor and taxi driver. "He is talking America's language. I don't think he is talking our language at all."

Bob Price, another Labour councillor and a senior executive at Oxford Brookes University, who has served the party for decades, believes anger over Iraq is merely masking fears over domestic issues. "I think he has handled this crisis with remarkable incompetence and lack of wisdom," he says. "The second term has shown what Blairism is really about and it's not what we believe in. It's not just Iraq, it's foundation hospitals and top-up fees. Second-term Blairism is really looking rather like a soft Toryism."

The city's former mayor,Maureen Christian, is also a Labour stalwart. Despite applauding Mr Blair's two poll victories and believing he has made the party electable, her faith is faltering. "What is so extraordinary is that before this happened Blair was accused of concentrating on focus groups and not putting a foot wrong with public opinion," she says. "But suddenly nobody listens. It's quite an extraordinary change of attitude."

While the Government talks of war, the group talks of peace and giving the weapons inspectors more time. They are articulate and knowledgeable about the legitimacy of the UN and of the legal niceties of a war on Iraq and the implications for Britain's international standing. But they feel sidelined.

"I would support anything that would force Tony Blair to listen," says Rick Muir, a Labour councillor and post-graduate student at Nuffield College. He supports a special party conference, called for by Westminster's most radical Labour MPs this week, as the only way to bring the leadership to account.

At Westminster, Clare Short, the Secretary of State for International Development, is a virtual pariah for speaking her mind against a war. In Oxford she is a heroine who has expressed their pent-up concerns. "She said all the things that everything thinks should be said," says Mr Price.

Catherine Overton, 21, a classics student at Somerville College, agrees: "She summed up the views of the Labour party in her comments."

"Her timing was just right," adds Stephen Marks, a freelance writer.

"I thought what she said was brilliant, she was just demolishing the government's case," said Mr Muir "It may be that she is going to have to resign, but I hope that Robin Cook resigns, I hope that Michael Meacher resigns, I hope they are going to say 'you are not going to do this in our name'."

During the discussion there is frequent interruption and verbal jostling as they express their dismay at where Mr Blair is leading them. They feel the Labour leadership has dismissed their concerns without even listening. Even Mr Smith has been spouting "propaganda" they say.

"Any leadership depends on reciprocity with the led. But there's been none of that interchange," says Mr Price. "The normal processes by which you listen and adjust and take things on board just have been ignored. There's been a flow of propaganda.

Ms Overton recently travelled to London to collar John Prescott at a union meeting about the war. She says the Deputy Prime Minister dismissed her concerns in withering tones as "the clever argument about the war". She replied confidently: "By implication then, you are making the stupid argument."

Ms Overton is one of the bright young women in the Labour movement that the party constantly says it wants to attract to active politics.

But she feels disaffected by Mr Blair, and talks openly of a post-Blair party, with a leader who is "more in touch".

The group agrees that the party needs fresh blood. Peter Hain, the Secretary of State for Wales, who cut his political teeth as a radical anti-apartheid campaigner, is one acceptable option.

"Blair is embarrassed by the Labour party. I don't think he gives a damn about the Labour Party. I think he sees himself as Prime Minister of Britain not as leader of the Labour Party," says Ms Overton.

Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, is another name on doubters' lips as Mr Blair's most likely successor. But some are sceptical about his support for private finance to build hospitals and whether "unleashed from the thrall of Blair" he can be his own man.

"I don't think he would be much of an improvement if he replaced Blair because he was one of the main architects of Blairism," says Angus Hebenton, 19, a member of Oxford University Labour Club. "I don't think he would be like John Smith."

Oxford is not known as one of the most radical Labour clubs in the country. It is a amorphous mix of car workers from the plant in Cowley, teachers, social workers, NHS employees and a smattering of academics and students.

The council is not hard-left and has a reputation for being progressive, having thrown out a coalition of Greens and Liberal Democrats at the last local elections.

But at a council meeting last month, a motion opposing the war was unanimously passed by the Labour group.

"It is not in our interests to be just a puppet of Americans, Americans always look to their own interests.

"Their country comes first and their own interests come first," says Mr Mohammed Abbasi, a Labour councillor and a local taxi driver who chairs Oxford's Muslim welfare association.

"I think once the war is over, Britain will be forgotten. Tony Blair should have taken his own initiative and stood against American arrogance. He is acting against Britain's interests."

On the doorstep and in their surgeries, the Oxford councillors have encountered a wall of criticism. They feel uncomfortable about defending the leadership's position on the war, and have even gone so far as to write to constituents saying they disagree with the Government's position.

"We are not leaving the Labour Party, we are the Labour Party," says Mr Price angrily. "Blair has left us."